This deadline First corporate tax return and payment due (FY ended 31 Dec 2025)

Tax & compliance · Time-sensitive

The UAE tax deadline most founders will meet in a panic — or miss

Published 06 Jul 2026 · Deadline facts verified 06 Jul 2026 · Reading time ~6 min

Here is the sentence that surprises almost every first-time UAE founder: you must file a corporate tax return even if you owe nothing. Zero revenue? File. 0% free zone rate? File. Small Business Relief? You claim it inside the return — which means you file.

Under Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022, returns are due within nine months of the end of your tax period. For the large majority of companies whose first tax period ended 31 December 2025, that makes the first-ever filing deadline 30 September 2026 — return submitted and any tax paid.

The rates, in one line: 0% on taxable income up to AED 375,000, 9% above that. Free zone companies with Qualifying Free Zone Person (QFZP) status pay 0% on qualifying income — but that status has sharp edges, covered below.

What you're actually submitting

  1. Financial statements for the tax period. Your return starts from accounting profit and adjusts from there. If FY2025 bookkeeping isn't closed, nothing else can start.
  2. The return itself, in EmaraTax. Filed through your EmaraTax account against your corporate tax registration (TRN).
  3. Elections and claims made in the return. Small Business Relief, if you're eligible and choosing it, is elected in the filing. So are various adjustments. These are decisions, not formalities — make them deliberately.
  4. Payment of any tax due, also by 30 September. The deadline covers both filing and payment.

Free zone founders: the two numbers that protect your 0%

QFZP status gives you 0% on qualifying income — and this first return is where that status is tested on paper for the first time. The rule that catches people is de minimis: your non-qualifying revenue must stay within the lower of 5% of total revenue or AED 5,000,000.

The cliff, not the slope: breach de minimis and you don't just pay 9% on the excess — you lose QFZP status for that tax period and the four following periods. One invoice categorized wrongly can reprice five years of income. If any part of your revenue is ambiguous — commissions, referral fees, income from mainland customers — get a written qualifying-income analysis from a registered tax agent before you file, not after.

Small Business Relief — useful, but expiring

If your revenue is at or below the relief threshold (AED 3,000,000 per tax period, for tax periods up to the end of 2026), you can elect to be treated as having no taxable income — which removes the tax bill but not the filing. Two cautions: relief is currently scheduled to run out for tax periods ending after 31 December 2026, so build your plans on the 9% world, not the relieved one; and QFZP companies cannot combine the free zone 0% regime with Small Business Relief — it's one or the other.

Your realistic timeline from today

What missing it costs

Late filing and late payment attract FTA administrative penalties that grow with time, and a missed first filing puts your company on the radar in the worst way — including, for free zone companies, questions over the compliance conditions attached to QFZP status. The return is annual; the reputation with the regulator is permanent.

Deadline walk-through, on screen

The UAE Founder Guide channel is covering this filing season step by step — EmaraTax screens included.

Watch on YouTube

Verification note: deadline (nine months from tax period end), rates (0%/9% at AED 375,000), de minimis thresholds (lower of 5% or AED 5M, current period plus four) and Small Business Relief parameters verified 06 Jul 2026 against Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 and FTA public guidance. Confirm your own position at tax.gov.ae or with a registered tax agent — this guide is general information, not tax advice.