Accounting and VAT software across the Gulf
The UAE pages cover VAT, TRN handling, emirate-wise reporting and the VAT 201 — all of which are built and shipped. Two pages here exist to tell you plainly what is not: Arabic invoicing, and ZATCA e-invoicing in Saudi Arabia.
12 pages in this section
UAE overview
UAE VAT looks simple until the quarter ends.
Dubai
A great deal of what Dubai sells, Dubai did not make and will not keep.
Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi business is disproportionately contracting, and contracting to large institutional customers at that.
Sharjah
Sharjah is where the UAE actually makes things.
Ajman
A lot of Ajman business is small business — trading companies and service firms of three or four people, often in a free zone, frequently registering for VAT for the first time because turnover crossed a threshold nobody was watching.
Ras Al Khaimah
Ras Al Khaimah sells what comes out of its mountains — aggregate, cement, ceramics and building materials — by the tonne, on lorries, to sites across the northern emirates.
VAT 201 filing
The VAT 201 is nine boxes and most of them are arithmetic.
Arabic invoices
Start with the part most pages like this bury: tBiz does not print tax invoices in Arabic.
Free zone companies
A free zone company is not automatically outside VAT, and this is the single most expensive misunderstanding in UAE bookkeeping.
Inventory in Dubai
Dubai warehousing has a wrinkle most stock systems do not handle: the same goods can be inside a free zone, cleared into the mainland, or in transit to a third country, and those are three different things for tax even though they are one pallet.
UAE payroll
UAE payroll has obligations Indian payroll does not: salaries paid through the Wage Protection System, end-of-service gratuity accruing from day one, and a workforce whose right to work expires on a date somebody has to remember.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia runs VAT at 15% and has gone further than its neighbours on e-invoicing: ZATCA’s Fatoora programme requires invoices to be generated, and for many taxpayers cleared, through integrated systems.
Open a UAE company today
Set AED as your base currency, add your TRN, and see the VAT 201 working build itself.