Your Corporate Tax Return Is Due on 30 September 2026

If your financial year ended on 31 December 2025, you have until 30 September 2026 to file your Corporate Tax return and pay what you owe. There is no extension, no grace period, and the penalty begins accruing the following day.

The Federal Tax Authority restated this on 2 September 2026, and it was unusually direct about who it covers: all taxable persons with a 31 December 2025 year end, expressly including those claiming Small Business Relief. Relief from tax is not relief from filing. If you are registered, a return is due.

This is the second annual filing cycle under the Corporate Tax regime, and it is where a meaningful number of businesses come unstuck. The first cycle carried a good deal of official patience and a penalty waiver. This one carries neither.

30 September 2026 is the deadline to file and the deadline to pay. These are separate obligations carrying separate penalties, and they are frequently confused. Filing a return on time while leaving the tax unpaid still triggers a charge, and it accrues until the balance is settled.

Who this applies to

The rule is nine months from the end of your tax period, set by Article 53 of Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022. A 31 December year end is the most common in the UAE, which is why 30 September is the date that matters to most businesses. If your year end falls elsewhere, count nine months forward from it.

It applies whether or not you have tax to pay. A dormant company files. A company below the AED 375,000 threshold files. A company electing Small Business Relief files a simplified return. The obligation attaches to registration, not to profit.

What it costs to miss the date

Two penalties run in parallel under Cabinet Decision No. 75 of 2023, and both begin the day after the deadline.

• Late filing, months 1 to 12: AED 500 per month, from the day after the deadline

• Late filing, month 13 onwards: AED 1,000 per month, continuing monthly

• Late payment: 14% per annum, from the day after the due date

• Inadequate records: AED 10,000 per violation

• Repeat records failure within 24 months: AED 20,000 per violation

Two points that are easy to misread. The monthly filing penalty applies to a month or part of a month, so being four days late costs the same as being four weeks late. And the schedule sets out no cap, so the charge continues to build for as long as the return is outstanding.

A worked example

Take a company with AED 500,000 of taxable income that files and pays five months late.

• Taxable income: AED 500,000

• Taxed at 0% on the first AED 375,000: AED 0

• Taxed at 9% on the remaining AED 125,000: AED 11,250

• Late filing penalty, five months at AED 500: AED 2,500

• Late payment penalty, 14% per annum over five months: AED 656

• Total penalties on a tax bill of AED 11,250: AED 3,156

The penalties come to more than a quarter of the tax itself. Let the same return run to thirteen months late and the filing penalty alone reaches AED 7,000, because the monthly charge doubles from the thirteenth month.

Small Business Relief now runs to 2029

Ministerial Decision No. 131, announced on 7 August 2026, extends Small Business Relief to tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2029. The previous cut off was 31 December 2026. Many published guides, and the Authority's own topic page, still show the older date.

The relief treats a business as having no taxable income for the period, provided revenue does not exceed AED 3 million in the current period and has not exceeded it in any previous one. Exceed the threshold once and the relief is lost permanently, not merely for that year.

Three conditions are regularly overlooked:

• It must be elected, in the return, for every period. The relief is not applied automatically and does not carry forward from last year's election.

• A simplified return is still due by 30 September 2026. Claiming relief does not remove the filing obligation, and the late filing penalty applies in full if it is missed.

• Qualifying Free Zone Persons cannot claim it, nor can members of a multinational group with consolidated revenue above AED 3.15 billion.

  
  

If your records are incomplete

File anyway. This is the single most useful thing to understand about the position you are in if the bookkeeping is behind.

File on the best information available by 30 September, then correct the figures afterwards through a voluntary disclosure. The arithmetic strongly favours it. A voluntary disclosure submitted before the Authority notifies you of an audit carries 1% per month on the tax difference. Wait until after that notification and a fixed 15% of the difference is added on top of the same monthly charge.

Not filing at all, by contrast, leaves the AED 500 monthly penalty running while the underlying problem remains, and it removes the initiative from your hands entirely.

Records must be retained for seven years after the end of the tax period. The Authority set out its minimum expectations on 2 September: transaction records for the period, an asset register including purchases and disposals, a record of liabilities, and a record of shares or ownership interests held at the period end.

A trap worth knowing about. The Authority's waiver of the AED 10,000 late registration penalty required the first return to be filed within seven months of the first tax period ending, not nine. For a 31 December 2025 period that date was 31 July 2026. If you registered late and were relying on the waiver, filing on 30 September no longer secures it.

What to do between now and the deadline

1. Confirm your tax period end and your registration status in EmaraTax. The deadline follows from the period end, and an unregistered business has a more urgent problem than this one.

2. Establish whether Small Business Relief applies before preparing full financial statements, since the answer changes the work required.

3. Reconcile your accounting profit to taxable income. Disallowable expenditure, exempt income, related party adjustments and interest limitation are where most errors arise.

4. Arrange the payment. Bank transfers to the Authority are not instantaneous, and a payment initiated on 30 September may not settle on 30 September.

5. File, even if imperfect. A return filed on time and corrected later costs materially less than one filed late.

   
   

Common questions

Can the 30 September 2026 deadline be extended?

No. The Federal Tax Authority restated the deadline on 2 September 2026 without qualification, and no extension or grace period has been announced for this cycle.

Do I need to file if my business made no profit?

Yes. Every registered taxable person must file a return for the tax period, regardless of whether any tax is payable. Dormant and loss making companies are not exempt from filing.

Does claiming Small Business Relief remove the filing requirement?

No. A simplified tax return is still due by the same deadline, and the relief must be elected within that return. The Authority made this point explicitly in its September 2026 announcement.

What is the penalty for filing late?

AED 500 for each month or part month during the first twelve months, rising to AED 1,000 per month from the thirteenth month onwards, accruing from the day after the deadline. Unpaid tax separately attracts 14% per annum, charged monthly.

What should I do if I discover an error after filing?

Submit a voluntary disclosure. Disclosed before the Authority notifies you of an audit, the charge is 1% per month on the tax difference. Disclosed afterwards, a fixed 15% of the difference is added.

About the author

Bill Anderson, FCCA is a Partner at Gulf Tax Accounting Group and Managing Partner at Business Improvement Group. He was previously Global CFO, Head of Finance and MI Operations, at the Royal Bank of Scotland corporate banking division, where he led global operations spanning over 2 billion pounds in profits and 103 billion pounds in total assets. He is a former board member of the Irish Business Council in Dubai and brings 25 years of experience across finance, strategy, audit, corporate governance and compliance.

Sources. Federal Tax Authority announcement, 2 September 2026. Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022, Articles 48, 53 and 56. Cabinet Decision No. 75 of 2023, penalty schedule items 7, 8, 10 and 11. Ministry of Finance announcement of Ministerial Decision No. 131, 7 August 2026. This article sets out the position as at 3 September 2026 and is general information rather than advice on your circumstances.