What does outsourced accounting cover in the UAE?
Outsourced accounting in the UAE means an external firm runs your finance function instead of you employing accountants directly. At the level established companies need, that covers six things: accrual bookkeeping closed on a fixed date each month, VAT registration and quarterly returns, Corporate Tax registration and the annual return, payroll with WPS submission, an audit-ready year-end pack, and the disclosures that sit alongside the tax return, including related-party transactions.
The distinction that matters when comparing quotes is between recording and deciding. Recording is bookkeeping: entering and reconciling what already happened. Deciding is choosing and documenting a tax position, such as whether you elect Small Business Relief, whether a free-zone entity meets the Qualifying Free Zone Person test, or how an intercompany management fee is priced. Providers at the lower end of the market price for recording. If nobody is doing the deciding, that work lands on the owner by default.
How much does outsourced accounting cost in the UAE?
For an established SME, outsourced accounting in the UAE runs roughly AED 750 to AED 2,500 per month, driven mainly by transaction volume, number of entities and whether payroll and audit support are included. Below about AED 500 a month you are usually buying bookkeeping only, with tax work billed separately at year-end. Published entry rates as of 4 August 2026:
| Provider | Entry monthly | Billing | What the entry tier is scoped to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paci Control | AED 749 | Monthly, no lock-in | Up to 150 transactions, VAT and CT filing, tax position review, audit pack |
| Osome Operate | AED 667 | Annual (AED 8,000/yr) | Revenue under AED 375,000, unlimited transactions, CT registration and filing |
| Skrooge | AED 799 | Quarterly, ex-VAT | 0 to 50 transactions per month |
| BCL Globiz Grow | AED 750 | Monthly, plus 5% VAT | Growing businesses needing full tax compliance |
| In-house senior accountant | AED 12,000+ | Salary | One person, plus visa, gratuity, software and no cover during leave |
Rates taken from each provider’s own published pricing page on 4 August 2026. Tiers are not directly comparable — check what each includes before comparing the number.
What happens when Small Business Relief ends on 31 December 2026?
Small Business Relief lets a UAE business elect to be treated as having no taxable income, and it applies only to tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2026 where revenue in that period and every previous period was AED 3,000,000 or less. The Ministry of Finance has not announced an extension. From the 2027 tax period onward, companies that relied on the election move into the standard regime and pay 9% on taxable income above AED 375,000.
For a calendar-year company this means the 2026 financial year is the last one covered. Two consequences follow. First, the accounting policies you use in 2026 — accruals, provisions, when revenue is recognised, how bad debts are treated — set the opening position for the first year you actually pay tax. Second, relief is not available at all to a Qualifying Free Zone Person or to a member of a multinational group, so some companies that assumed they were covered never were.
| Tax period | Revenue up to AED 3M | What applies |
|---|---|---|
| Ending on or before 31 Dec 2026 | Yes | Small Business Relief available by election — treated as no taxable income |
| Ending on or before 31 Dec 2026 | No | Standard regime — 9% above AED 375,000 |
| Beginning on or after 1 Jan 2027 | Either | Standard regime — relief no longer available |
Source: Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 and Ministerial Decision No. 73 of 2023 on Small Business Relief. See also our 2026 Corporate Tax changes guide.
UAE e-invoicing: which phase catches your company?
Mandatory e-invoicing is being phased in under Cabinet Decision No. 106 of 2025, which sets out the violations and penalties. The system runs on the Peppol five-corner model, with invoices issued as XML in the PINT AE format through an accredited service provider. Your deadline depends on turnover.
| Date | Who | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 July 2026 | Voluntary participants | Pilot phase — systems can be tested, penalties do not apply |
| 1 January 2027 | Turnover above AED 50 million | Mandatory, penalties apply |
| 1 July 2027 | All remaining VAT-registered persons | Mandatory, penalties apply |
| 1 October 2027 | Business-to-government transactions | Mandatory |
Once your phase starts, the penalties are: AED 5,000 per month for not having a compliant system or an appointed accredited service provider, AED 100 per invoice or credit note not issued in the required format capped at AED 5,000 per month per category, and AED 1,000 per day for failing to notify the FTA of a system failure. The practical work is not the software purchase — it is cleaning up how your invoices are structured and numbered so they will validate.
