Corporate tax return in the UAE: deadlines and how to file

A UAE corporate tax return must be filed, and the tax paid, within nine months after the end of the tax period, unless the Federal Tax Authority (FTA) sets another date. For a business whose financial year is the calendar year, the 2026 return is due by 30 September 2027. Returns are filed online on EmaraTax, with financial statements attached unless small business relief is elected.

Key takeaways

• The return and the payment are both due within nine months after the end of the tax period.
• For a calendar-year business, the 2025 return was due by 30 September 2026 and the 2026 return is due by 30 September 2027.
• The tax period is the financial year: the calendar year or the 12-month period the business reports on.
• Returns are filed on EmaraTax, and financial statements must be attached unless small business relief is elected.
• Audited statements are required for revenue over AED 50 million, for every qualifying free zone person and, for tax periods starting on or after 1 January 2025, for every tax group.

On this page 11 sections

The deadline: nine months after the tax period

The deadline is counted from the last day of the tax period, and it covers two separate obligations. Corporate tax is self-assessed: the business works out its own tax in the return and pays the amount the return shows, so a return filed on time with the tax still unpaid is late on the payment.

Deadline to file the return

9 months after the end of the Tax Period

A Taxable Person must file its Corporate Tax Return no later than nine months from the end of the relevant Tax Period, unless the Federal Tax Authority directs another date.

Deadline to pay the tax

9 months after the end of the Tax Period

Corporate Tax Payable must be settled within nine months from the end of the relevant Tax Period, or by another date set by the Federal Tax Authority, which is the same deadline as the return.

Calendar-year businesses

A financial year that runs from 1 January to 31 December puts the deadline on 30 September of the following year. The FTA confirmed the date for the 2025 tax period in September 2026.

Deadline for a 2025 calendar-year tax period

30 September 2026

Taxable Persons whose financial year ended on 31 December 2025, including those eligible for Small Business Relief, had to file their Corporate Tax Return and pay the tax due no later than 30 September 2026.

Applied to the next tax period, the count works like this.

Worked example

Due date for a tax period ending 31 December 2026

The tax period is an illustration for a business whose financial year is the calendar year.

1. The tax period runs from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026.
2. The nine months start after 31 December 2026: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August and September 2027.
3. The ninth month, September 2027, ends on 30 September 2027.
4. The return and the payment share this date.

Return filed and corporate tax paid by 30 September 2027.

Other year ends

A business that reports on a different 12-month period, for example April to March, counts the nine months from the last day of its own financial year. The calculator below takes that last day and returns the filing and payment date.

Earlier periods and extensions

Articles 48 and 53 of the Corporate Tax Law both let the FTA set a different date, and it used that power for the earliest tax periods.

Postponed deadline for early tax periods

31 December 2024 for Tax Periods ending on or before 29 February 2024

FTA Decision No. 7 of 2024 postponed the deadline to file the Corporate Tax Return and settle the Corporate Tax Payable to 31 December 2024 for Tax Periods ending on or before 29 February 2024 (for example, Tax Periods ending in December 2023, January 2024 or February 2024).

In December 2024 the FTA confirmed that every other tax period follows the nine-month rule.

Your tax period

The tax period is the financial year: the Gregorian calendar year, or the 12-month period for which the business prepares its financial statements (Article 57 of the Corporate Tax Law). In some circumstances a tax period runs for more or less than 12 months. For an individual in business it is usually the calendar year. The law reached each business at a different time, depending on when its financial year began.

When corporate tax started

Tax Periods starting on or after 1 June 2023

The Corporate Tax Law applies to Tax Periods commencing on or after 1 June 2023, so a business first becomes subject to Corporate Tax from the start of its first financial year beginning on or after that date.

A business can apply to the FTA to change the start and end date of its tax period, under conditions the FTA sets (Article 58). In EmaraTax the tax period is pre-filled from the business’s account, and the FTA’s Tax Returns guide asks filers to check it before going further. The last day of that period is the date the nine months are counted from.

Who has to file

Every taxable person files a return for each tax period, even when no tax is due, for example because taxable income falls within the 0% band described in the corporate tax rates. Registration comes first: registering for corporate tax explains who must register and when. What is filed depends on the filer.

Government entities, government-controlled entities, and extractive and non-extractive natural resource businesses are exempt, but they file a return for any taxable business they carry on.

What the return contains

The return reports the business’s taxable income and the tax on it, built up from its financial statements.

How the return is filed

Filed on EmaraTax; Financial Statements attached

A Corporate Tax Return is completed and filed online through EmaraTax by the Taxable Person, its Tax Agent or Legal Representative (the Parent Company for a Tax Group), and Financial Statements must be attached by all Taxable Persons except those electing Small Business Relief.

The FTA’s Tax Returns guide (CTGTXR1) splits the return into nine parts. EmaraTax builds each return from the business’s details and shows only the fields that apply, so no business sees every field.

