Filing
VAT return filing (VAT201)
Your VAT201 built from reconciled books, filed on EmaraTax, with the payment timed to clear before the 28th rather than land on it.
How it worksVAT filing services · Dubai & all seven emirates
UAE VAT return filing, done before the 28th.
We are a tax consultancy in Deira, Dubai. We prepare your VAT201 from reconciled books, file it through EmaraTax, and time the payment so it lands with the FTA before the deadline. Not on it.
28Days to file and pay, every perioddays to file & pay
VAT201Filed on EmaraTax, workings archivedfiled on EmaraTax
DeiraA Dubai office, not a mailboxa real Dubai office
5%Standard rateOn most goods and services supplied in the UAE.
28 daysTo file and payAfter each tax period ends. The payment must clear, not merely be sent.
375,000Mandatory thresholdAED of taxable supplies in any rolling 12 months, or expected within 30 days.
187,500Voluntary thresholdAED of taxable supplies or taxable expenses. Registration becomes optional.
What we file
Every VAT job, and how each one actually runs.
Most engagements start with a return due next week. They usually end up covering the rest of this list too. Each page explains the deadline, the evidence and the penalty — not a sales pitch.
Filing
Nil VAT returns
No sales does not mean no return. A nil period still has to be filed, and skipping it draws the same fixed penalty as a period with tax due.
How it works
Corrections
VAT return amendments
Found an error after filing? Which route you take is decided by one number, and taking the wrong one turns a fix into a breach.
How it works
View all 20 VAT services
Returns, registrations, refunds, corrections and audits — each one explained end to end.
Filing it yourself? Start at the FTA, not here.
vatfiling.com is run by a private tax consultancy in Dubai. We are not the Federal Tax Authority and we are not affiliated with it. If you came looking for the government portal, these are the real links.
Everything on this site — the deadline countdown, the penalty meter, the service pages — is here to explain what the FTA requires. The filing itself happens on EmaraTax, whether you do it or we do.
How a period runs
The 28 days, spent deliberately.
Filing on day 28 and paying the same afternoon is how businesses that did nothing wrong still get charged. This is the calendar we work to instead.
Day 1–5
Books closed
Sales, purchases, imports and credit notes reconciled to the bank. Gaps chased while there is still time to fix them.
Day 6–12
Return drafted
Input tax tested against the blocked-item rules. Reverse charge applied on imports and services where it belongs.
Day 13–20
Your sign-off
The draft goes to you with the workings attached, so you approve numbers you can actually trace.
Day 21–24
Filed on EmaraTax
Submitted and acknowledged. Confirmation and schedules archived for the record-keeping period.
Day 25–28
Payment cleared
Scheduled early enough that the money lands with the FTA. A transfer that leaves on the 28th can still arrive late.
Why filing moves to us
Nothing exotic. The boring things, done every period.
- Filed from reconciled books
- A return built off an unreconciled sales report is a guess. The ledgers close first, so the numbers you sign hold up if anyone asks.
- One person who knows your file
- The same accountant through the year, so the reverse-charge question you asked in March is not re-argued in September.
- Every workpaper kept
- The schedule behind each box on each return, archived for the statutory record-keeping period and produced on request.
Run your own numbers
Two meters run at once. Most people only notice one.
Filing late is a fixed fine. Paying late runs at 14% a year on the unpaid tax, charged monthly. And if you are not registered yet, the threshold test moves every month.
What a missed deadline costs
Figures from Cabinet Decision No. 129 of 2025, the penalty regime in force since 14 April 2026.
Two separate meters. The filing penalty is charged once and does not grow. The payment penalty runs at 14% a year on the unpaid tax — about 1.17% a month, applied monthly and not compounded — until the principal is cleared. Paying the tax stops the meter that keeps running.
Enter a due date in the past to run the meter.
Total penalty exposure
AED 0
Nothing overdue. Keep it that way.
