UAE VAT, handled by the shop itself

Five per cent sounds simple until you are the one issuing the invoice. This is what the rules actually ask of an online store in the UAE — and what your storefront should be doing about it without you thinking about it.

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First question

Do you have to register for VAT?

It depends on your taxable supplies and imports over any rolling twelve-month period — not on your calendar year, and not on profit.

You must register
Above AED 375,000

Once your taxable supplies and imports pass this figure in any rolling twelve months, registration is mandatory and you are issued a Tax Registration Number.

You may register
AED 187,500 – 375,000

Voluntary registration. Worth considering if you buy a lot from VAT-registered suppliers, since registering lets you recover input tax.

You do not have to
Below AED 187,500

No obligation to register. You also cannot charge VAT or issue tax invoices — which some B2B customers will ask for.

A TRN is fifteen digits, issued by the Federal Tax Authority through EmaraTax, and it has to appear on every tax invoice you issue. In FlexiCommerce you enter it once in settings; from then on it is printed on every invoice, credit note and order PDF automatically.
On the storefront

Shoppers see one price, and it already includes VAT

A UAE consumer is entitled to see the price they will actually pay. Adding tax at the last step of checkout is how carts get abandoned, and it is not how prices are meant to be displayed to consumers here.

The arithmetic runs backwards from the shelf price

If a bottle of oud is listed at AED 943.95, that is what the customer pays. The VAT inside it is AED 44.95, and the net is AED 899.00 — calculated as price × 5 ÷ 105, not price × 5%.

Getting that division the wrong way round is the single most common VAT bug we see in imported storefronts. It quietly overcharges every customer by a few dirhams and quietly understates what you owe.

  • Product pages, cart and checkout all show the same VAT-inclusive figure
  • The tax line is broken out on the order summary and the invoice
  • Zero-rated and exempt items can be flagged per product
  • Change the rate once and every price recalculates — no re-entry
A product page showing an AED price marked inclusive of VAT
The document itself

What has to be on a UAE tax invoice

The FTA is specific about this. Miss a field and the invoice is not a valid tax invoice, which matters most to the customer trying to reclaim the tax. Every one of these is filled in for you.

1The words “Tax Invoice”Displayed clearly, not implied
2Your name, address and TRNPulled from your store settings
3The customer’s name and addressAnd their TRN on business orders
4A sequential invoice numberUnique, unbroken, per store
5Date of issueAnd the date of supply where they differ
6Description of goods or servicesLine by line, as ordered
7Quantity and unit priceShown net of tax
8Amount payable excluding VATPer line and as a subtotal
9The VAT rate and the VAT amountIn dirhams
10Gross amount payableThe figure the customer paid
11Discounts appliedBefore tax is calculated
12Reverse charge note where it appliesStated on the face of the invoice
Two kinds of invoice, issued automatically. A full tax invoice goes out for business orders and for supplies above AED 10,000. A simplified tax invoice — shorter, and permitted for consumer sales at or below that value — goes out for everything else. The store decides which one applies from the order itself, so nobody has to remember the rule.

Invoices are issued within the required fourteen days of the date of supply because they are generated the moment the order is placed, and every one of them is kept and searchable in your admin panel for as long as you need to retain them.

At filing time

Your return should be a report, not a reconstruction

Most first-time filers discover the problem in the same week the return is due: the sales figures live in one place, the refunds in another, and the COD orders that were never actually collected are sitting in both.

The admin panel keeps output tax by period, separates zero-rated and exempt supplies, nets off credit notes, and exports the lot — so the number you hand your accountant is one you can point at a line for.

  • VAT collected per tax period, with credit notes deducted
  • Zero-rated and exempt supplies reported separately
  • Refunds and cancellations reverse the tax automatically
  • Export to CSV or Excel for your accountant or EmaraTax filing
The admin panel order list showing AED totals and payment methods
Common questions

VAT questions UAE sellers ask

Can I open a store before I am VAT registered?
Yes. If your taxable supplies are below the mandatory threshold you can trade without a TRN — you simply do not charge VAT and do not issue tax invoices. Leave the TRN field empty and the store issues ordinary receipts instead. The day your TRN arrives, you enter it and invoicing switches over.
How is VAT calculated on a price that already includes it?
The tax inside a VAT-inclusive price is the price multiplied by 5 and divided by 105 — not the price multiplied by 5 per cent. On AED 105 the VAT is AED 5.00, not AED 5.25. FlexiCommerce uses the inclusive formula everywhere, including on partial refunds.
What happens to VAT when I refund an order?
A credit note is raised against the original tax invoice and the tax is reversed for the period in which the refund happened. Partial refunds reverse a proportional amount, so the tax always matches the money actually kept.
Do Cash on Delivery orders work differently for VAT?
The tax point is the supply, not the moment the cash reaches you, so the invoice is issued with the order. Where COD matters is reconciliation — an order that was never collected has to be cancelled properly so its tax is reversed rather than left standing in the period.
Are Tabby and Tamara payments treated any differently?
No. You are supplying goods to the customer at the full price; the instalment arrangement sits between the customer and the provider. The invoice shows the full amount and the full VAT, exactly as a card order would.
Do you file the return for me?
No, and you should be wary of software that claims to. Filing is done by you or your tax agent through EmaraTax. What the store does is make sure the underlying numbers are right and exportable, which is the part that usually goes wrong.

This page explains how the software behaves and summarises publicly published FTA rules as we understand them. It is not tax advice, and thresholds and requirements change — check your own position with a registered tax agent or the Federal Tax Authority before you rely on it.

See a real tax invoice from your own catalogue

Put three of your products in during the trial, place a test order, and look at the PDF that comes out. That is the fastest way to know whether this fits your accountant.

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No card needed · Your TRN on every invoice · 0% of your sales