Part G applies the rates to taxable income; the corporate tax calculator runs the same sum for a given income. The return also asks whether any figure is an estimate and, if so, where.

Financial statements and audits

The financial statements are the only attachment a return cannot go without, unless small business relief is elected. Other documents, such as a foreign tax residency certificate or evidence of foreign tax paid, are optional attachments: a return can be submitted without them if a reason is given, but they must still be kept.

The accounting schedule uses standalone (unconsolidated) statements, except for a tax group, which reports its members’ figures combined, with transactions between them removed. Amounts are entered in AED to the nearest dirham, and amounts in a foreign currency are converted at the exchange rate set by the Central Bank of the UAE.

Some businesses must also have their statements audited.

Who needs audited financial statements

Revenue over AED 50,000,000, any QFZP, and every Tax Group

For Tax Periods starting on or after 1 January 2025, a Taxable Person that is not a Tax Group and derives Revenue exceeding AED 50,000,000 in the Tax Period, and every Qualifying Free Zone Person whatever its Revenue, must prepare and maintain audited financial statements; every Tax Group must prepare and maintain audited special purpose financial statements in the form the FTA sets.

For a business with revenue over AED 50 million or a qualifying free zone person, the FTA’s Tax Returns guide says EmaraTax pre-fills the audit question with “Yes”, and the return asks for the audit opinion and the auditor’s name. An entity incorporated in the UAE must use a UAE-registered auditor. A tax group’s audited statements cover its members together, and the Ministry of Finance says the members do not need audited statements of their own.

Smaller businesses can keep simpler accounts.

Cash basis accounting

Cash basis allowed up to AED 3,000,000 Revenue

A person may prepare its Financial Statements using the cash basis of accounting where its Revenue does not exceed AED 3,000,000, or in exceptional circumstances on an application to the FTA; otherwise a Taxable Person applies IFRS, and one whose Revenue does not exceed AED 50,000,000 may apply IFRS for SMEs.

A business on the cash basis completes only the income statement in the accounting schedule.

How to file and pay on EmaraTax

The return is filed and the tax paid on EmaraTax. Based on the FTA’s Tax Returns guide, the process runs in eight steps.

1. Sign in to EmaraTax and open the corporate tax return for the tax period. The business details and the tax period are pre-filled; if they are wrong, EmaraTax directs the filer to correct them first.
2. Answer the questions in Part A and make any elections in Part B. An election takes effect once made in the return, without further confirmation from the FTA, provided its conditions are met.
3. Enter the financial statement figures in the accounting schedule, then the adjustments and reliefs in Parts D to F.
4. Complete the schedules EmaraTax opens from the answers. Their figures flow back into the return, and a schedule can be reopened before submission.
5. Attach the financial statements, and any other documents, in the attachments schedule.
6. Check the tax payable in Part G and say whether any figures are estimates.
7. Complete the declaration in Part H: the date, who prepared the return, a confirmation that it is complete and accurate, and the signer’s name and capacity.
8. Submit the return and pay the corporate tax payable through EmaraTax by the same deadline.

The FTA says registration, filing and payment are available on EmaraTax around the clock.

Who can submit the return

The taxable person can file its own return, or a tax agent or legal representative can file it on its behalf and confirm in the declaration that it has full authority to do so. For a tax group the parent company files, and for an unincorporated partnership treated as a taxable person the responsible partner files. The FTA lists approved tax agents on its website.

Records to keep

The records behind a return must support what it says and let the FTA work out the taxable income readily (Article 56).

How long to keep records

7 years

Taxable Persons must keep the records and documents that support their Corporate Tax Returns for seven years after the end of the Tax Period to which they relate; Exempt Persons must keep records that show their exempt status for the same period.

The FTA names the essential records as a record of the business’s transactions in the tax period, an asset register showing purchases and disposals, a record of liabilities, and a record of shares or ownership interests held at the end of the period. A business that elects small business relief keeps records that let the FTA check its revenue and its eligibility for the relief.

Correcting a return and missing the deadline

An error in a return that has already been filed is generally corrected with a voluntary disclosure, the FTA form for reporting an error or omission in a return, under the Tax Procedures Law and its Executive Regulation. A separate fixed penalty applies to an incorrect return that is not corrected before the filing deadline.

Penalty for an incorrect return

AED 500

Submitting an incorrect Corporate Tax Return carries a penalty of AED 500 unless the return is corrected before the filing deadline.

Missing the deadline can bring two separate penalties under Cabinet Decision No. 75 of 2023: a monthly penalty for the late return, and a late-payment penalty at 14% a year on tax still unpaid. Penalties for late filing and payment covers the amounts, how each penalty is counted and how to ask the FTA for a review or a waiver.

Small business relief in the return

Small business relief is elected in the return itself, for each tax period; the guide to the relief explains who qualifies and how the election works. The rules that feed into each part of the return, from registration to free zones, are in the Corporate tax guides.