Get this quantified properly
Indicative only. Part-months are counted as a full month here, and Cabinet Decision No. 129 of 2025 removed the old 300% cap along with the 2%-plus-4%-monthly structure it replaced. Your actual assessment depends on your EmaraTax record and any waiver or instalment arrangement.
Where you sit against the thresholds
Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017, Articles 13 and 17. Mandatory registration is a one-way trigger: cross the line in any rolling 12 months and the obligation exists, even if the next quarter is quieter.
Voluntary registration available
Run the full eligibility check
Your rolling 12-month figure is above AED 187,500 but below the mandatory line.
The full checker takes your month-by-month turnover and finds the exact month you crossed, which is the date the FTA backdates liability to.
Box 1, all seven of it
Which emirate your sales belong to.
Box 1 of the VAT201 is not one field. It is seven, and the FTA uses the split to allocate revenue between the emirates. Get the total right and the split wrong, and the return is still wrong.
The emirate is not the one that issued your trade licence. It is the fixed establishment most closely connected with that particular supply. A Dubai company selling through a Sharjah branch reports those sales in 1c, not 1b.
We file for businesses across the UAE from an office in Deira, Dubai. Most of the work happens over email and EmaraTax, so where your licence sits changes the reporting, not the service.
Fix it upstream, not in the return. A branch or department dimension on the sales ledger takes an afternoon to set up, and then reports its own emirate every quarter without anyone thinking about it.
- Box 1aAbu DhabiIncluding Al Ain and Al Dhafra
- Box 1bDubaiWhere most of our clients are licensed
- Box 1cSharjah
- Box 1dAjman
- Box 1eUmm Al Quwain
- Box 1fRas Al Khaimah
- Box 1gFujairah
Asked every week
VAT filing, answered plainly.
Still stuck on something specific? Ask us directly — the answer is usually one message long.
When is my UAE VAT return due?
Twenty-eight days after your tax period ends, which lands on the 28th of the following month. Both the return and the payment are due by then. The FTA assigns your period at registration and staggers the quarters, so yours may end in February or April rather than March. Your exact dates are on your EmaraTax dashboard, and if the 28th falls on a weekend or public holiday the deadline moves to the next business day.
Do I still file if I had no sales?
Yes. A nil return is still a return. Skipping it triggers the same fixed penalty as a return with tax due — AED 1,000 for a first offence, AED 2,000 if it happens again within 24 months. It is the cheapest filing you will ever do, and the most expensive one to forget.
What does filing or paying late actually cost?
They are separate meters. Late filing is a fixed AED 1,000, or AED 2,000 for a repeat within 24 months. Late payment runs at 14% a year on the unpaid tax, charged monthly from the day after the due date and not compounded — about 1.17% a month. Miss a quarter with AED 100,000 of VAT due and six months of silence costs roughly AED 7,000 in late-payment penalty plus the AED 1,000 filing fine. Under the rules before 14 April 2026 the same six months would have cost close to AED 27,000. Lighter, but it keeps running until the principal is paid.
Can you file periods I have already missed?
Yes, and that is a common way engagements start. We quantify the tax due per period and get the principal paid first, because the 14%-a-year charge runs on unpaid tax rather than unfiled returns. Then outstanding returns go in oldest first, to stop repeat-offence escalation. If a missed period also contains errors above AED 10,000, a voluntary disclosure filed before an audit sits at a much lower penalty tier than an assessment raised after one.
Who runs vatfiling.com?
vatfiling.com is the VAT filing arm of a licensed accounting and tax consultancy in Deira, Dubai. Every enquiry, engagement letter and invoice runs through exiloz.com, where the corporate tax, accounting and business setup work lives too.
From the filing desk
What we write down after the return goes in.
Three pieces on the parts of UAE VAT that cost people money quietly: the boxes filled in wrong, the penalty arithmetic after the 2026 reform, and the input tax that was never recoverable.
Compliance8 min read
The free work still carries VAT, and now it has a formula
Article 37 has always said cost. Nobody had a method. Directive No. 5 of 2026 now gives one, and it starts at market value and works backwards. That is not the same as charging VAT on the fee you would have billed.
