Accountants for businesses in Dubai
Dubai is where most of our work sits: mainland trading companies, free zone entities across a dozen authorities, retail groups running stores in the emirate's shopping centres, and the professional services and virtual-asset businesses that cluster here.
Dubai is where most of our work sits: mainland trading companies, free zone entities across a dozen authorities, retail groups running stores in the emirate's shopping centres, and the professional services and virtual-asset businesses that cluster here.
A Dubai business will typically hold either a mainland licence from the Department of Economy and Tourism or a licence from one of the emirate's free zones — and the choice shapes the accounting more than most owners expect. Mainland companies are generally required to prepare audited financial statements under the Commercial Companies Law and can trade freely onshore. Free zone entities have their own renewal and audit requirements and, for Corporate Tax, may be able to access the 0% rate as a Qualifying Free Zone Person — subject to conditions that are tested every period.
The federal position is identical everywhere: 5% VAT above the AED 375,000 threshold, Corporate Tax at 0% and 9% with a nine-month filing deadline, and seven-year record retention. What differs is licensing, renewal and — for free zone entities — whether the tax benefit survives contact with how the business actually trades.
Dubai also gives us most of our sector work — trading and logistics through the free zones, contracting, professional services, virtual assets, and retail in the emirate's shopping centres, where turnover rent reporting sits on top of ordinary compliance. See sectors.
What we do
- Monthly bookkeeping and bank reconciliation, closed on a fixed date.
- VAT registration and returns reconciled to your ledger.
- Corporate Tax registration, computation and filing, with the elections modelled.
- Payroll and WPS, including end-of-service provisioning.
- Financial statements and audit support, with an independent registered auditor appointed where one is required.
- Management accounts — the monthly pack that tells you what is actually happening.
Reviewed 18 August 2026 by Ahmed Nabil Selim. UAE tax rates, thresholds and deadlines change — confirm the position for your period before relying on it.
Dubai — frequently asked questions
Our packages are published in full: AED 1,250 a month for a newly licensed or very small entity, AED 2,999 once you are VAT-registered and want monthly accounts, and AED 5,999 for an established SME needing a full finance function — rising to AED 9,999 and from AED 14,999 for higher volume and a complete outsourced finance and tax function. The package is set by transaction volume and how much of the function you want run for you. See packages and fees.
It depends on who your customers are. If you need to sell freely to the UAE onshore market — which includes taking a retail unit in a mall — mainland is usually the answer. If your customers are outside the UAE or in other free zones, a free zone licence may allow the 0% Corporate Tax rate on qualifying income and is often cheaper to establish. The trap is choosing a free zone for setup cost and then trading onshore anyway, which can put the tax benefit at risk. The structuring decision itself is legal work and sits with Neo Legal; we model the numbers behind it.
Yes. We act for clients across all seven emirates and in every major free zone; the location pages cover the areas we are asked about most, not the limits of where we work. Cloud accounting makes physical proximity largely irrelevant — what matters is knowledge of the UAE regime and of your sector.
Based in Dubai?
Tell us the licence type, roughly how many transactions a month and where things stand. We will scope the work and quote a fixed monthly fee.
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