UAE VAT and Corporate Tax software for SMEs

UAE VAT is 5%. For each period, Yako builds the return line by line from your invoices, credit notes and bills, and lays it out in the FTA’s VAT201 boxes:

• Box 1 (1a to 1g): standard-rated supplies, placed in your emirate.
• Boxes 3 and 10: reverse charge on services and goods you bought from abroad, where you account for the VAT and recover it.
• Box 4: zero-rated supplies. Box 5: exempt supplies.
• Box 9: standard-rated expenses.
• Totals and boxes 12 to 14: VAT due, recoverable, and payable or refundable.

Credit notes reduce the box they credit, and out-of-scope lines are left out. Box 9 assumes all input VAT is recoverable, so adjust it for blocked items such as entertainment. Tourist refunds and customs imports (boxes 2, 6 and 7) aren’t tracked and show zero. The boxes are saved with the filing, so you can see later exactly what was declared.

Each invoice and bill line is marked standard, zero-rated, exempt, out of scope or reverse charge. One invoice can mix them, and each line goes to the right box. Older 0% sales lines with no treatment are flagged in a warning rather than guessed.

Invoices and bills in another currency are converted to AED at the exchange rate for their date. If a rate is missing, the document is left out and named in a warning, never added at face value.

• Invoices are titled Tax Invoice when you have a TRN, and show your TRN and your customer’s.
• They show the date of supply when it differs from the issue date, each line’s VAT, and a VAT summary by rate and treatment, with a reverse-charge note when it applies.
• Customers and vendors have structured addresses with emirate and country, plus a Peppol ID filled in from their TRN.
• Seller and buyer details are recorded at the moment of issue, so editing a customer later doesn’t change an issued invoice.
• Corrections are made with a Tax Credit Note, a PDF that names the invoice it corrects and the VAT reversed.

UAE Corporate Tax is 9% on taxable income above AED 375,000. Yako tracks it as an obligation with its deadline, 9 months after the end of your financial year, so it shows up on your overview well before it’s due.

The figure Yako shows is an estimate from the profit in your books. It isn’t a full Corporate Tax computation, and it doesn’t calculate Small Business Relief yet. Your tax adviser prepares the return; Yako gives them clean books to start from, and you can give them time-limited access to do it.

For each VAT period, Yako compares what the books say you owe, what you declared and what you paid, and flags any gap. Record the filing and attach the payment receipt so the proof stays with the period. Yako doesn’t submit to EmaraTax for you: you, or your accountant, file on the portal.

The UAE is introducing e-invoicing through Peppol and accredited service providers. Businesses with revenue under AED 50 million must appoint a provider by 31 March 2027 and go live on 1 July 2027 (larger businesses go first, from 1 January 2027). We’re preparing Yako for it, and the data it needs (line treatments, TRNs, structured addresses and Peppol IDs) is already kept on every invoice. Yako’s e-invoicing isn’t live yet.

• Books in AED, with foreign-currency bank accounts (USD, EUR and others) and exchange rates.
• One workspace per legal entity, so a mainland company and a free-zone company keep separate books under one bill.
• Subscription billing in US dollars or UAE dirhams.

More detail on VAT and tax compliance and turning bank statements into financial statements. See pricing.