VAT invoice requirements in the UAE

A VAT invoice in the UAE must show your TRN, the customer's details, an itemised list of what you supplied, and the VAT shown separately with its rate — currently 5%, with 5% as the usual rate for most services.

What goes on the document

On top of the universal fields — invoice number, dates, both parties, line items and total — the UAE expects:

• Your TRN (formatted like 100123456700003)
• The VAT rate applied to each line
• The VAT amount, shown separately from the net
• The total payable including VAT

The the UAE rule that catches people out

Your TRN must appear on the invoice, and invoices above a threshold have to show the VAT amount in dirhams even when the invoice itself is in another currency. Exports outside the GCC are generally zero-rated rather than exempt, which is a meaningful difference for input-tax recovery.

Rates

5%. Most service work sits at 5%. VAT has been 5% since introduction in 2018.

Rates change. Checked to mid-2026 and a starting point, not tax advice. The current source is the Federal Tax Authority — and if you are near a registration threshold, twenty minutes with an accountant beats a search engine.

When you have to register for VAT in the UAE

AED 375,000 of taxable supplies over the previous twelve months for mandatory registration, and AED 187,500 for voluntary registration. The voluntary band exists so a start-up spending heavily can recover input VAT before it is making sales.

Most systems test this on a rolling twelve months rather than your financial year — which is where the expensive mistakes happen.

Which VAT rate applies to what

No reduced band. Supplies are 5%, zero-rated (exports outside the GCC, international transport, certain education and healthcare, the first supply of residential property) or exempt (most local passenger transport, bare land, some financial services). Zero-rated lets you recover input VAT; exempt does not.

The dirham requirement

A tax invoice may be issued in any currency, but the VAT amount must also be shown in AED using the Central Bank exchange rate applying at the date of supply. Invoicing a European client in euros is fine; leaving the AED VAT figure off is not.

Simplified tax invoices

For supplies under AED 10,000, or where the customer is not VAT-registered, a simplified tax invoice with fewer fields is permitted. It still needs the words "tax invoice", your name, address and TRN, the date, a description and the total including the tax amount — but not the customer's details.

Tax on a discounted invoice

One that gets miscalculated constantly: when you show a discount on the invoice, VAT is charged on the discounted amount, not the list price. Bill AED 4,100, discount 5%, and the taxable value is AED 3,895 — not AED 4,100. At 5% that is AED 194.75 of VAT, not AED 205. Getting this backwards means you collect more tax than you owe and hand it over, out of your own margin — on every invoice you issue until someone notices.

Invoicing a customer outside the UAE

Exports of services to a recipient outside the UAE are typically zero-rated, provided the recipient has no place of establishment in the UAE and is outside the country when the service is performed.

Charging tax to a client in another country sets out the general shape; the first time it comes up it is worth an hour with an accountant.

Record keeping in the UAE

Five years generally, fifteen for records relating to real estate. Retention rules mean the document, not a row in a ledger.

Set your country once in EstimateBill and the tax is labelled correctly on every invoice after that — GST and GSTIN in India, VAT in the UK, Sales Tax and EIN in the US, across 58 countries.