The accountants Australians use in the UAE
Australian founded, UAE licensed, and part of a group whose Australian firm dates to 1891. We run the UAE accounting; the Australian questions go to Cornwalls, not to guesswork.
Most Australians arrive in the UAE having been sold the same three facts: no personal income tax, a company in a week, a ten year visa. All true. None of them is the part that goes wrong.
What goes wrong is the accounting: a UAE company whose books were never kept to a standard the Federal Tax Authority accepts, a Corporate Tax registration nobody completed, a VAT return filed on gross invoices that should have been zero-rated, and a set of records that cannot answer the one question the ATO asks later, which is where the business was actually run from.
Why us, specifically
Neo Finance is the accounting practice of the Neo group. The group's legal practice, Neo Legal, is the UAE arm of Cornwalls, an Australian law firm established in 1891, with Australian qualified lawyers working the Australia to UAE corridor daily. Our founder is Australian. Our people have spent their careers on both sides of it.
That matters for a practical reason rather than a sentimental one. An Australian moving a business here has two sets of obligations running at once, and they interact. The UAE questions are ours. The Australian questions go to Cornwalls, in the same group, on the same matter, rather than to an accountant back home who has never seen a free zone licence and is guessing.
What is genuinely different here
Almost every habit an Australian business owner has is wrong in the UAE, and a few of the differences cost real money.
| Australia | UAE | |
|---|---|---|
| Company tax | 25% or 30% | 0% on the first AED 375,000, then 9% |
| Consumption tax | GST at 10% | VAT at 5%, registration from AED 375,000 turnover |
| Personal tax on salary or dividends | Up to 45% plus Medicare | None |
| Superannuation | Compulsory employer contributions | None. End of service gratuity accrues instead |
| Payroll tax | State based, on payrolls above a threshold | None. Salaries run through the Wage Protection System |
| Dividends | Franking credits and imputation | No imputation, no withholding tax on dividends out |
| Fringe benefits | FBT on benefits provided | No FBT regime |
| Loans from your company | Division 7A deemed dividends | No Division 7A, but connected person and transfer pricing rules apply |
| Year end | 30 June by default | Whatever the first Corporate Tax period sets. It is a decision, not a default |
| Reporting standard | AASB | IFRS, or IFRS for SMEs |
| Audit | Threshold driven under the Corporations Act | Free zone driven. Many zones require audited accounts to renew the licence at all |
The two that catch people hardest are gratuity and year end. Gratuity is a real liability that accrues from day one and is almost never provided for by new arrivals, so the first time it is measured properly the balance sheet moves. And the first Corporate Tax period quietly fixes your year end for everything that follows, which is worth choosing deliberately rather than accepting whatever the incorporation agent typed.
What we do
The ordinary work, done properly: bookkeeping and a monthly close, Corporate Tax registration and filing, VAT registration and returns, payroll, WPS and gratuity, IFRS financial statements, and audit support where a free zone requires an audit.
Two things we watch that a generic UAE accountant will not. First, whether your revenue is genuinely qualifying if you hold a free zone licence, because an Australian consulting business invoicing mainland UAE clients frequently is not. See free zone accounting. Second, whether the records would survive an Australian residency enquiry, which is a question about where decisions were minuted and who signed what, not about bookkeeping neatness.
What we cannot do, and who does
We are licensed in the UAE for accounting and bookkeeping. We are not Australian registered tax agents and we do not give Australian tax advice. Ceasing Australian tax residency, the capital gains consequences of departure, your SMSF, your Australian trusts and the interaction of all of it with a UAE structure are Australian law questions, and they belong with Cornwalls through Neo Legal. We also do not audit: our licence expressly does not permit it, so where an audit is required we prepare the file and appoint an independent UAE registered auditor.
Australians routinely set the UAE company up first and ask about the Australian side afterwards. That order is expensive. The UAE structure that is cheapest to incorporate is often the one that is hardest to defend later, and by the time the books exist the facts are already set. Talk to both sides before the licence is issued, not after the first return is due.
Reviewed 24 September 2026 by Harly Zappino. UAE tax rates, thresholds and deadlines change — confirm the position for your period before relying on it.
Australians in the UAE — frequently asked questions
Usually no, but the correct description matters: the supply is zero-rated at 0%, not exempt and not outside VAT altogether. UAE law allows export of services to be zero-rated where the recipient has no place of residence in a GCC implementing state and is outside the UAE when the service is performed, among other conditions. Two consequences follow. Zero-rated revenue still counts toward the AED 375,000 registration threshold, so an exporter can be required to register while charging nothing. And because it is zero-rated rather than exempt, you still recover the input VAT on your own costs, which is usually a refund position. See VAT on services to overseas clients.
Yes, and many do. What needs managing is not whether you can trade with Australia but whether trading with Australia drags the UAE company back into the Australian tax net. Two Australian rules do that work: a company can be an Australian tax resident if it carries on business in Australia and its central management and control sits there, and a permanent establishment in Australia can make Australian sourced profits taxable in Australia regardless. Both turn on facts you create in the ordinary course, such as where board decisions are actually made and whether anyone is concluding contracts for you in Australia. See Australian business in the UAE.
Not a comprehensive one. Australia has income tax treaties with more than forty countries, and as at the review date below the UAE is not among them. The practical consequences are worth understanding before structuring anything. There is no treaty tie-breaker to resolve dual residency, so an argument about where you are resident is decided under each country's domestic law alone. There is no treaty permanent establishment threshold to shelter behind. And there is no treaty relief from Australian withholding tax on Australian sourced payments. None of this makes the move unattractive, because the UAE rates are low enough that treaty relief is rarely the point, but it does mean the Australian side has to be got right on its own merits rather than rescued by a treaty afterwards.
No, and it is often wrong to. Plenty of Australians run a UAE operating company alongside an Australian entity that continues to hold assets, employ people or service Australian customers. The questions are which company earns what, whether the pricing between them reflects what independent parties would agree, and whether the UAE entity has enough substance to be taken seriously as the place the value is created. Getting the intercompany pricing documented in advance is far cheaper than defending it later. See transfer pricing.
The same as everyone else, because the work is the same work. Packages run from AED 1,250 a month for a newly licensed entity to AED 5,999 for an established business needing a full finance function, with one off projects such as Corporate Tax registration or a VAT return priced separately and published in full. Fees are exclusive of VAT and quoted per entity. See packages and fees.
Moving a business from Australia?
Tell us what the business does, who its customers are and whether anything stays behind in Australia. We will tell you what the UAE side costs and what has to be settled before the licence is issued.
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