Read the piece
Registration9 min read
Deregistering for VAT, and the clock nobody starts on time
Businesses diarise the registration threshold. Almost nobody diarises the other one, which is a shame, because that is the threshold with a monthly penalty attached to it.
Read the piece
Zero-rating11 min read
The evidence that makes an export zero-rated
Zero-rating is not a decision you make in the invoicing screen. It is an evidence test, and since November 2024 the regulation names the documents that pass it.
Read the piece
Penalties9 min read
A penalty notice arrived. The clock started the day it was issued
Most reconsideration requests we are asked to rescue are not weak on the merits. They are late, or they argue fairness at an authority that only reads evidence.
Read the piece
Compliance9 min read
Life insurance fees are exempt only if they sit in the premium
A policy administration fee printed on its own debit note is not life insurance. Directive No. 4 of 2026 is explicit: leave it inside the premium and it can stay exempt. Bill it separately and it is a 5 percent supply.
Read the piece
Filing10 min read
Reverse charge after the self-invoice rule went
One piece of paperwork disappeared on 1 January. The obligation it was attached to did not, and the businesses treating the change as a licence to stop reporting are the ones with a problem.
Read the piece
Registration9 min read
You have 30 days to register. The date is already running
The registration form is not the hard part. Dating the day you became liable is, and that is the date the 30-day clock and the AED 10,000 penalty both run from.
Read the piece
Filing8 min read
A nil return is still due. Skipping it still costs
A dormant company with a live TRN still owes a VAT201 every period. Missing it costs AED 1,000 the first time, AED 2,000 the next. Filing zeros forever is not the exit. Deregistration is.
Read the piece
Compliance10 min read
Input VAT denied for someone else's fraud
A valid tax invoice used to be the end of the argument. From January 2026 it is the beginning of one, and the question is what you knew about the company that issued it.
Read the piece
Filing8 min read
The 28th is the deadline. One day later still costs
Friday 28 August is the next VAT deadline for anyone whose tax period ended on 31 July. Filing a day late and paying a day late are different charges, and they stack.
Read the piece
Compliance9 min read
The Central Bank rate does not cover Bitcoin
The Central Bank rate does not cover Bitcoin. Directive No. 3 of 2026 now does: pick three listed platforms, lock them for the calendar year, and use the numerical average at the time of the supply.
Read the piece
Recovery9 min read
The five-year clock on your VAT credit
A credit balance on EmaraTax used to be patient. It would sit there indefinitely, waiting to be useful. That stopped being true in January.
Read the piece
Compliance9 min read
The credit note follows you out of the VAT group
The group filed the sale. You left. The customer sent the goods back in September. From 1 August 2026 the credit note is yours, in your return, even though the original VAT sat on the group TRN.
Read the piece
Compliance9 min read
What a tax invoice has to contain, and the fields that get left off
Nobody argues about the 5%. The arguments are about whether the piece of paper carrying it was a tax invoice at all, and that is decided by a list most accounting systems only half implement.
Read the piece
Compliance11 min read
UAE e-invoicing and the 30 October deadline
The Ministry of Finance gave large businesses three more months to appoint a service provider. It did not give them three more months to be ready, and those are not the same gift.
Read the piece
Filing9 min read
The UAE VAT return, box by box
Fourteen boxes, two of them filled in for you before you start. Here is what belongs in each one, and the four that account for almost every correction we are asked to make.
Read the piece
Penalties8 min read
Voluntary disclosure after 14 April 2026
The penalty for owning up changed on 14 April 2026. It is now 1% a month, and the gap between disclosing and being caught is wider than it has ever been. Here is the arithmetic.
Read the piece
Input tax9 min read
The input VAT you cannot reclaim
Three categories of blocked input tax, one rule change from 2024 that most published guidance still gets wrong, and a timing condition that turns a valid claim into a wrong-period claim.
Read the pieceSend your last return and your current books.
We will tell you what the next filing looks like, what it will cost, and whether anything already filed needs a voluntary disclosure. No charge for that first look.
Start on exiloz.com
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