Guide
UAE corporate tax registration and filing deadlines
Updated
Registration is not means-tested. A business with no tax to pay still registers, still files, and still keeps the records that prove why no tax was due.
Who registers
All taxable persons, including free zone persons, are required to register for corporate tax and obtain a corporate tax registration number. The Federal Tax Authority may also require certain exempt persons to register (Ministry of Finance). Registration, return submission and payment run through the Authority's EmaraTax platform.
The nine month rule
A taxable person must file a corporate tax return for each tax period within nine months from the end of that period, and the same deadline generally applies to paying any tax due. The Authority applied that to a concrete case in August 2026: taxpayers whose financial year ended on 31 December 2025 had to submit and settle no later than 30 September 2026.
| Financial year ends | Return and payment due |
|---|---|
| 31 December 2025 | 30 September 2026 |
| 31 March 2026 | 31 December 2026 |
| 30 June 2026 | 31 March 2027 |
| 31 December 2026 | 30 September 2027 |
Records
The Authority expects records that let it verify revenue, taxable income and any relief claimed. For a business electing Small Business Relief that means evidence that revenue has not exceeded the threshold across the relevant and all previous tax periods, not just the current one.
Self-assessment
Corporate tax is calculated by the taxable person on a self-assessment basis. The starting point is accounting profit or loss before tax per the financial statements, adjusted for exempt income and for expenditure that is wholly or partly non-deductible. Those adjustments, not the rate, are where a computation goes wrong.
Deadlines above are calculated from the nine month rule and the Authority's own worked case. Confirm your own dates in EmaraTax, because tax periods and financial years do not always coincide.