• Nov 03, 26
• dawnuser
• Compliance & Regulation
• 0 comment

Corporate Tax changed what “keeping your paperwork” means in the UAE. Records are no longer just for your own management: they are the evidence behind every figure on a return the Federal Tax Authority can review, and the law sets how long you must be able to produce them.

The rule

Records and supporting documents must be retained for seven years following the end of the relevant tax period. For a company with a 31 December 2025 year end, that means the 2025 records must be available until the end of 2032.

VAT has its own retention rules running to at least five years, and longer for records relating to real estate, so a business registered for both is generally working to the longer Corporate Tax period.

What counts as a record

• General ledger, trial balance and financial statements
• Sales and purchase invoices, credit notes and delivery documentation
• Bank statements for every account, and reconciliations
• Contracts and agreements, including with related parties
• Payroll records and WPS files
• Fixed asset register and depreciation workings
• Transfer pricing documentation where it applies
• The workings behind any election or relief claimed on the return

The penalty for getting it wrong

Failing to keep the required records carries an administrative penalty of AED 10,000, rising to AED 20,000 for a repeat violation within twenty-four months. The FTA may also require records to be provided in Arabic on request.

Where businesses actually come unstuck

In practice the problem is rarely deliberate. It is a laptop that failed, an accountant who left with the files, an accounting subscription that lapsed and took the data with it, or a year reconstructed from bank statements because the invoices were never filed. None of those are defences.

• Keep a backup that is not on one person’s machine, and test that it restores
• Do not rely on a cloud accounting subscription you might cancel. Export the year before you let a licence lapse
• Keep the supporting documents with the year they relate to, not in a single undated folder
• If you change accountant or bookkeeper, get the full data file transferred, not just reports

A practical standard

The test worth applying: if the FTA asked tomorrow for the support behind a single figure in your 2025 accounts, could you produce it within a few days without reconstructing anything? If not, the gap is worth closing now rather than in year six.

How we help

We maintain books for clients on that basis as a matter of routine, and we take on catch-up work where records have fallen behind. Call +971 55 441 1036 or email info@dawnconsultancy.com.