Accounting and audit support in the UAE
Here the tax system decides who is audited, and a free zone company is audited at any size. We settle the category and the framework first, then run the close to the audit date.
Audit threshold
Порог аудита
AED 50 million
50 млн AED
Free zone person
Лицо свободной зоны
audited at any size
аудит при любом обороте
Cash basis ceiling
Кассовый метод до
AED 3 million
3 млн AED
Tax group
Налоговая группа
no threshold at all
порога нет вовсе
When you need accounting and audit support in the UAE
Your free zone status changed the rule
A qualifying free zone person is audited whatever it earns. The revenue threshold other companies rely on does not exist for it, and that surprises most owners.
Revenue crossed fifty million
Above that line the accounts stop being an internal matter. One strong period turns the year-end into an audit engagement with a deadline attached to it.
You joined or formed a tax group
A group prepares audited statements of a special purpose kind, in the form the authority prescribes. Member ledgers and eliminations have to be built for it.
The books were never set to a standard
A ledger kept to no framework cannot produce statements an auditor will sign. Rebuilding a closed year costs more than running it correctly did.
Nine months went faster than expected
The return date is fixed from the end of the period, and the audit has to finish inside it. Work backwards or the deadline arrives with the accounts still open.
What you get
- A written answer on whether this entity is audited at all
- The reporting framework fixed before the first entry
- A closed period every cycle, reconciled and explained
- The audit file assembled while the year is still open
- Seven years of evidence indexed and retrievable
What is required for accounting and audit in the UAE
In most countries company law decides who is audited. Here the corporate tax system decides it, and the answer turns on a ministerial decision rather than on the size of the board or the form of the company.
The service stripped of any country sits at accounting support; the return itself and the positions taken in it belong to corporate tax returns, and our UAE page gathers the rest of the local work.
Who has to be audited
Ministerial Decision 84 of 2025 answers this for tax periods beginning on or after 1 January 2025, under clause 2 of article 54 of the corporate tax law. Three categories, and only the first has a threshold.
| Category | When audited statements are due |
|---|---|
| Taxable person outside a tax group | Revenue above AED 50,000,000 in the period |
| Qualifying free zone person | Always, whatever the revenue |
| Tax group | Always, as audited special purpose statements in the authority's form |
For a non-resident only revenue earned through a permanent establishment or nexus here counts towards the fifty million. A free zone person distributing goods in or from a designated zone follows additional procedures the authority prescribes.
The decision replaced an earlier one, which still governs periods that began before 2025. A group that was below the old consolidated threshold and assumed it was outside the duty is exactly the case that changed.
Which framework the ledger is kept to
Ministerial Decision 114 of 2023 settles this and leaves little room. The full international standards apply by default; a taxable person with revenue up to AED 50,000,000 may use the standards for small and medium entities instead.
Cash basis is available only where revenue does not exceed AED 3,000,000, or exceptionally on application to the authority. For a tax group, consolidated statements mean aggregating the standalone statements of the parent and each subsidiary and eliminating what passed between them.
The dates the file is built around
Records and documents supporting the return are kept for seven years after the end of the period they belong to, under article 56. The return is filed no later than nine months from the end of the period, under article 53, so the audit has to be complete before that.
Sources: categories, the fifty million threshold, free zone persons and tax groups — Ministerial Decision 84 of 2025, article 2; standards and cash basis — Ministerial Decision 114 of 2023, articles 2 to 4; retention and filing — Federal Decree-Law 47 of 2022, articles 53, 54 and 56.
Stages of work
Establishing which of the three categories you fall into.
Free zone status, tax group membership and expected revenue are settled at the start of the period rather than discovered at the end of it. The answer decides whether an auditor has to be engaged at all, and engaging one late is the expensive version.
Fixing the reporting framework before the first entry.
Full standards, the small and medium entity standards or the cash basis, each with its own revenue ceiling. Choosing after the books are running means restating what has already been posted, and a restated opening balance travels into every later period.
Building a chart of accounts the auditor can follow.
Accounts, dimensions, currencies and tax codes are designed around the actual transactions of the business. Related party balances, shareholder movements and free zone income streams are separated from the start, because separating them afterwards is guesswork.
Closing each period and explaining the differences.
Bank, receivables, payables, payroll, fixed assets and intercompany balances are reconciled on a fixed calendar. Every unresolved item is listed with an owner and a decision date instead of being carried forward quietly.
Assembling the audit file while the year is open.
Schedules, confirmations, contracts and the evidence behind material balances are indexed as the year runs. For a group, member ledgers and the eliminations between them are prepared to the form the authority requires.
Handing over the year and the archive.
Signed statements, the audit deliverables, the workpapers behind the return and an index of where everything sits. Records stay retrievable for the seven years the law counts from the end of the period.
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