How to Set Up UAE VAT on Stripe: A Practical Guide for UAE Businesses

Register for UAE VAT with the FTA

Before touching Stripe, register for VAT at tax.gov.ae if you haven't already. You'll receive a TRN (Tax Registration Number) — a 15-digit number beginning with 100. This is what goes into Stripe. Fastlane handles UAE VAT registration as part of our VAT filing service.

Add Your UAE VAT Registration in Stripe

In Stripe Dashboard: Tax → Registrations → Add registration → Select United Arab Emirates → Enter your TRN and the registration start date. Set the start date to match the date your FTA registration is effective — not today's date if your registration is backdated.

This is what tells Stripe Tax to start calculating 5% VAT on UAE transactions. Without this step, Stripe Tax does nothing for UAE.

Assign Tax Codes to Every Product

Stripe Tax determines the VAT treatment based on the tax code assigned to each product. Go to Products → [your product] → Tax code and assign the correct code. For most UAE businesses selling software, SaaS or professional services, use txcd_10000000 (General — Electronically Supplied Services). For physical goods, use txcd_99999999 (General — Physical Goods).

If you leave the tax code blank, Stripe may apply incorrect rates or no tax at all. This is the most common misconfiguration Fastlane encounters.

Set Tax Behaviour: Inclusive vs Exclusive

On each price, set Tax behaviour to either Exclusive (VAT added on top — e.g. AED 100 + 5% = AED 105 charged to customer) or Inclusive (price already includes VAT — e.g. AED 105 = AED 100 + AED 5 VAT). For UAE B2B invoicing, exclusive is standard. For consumer-facing pricing, inclusive is common. This setting directly affects what appears on invoices and what gets reported to the FTA.

Enable Customer Tax ID Collection for B2B

In Settings → Billing → Customer portal or at the Checkout level, enable Tax ID collection. When a UAE B2B customer provides their TRN, Stripe will validate it and display it on the invoice. For remote sellers, this is how Stripe knows to apply the reverse charge instead of collecting 5% — if a business customer provides a UAE VAT number, no UAE VAT is charged by the remote seller.

Enable Automatic Tax in Checkout / Payment Links / Invoices

For each product flow you use — Stripe Checkout, Payment Links, Invoices or Subscriptions — enable Automatic tax. In Checkout: set automatic_tax: { enabled: true }. In the Dashboard for Invoices: Invoice → Edit → Automatic tax → On. Without this, Stripe Tax sits idle even with the correct registration and tax codes in place.

Connect Stripe Tax Reports to Your VAT Return

Stripe provides VAT summary reports at Tax → Reports — exportable as CSV by tax period. The report breaks down output VAT collected by country and rate. This is the source data for your FTA VAT return. Fastlane's VAT filing team extracts this data, reconciles it against your accounting records and populates the FTA return every quarter.

Export Stripe Tax Report → CSV

In Stripe Dashboard: Tax → Reports → Download. Select the quarter and download the itemised transaction report. This lists every transaction, the VAT amount collected, the customer location, the tax code applied and the total output VAT for the period.

Reconcile Against Accounting Records

The Stripe Tax report must be reconciled against your accounting records — including any invoices raised outside Stripe, credit notes, refunds and adjustments. VAT on expenses (input tax) is tracked separately in your accounting system, not in Stripe.

Populate FTA VAT Return (Box 1–13)

The FTA VAT return has 13 boxes covering standard-rated, zero-rated, exempt and reverse charge supplies — both output and input. Stripe Tax data populates primarily Box 1 (standard-rated sales), Box 4 (zero-rated sales) and Box 6 (reverse charge received). Input VAT from your business expenses goes into Boxes 9–12. Fastlane's VAT team handles this population and submission for every Stripe-using client.