Source: Cabinet Decision No. 106 of 2025. More detail in our UAE e-invoicing 2026 guide.
Do related-party transactions and transfer pricing apply to us?
The arm’s-length principle applies to every UAE taxable person with related-party or connected-person transactions, regardless of size. What changes with size is only how much you must document and disclose.
| Requirement | Threshold |
|---|---|
| Transactions must be at arm’s length | No threshold — applies to everyone |
| Transfer Pricing Disclosure Form with the CT return | Aggregate related-party transactions above AED 40 million, and then each category above AED 4 million |
| Connected-person schedule | Aggregate above AED 500,000 per connected person |
| Master File and Local File | Revenue of AED 200 million or more in the period, or part of a group with consolidated revenue of AED 3.15 billion or more |
In practice, the transactions that catch owner-managed UAE groups are the ordinary ones: a management fee charged between two companies under the same shareholder, staff employed by one entity and working for another, an interest-free loan from the owner, or property used by the business but held personally. Each needs a defensible basis for its price. Reconstructing that basis years later, in front of an auditor or the FTA, is considerably harder than writing it down as it happens.
Source: Ministerial Decision No. 97 of 2023 and Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022, Articles 34 and 55.
What does audit-ready actually mean?
Audit-ready means your auditor can form an opinion from what you hand over, without asking you to rebuild anything. Mainland LLCs and most free zones require audited financial statements, and a Qualifying Free Zone Person must have them to keep the 0% rate. A year-end pack that passes first time normally contains:
- Trial balance agreeing to the general ledger, with prior-year comparatives
- Bank reconciliations for every account, every month, with the statements attached
- Fixed-asset register with additions, disposals and depreciation workings
- Aged receivables and payables agreeing to the control accounts
- Accruals, prepayments and end-of-service gratuity provision, each with a calculation behind it
- Related-party balances and transactions identified and separately scheduled
- Revenue cut-off evidence around the year-end date
- Copies of the VAT returns reconciled to the revenue in the accounts
The most common reason books get sent back is the last one: VAT returns that do not reconcile to the revenue reported in the financial statements. It is also the difference the FTA looks for first.
How long do UAE companies have to keep records?
Seven years. VAT legislation requires five years, but Corporate Tax under Article 56 of Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 requires records to be kept for seven years after the end of the tax period, so seven governs for anyone inside the Corporate Tax regime. The FTA can reassess within that window, which means the treatment you take this year has to still be defensible most of a decade later — by someone who may not be the person who made the decision.
How to choose an outsourced accounting provider
Price is the easiest thing to compare and the least informative. The questions that separate providers at this level:
- Who signs off the tax position, and is it written down before filing? If the answer is that the return is prepared from the books and submitted, nobody is deciding anything.
- What date does the month close, and what happens when it slips? A close with no fixed date is not a close.
- Is audit support inside the fee or billed at year-end? This is the most common source of an unexpected invoice.
- Who handles related-party documentation? Ask specifically. Many providers leave the disclosure blank and do not mention it.
- What is the plan for e-invoicing, and which phase applies to us? A provider who cannot answer this in August 2026 will not be ready in January 2027.
- Named accountant or a shared inbox? And what is the response time when you need something before a bank deadline.
- What happens to your data if you leave? Files and ledgers should leave with you, without a fee.
UAE filing deadlines at a glance
| Obligation | When |
|---|---|
| Corporate Tax return and payment | Within 9 months of the end of the tax period — 30 September 2026 for a December 2025 year-end |
| VAT return and payment | 28 days after the end of each tax period, monthly or quarterly |
| Corporate Tax registration | Required for all taxable persons — AED 10,000 penalty for late registration |
| Tax invoice issuance | Within 14 days of the date of supply |
| Record retention | 7 years after the end of the tax period |
Related reading: Corporate Tax return checklist · VAT return checklist · Free zone comparison · Bookkeeping plans from AED 599
This page is general information about UAE tax and accounting rules as at 4 August 2026, not advice on your specific circumstances. Thresholds and dates come from the Federal Decree-Law, Cabinet Decisions and Ministerial Decisions cited above. Talk to us, or to another qualified adviser, before acting on any of it.