One honest picture, across every entity
Many entities, several jurisdictions, assets in different classes and currencies — and a principal who simply wants to know what the family owns and how it did this year.
A family office is an accounting problem of a particular shape: many entities across several jurisdictions, assets in different classes and currencies, a family that wants one honest picture, and an increasing requirement to satisfy tax and regulatory reporting in each place where something is held.
What we provide
- Consolidated reporting across operating companies, holding structures, foundations, property and investment portfolios — one statement of what the family owns, prepared consistently.
- Multi-currency accounting with a defined presentation currency and a documented translation policy, so results are comparable period to period.
- Investment performance reporting — returns by asset class and manager, separating genuine performance from currency movement and cash flows.
- Entity-level compliance — bookkeeping, financial statements and Corporate Tax for each UAE entity in the structure.
- Related-party discipline — intra-family loans, cross-entity charges and property occupied by family members documented on arm's length terms. See transfer pricing.
- Succession-ready records — a structure the next generation can understand without an archaeology project.
Undocumented intra-family transactions. Money moves between entities and individuals for perfectly sensible reasons and is recorded as "director's account" for a decade. Under Corporate Tax those balances are related-party transactions requiring arm's length treatment, and under any future scrutiny — a bank, a regulator, a dispute, a succession — an undocumented decade is a genuine liability.
The establishment of the structure itself — DIFC and ADGM family office vehicles, foundations, trusts and succession planning — is legal work and sits with Neo Legal. We take over once the structure exists and needs to be accounted for.
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.
Family office — frequently asked questions
Two layers. Entity-level compliance for each company in the structure — bookkeeping, financial statements, Corporate Tax registration and filing — and above it, consolidated reporting that gives the family a single view across entities, jurisdictions, asset classes and currencies. Most family offices have the first layer and lack the second, which is why the principal can rarely get a straight answer to what the family is actually worth and how it performed.
Entities within the structure are within the Corporate Tax regime and must register and file. Whether tax is payable depends on the activity and the entity: income from certain investment activity, dividends and qualifying participations may be exempt, and free zone entities may access the 0% rate on qualifying income where the conditions are met. Personal investment income of an individual, held in a genuinely personal capacity rather than through a business, sits outside the regime. The distinctions are fact-specific and worth confirming for each entity rather than assuming across the structure.
Yes — consolidated multi-entity, multi-currency reporting is the core of family office accounting. It requires a defined presentation currency, a documented translation policy, a consistent chart of accounts across entities and a clear consolidation boundary. Where overseas entities are audited or maintained by local firms, we work from their reporting rather than duplicating it, and reconcile at the consolidation level.
Is this your situation?
Tell us how the business is set up and where the numbers currently stand. We will tell you what is required and what it costs to have it handled properly.
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