Accounting and audit support in Qatar
Qatar decides the audit by three conditions, and a head office abroad is one of them on its own. We read the test on your figures and keep the two engagements apart.
Capital trigger
Порог по капиталу
QAR 200,000
200 000 QAR
Income trigger
Порог по доходу
QAR 500,000
500 000 QAR
Late filing, a day
Просрочка, в день
QAR 500
500 QAR
No audited accounts
Нет проверки счетов
QAR 30,000
30 000 QAR
When you need accounting and audit support in Qatar
Your head office sits abroad
The audit test has three limbs and the third says nothing about size. A taxpayer headquartered outside the State attaches audited accounts whatever its figures.
The money limits are low
Capital above 200,000 riyals settles it. So does total income above 500,000 riyals. These are not figures a growing company crosses late in its life.
Your bookkeeper cannot sign it off
Anyone who took part in preparing the accounts is barred from auditing them and writing the report on them. Preparation and opinion are two engagements.
The books stay where the work happens
Records, books and the documents confirming them are kept at the place where the activity is carried on, and they are kept there for ten years.
What you get
- The three-limb test read against your own figures before the year closes
- An auditor registered in the State, engaged apart from whoever keeps the books
- Accounts in the full set the regulation names, with every schedule attached
- The return filed inside four months, before the daily charge begins
- An archive held at the place of activity for the ten years required
What is required for accounting and audit in Qatar
Whether a Qatari company is audited is settled by three separate conditions, and satisfying any one of them is enough. For a company whose owners sit outside the country, the third condition answers the question before the other two are read.
Nowhere else in the Gulf does the address of a head office decide the audit on its own. A month-by-month picture of the same work, with no jurisdiction inside it, is accounting support; our Qatar page carries the remainder of the local practice.
The three conditions, read one by one
- Capital exceeding 200,000 riyals.
- Total income exceeding 500,000 riyals.
- A headquarters located abroad.
What the audited set has to contain
- A statement of financial position.
- A statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income for the period.
- A statement of changes in equity for the period.
- A statement of cash flows for the period.
- Notes, including the main accounting policies.
Attached to that set go the auditor's report, a statement of the depreciation of fixed assets, and a statement of the amounts of tax withheld at source during the year. Banks and insurers add a statement of the provisions raised and released.
Two rules about who may sign
Registered in the State
The accounts are audited by an auditor registered in Qatar. A report signed elsewhere does not satisfy the condition, however well known the firm.
Not the one who prepared them
Whoever participated in preparing the accounts may neither audit them nor write the report on them. Where one firm keeps the books, a second firm gives the opinion.
Cash accounting is a request, and silence refuses it
A taxpayer whose total income did not exceed 1,000,000 riyals in the previous accounting period may apply to have taxable income taken on a cash basis. The Authority answers within sixty days, and an answer that never arrives counts as a refusal. Above that figure the accrual basis applies without the option.
The daily charge and its ceiling
A return filed late runs at 500 riyals for every day of delay, up to a ceiling of 180,000 riyals. Tax paid late carries two per cent a month, capped at the tax itself. Failing to submit the audited accounts or to keep the accounting books is a flat 30,000 riyals, and breaching the registration and notification rules is 20,000.
Sources: the three conditions, the contents of the set, the auditor's registration and independence, the place of the records and the four-month deadline — the Executive Regulation; the fines — the Income Tax Law.
Stages of work
Reading the three conditions against your figures
Capital, total income and the location of the head office are checked at the start, because the answer decides how the whole year is staffed. A company owned from abroad has its answer immediately.
Separating the two engagements
Bookkeeping and the audit opinion are placed with different firms from the outset. Discovering the bar after the accounts are drafted costs a second preparation, and a year end is a poor time to find that out.
Running the books at the place of activity
Journals, the general ledger and the inventory record are maintained where the activity is carried on, with the original documents behind them. Computer records are allowed on their own security conditions.
Closing the year and building the set
The five statements are prepared to the accounting standards in force in the State and signed, then the depreciation and withholding schedules are built from the closed books.
Filing on the Authority's form
The return goes in on the Authority's form inside four months of the year end. A company working through several branches files one return covering all of them.
Keeping the records where the work is
Records, books and documents are kept for ten years following the year they relate to, and longer where a dispute over them is still live before any party.
Our case studies
FAQ
Discuss
the Task
Speak to our team
Speak to our team. Tell us about your task –
we’ll help you with it in any jurisdiction.