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Dubai: With barely a month left before the first e-invoicing deadline, the Federal Tax Authority (FTA) is pushing businesses to stop treating the rollout as a future problem and start onboarding.
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The authority brought together accredited service providers (ASPs), companies and government entities at an awareness session this Tuesday. It covered the legal framework, onboarding through the Emara Tax platform, information on the implementation timelines and showed businesses how to connect to the system.
Who needs to comply?
Businesses with annual revenue of Dh50 million or more must appoint an ASP by 30 October and go live on 1 January 2027. Smaller businesses have until 31 March 2027 to appoint a provider and must start issuing e-invoices on 1 July 2027. Government entities share the March deadline, with implementation from 1 October 2027.
While speaking exclusively to Gulf News, FTA Director General Abdelaziz Mohammed Al Mulla said the conversations have moved on from explaining the rules to execution. “We are now at the transition phase,” he said. “Our focus is increasingly on helping businesses move forward, from understanding the requirements to actually preparing and onboarding.” The authority now has more than 50 accredited providers, with seven more awaiting approval.
He also noted that the authority has been flooded with many practical questions which he hopes these awareness events can debunk. “What exactly qualifies as an electronic invoice? How to choose the right accredited service provider, and what businesses need to do to complete the onboarding process,” we among the many questions they are trying to give answers to.
What if you miss deadline?
Smaller firms have more time, but Al Mulla said they need not wait. “The rollout is deliberately phased to give businesses time to prepare. They can appoint today if they are ready.”
Penalties are steep. Missing the ASP appointment deadline costs Dh5,000 for each month or part of a month of delay. Failing to issue and transmit an e-invoice on time costs Dh100 per invoice, capped at Dh5,000 a month. There is also a Dh1000 penalty on the issuer or recipient for failure to notify the authority in case of a system failure.
On free zones, he was direct. “As per law, all are required to register,” he said, adding that the FTA is working with free zone authorities and that no one is exempt from penalties.
Al Mulla pressed up on the fact that the new system is more than a compliance exercise. “The real benefit is that businesses move away from manual and unstructured processes towards structured digital information that can be processed automatically,” he said. “I would not look at it simply as another compliance requirement. It is part of the UAE’s wider initiative to move toward a more efficient, digitally enabled economy.”
What providers telling clients
On the other side of the workshop, accredited service providers (ASPs) were fielding the two questions most businesses have: how does this system work, and what does it cost?
Murtaza Furniturewala, co-founder of Marmin Technologies, described the ASP as the link in the chain. “These are appointed and authorised companies by the FTA to do the successful integration between you, the FTA and the buyer,” he said. Clients can use a web app or integrate existing accounting software, and invoices come back approved or rejected.
Speaking about how much would this cost a business he said, “It is not very cost intensive for small and medium-sized companies. If you are a company generating 500 to 2,000 invoices, we offer a good package of about DH2,500 to 3,000 per year.”
He also had a warning on VAT. “Your existing PDFs, your existing accounting systems will not hold true for your VAT compliance,” he said. “Only the invoices which are successfully generated over the e-invoicing network, as well as what you receive from your suppliers, will be considered.”
Vikas Panchal, General manager (MENA) for Tally Solutions said his firm already serves almost 65,000 UAE businesses, and said this was just another extension to the services they provide. “The ASP selection is integrated within the product itself,” he said. “They don’t have to look outside the product.” He added that Tally users would get “unlimited invoicing without any additional cost.”
Panchal fanned away some fears regarding penalties saying that failed uploads are flagged automatically on the system. “You’ll definitely get to see a report where you understand, I generated this many invoices, this many are successfully uploaded, this many are not, and what corrective action to take,” he said. Tally has also reached “more than 7,000 to 8,000” SMEs through awareness sessions with accountants and bookkeeping bodies.
As the various compliance deadlines near, officials urged companies to check providers against the Ministry of Finance’s accredited list and avoid unlisted firms.
