UAE Corporate Tax return deadline: which date applies to your financial year, and what missing it costs

There is one rule and it has no sliding scale: the Tax Return must be filed and the Corporate Tax paid no later than nine months from the end of the relevant Tax Period, or by such other date as the Federal Tax Authority directs (Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022, Article 53(1) for the return and Article 48(1) for the payment). Everything else on this page follows from that one sentence. It is not tax advice; the Decree-Law, the Cabinet and Ministerial Decisions and the FTA guides control.

The deadline by financial year end

Nine months from the period end. Almost every UAE Tax Period ends on the last day of a month, and for those the due date is the last day of the ninth month after it: 31 December 2025 plus nine months lands in September, which has no 31st, so the date is 30 September 2026. That is the common case in the UAE. A period ending mid-month runs nine months to the corresponding day, so 15 March 2026 is due 15 December 2026.

The same date carries the payment. Filing on time and paying late is two separate failures with two separate penalties, set out below.

The three penalties that attach to the date

The amounts are in Cabinet Decision No. 75 of 2023 on the Administrative Penalties on Violations Related to the Application of the Corporate Tax Law, as amended by Cabinet Decision No. 10 of 2024. They are quoted here from that Decision's own table rather than from a summary of it.

Late return, violation 7. Failure of the Registrant to submit a Tax Return within the timeframe specified in the Corporate Tax Law: AED 500 for each month, or part thereof, for the first twelve months, then AED 1,000 for each month, or part thereof, from the thirteenth month onwards. The Decision adds that the penalty is imposed from the day following the expiry of the filing timeframe and on the same date monthly thereafter. "Or part thereof" is the phrase that matters: one day late is a full month. Late payment, violation 8. Failure of the Taxable Person to settle the Payable Tax: a monthly penalty of 14% per annum, for each month or part thereof, on the unsettled Payable Tax, from the day following the due date of payment and on the same date monthly thereafter. This runs on the tax, not on the penalty, so it scales with the size of the liability while violation 7 does not. Late registration. A fixed AED 10,000 (Cabinet Decision No. 10 of 2024, amending Cabinet Decision No. 75 of 2023). This one is settled before the return question arises: a Taxable Person that never registered cannot file.

What that adds up to on a real liability

Take the worked case in the computation workbook: a Resident trading company with Accounting Income of AED 520,000 that does not elect Small Business Relief, arriving at Taxable Income of AED 409,000 and Corporate Tax Payable of AED 3,060.

If it files and pays six months late, the late-return penalty is six months at AED 500, which is AED 3,000, and the late-payment penalty is 14% per annum on AED 3,060 for six months, which is about AED 214. The fixed monthly penalty is fourteen times the interest, and it is larger than the tax bill itself. That is the shape of this regime at small liabilities: the return matters more than the tax.

Now scale the liability to AED 900,000 of Corporate Tax Payable. Six months late is still AED 3,000 on violation 7, but violation 8 is now about AED 63,000. Above roughly AED 43,000 of unsettled tax the interest overtakes the monthly fixed penalty at the six-month mark. Which of the two penalties dominates depends entirely on the size of the liability, which is why both have to be read, not just the headline AED 500.

Small Business Relief does not remove the filing obligation

An eligible Resident Person with Revenue not above AED 3,000,000 may elect to be treated as having no Taxable Income for the period (Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022, Article 21; conditions in Ministerial Decision No. 73 of 2023). The Ministry of Finance announced on 7 August 2026 that Ministerial Decision No. 131 of 2026 extends the relief to Tax Periods ending on or before 31 December 2029.

Nil Taxable Income is not nil filing. The election is made in the Tax Return, so the return still has to be submitted by the nine-month date, and violation 7 still runs if it is not. A company that assumed the relief and filed nothing is in exactly the position this page describes.

The two dates people mix up

The registration deadline came from FTA Decision No. 3 of 2024 and was keyed to the month of licence issue, not to the financial year. The filing deadline is the nine-month rule above and is keyed to the period end. They are different rules, they fall on different dates, and they carry different penalties: AED 10,000 fixed for the first, AED 500 a month escalating for the second.

Where the arithmetic is done for you

The free UAE Corporate Tax calculator runs the Article 20(2) computation for one Tax Period in your browser and prints the filing date from the period end. Nothing leaves your browser.

The UAE Corporate Tax Computation Workbook ($29, /uae-corporate-tax/) does the same for a real engagement: accounting profit to Taxable Income to Corporate Tax Payable in the order Article 20(2) sets, the Small Business Relief and QFZP de minimis tests, the carry-forwards for next period, the filing date computed from the period end, and the article or decision cited on every line. Live formulas, no macros, no locked cells. Team and consultancy licences are $119 and $249; the consultancy licence covers client engagements, one client per copy of the file.

The method behind the computation, article by article, is in the companion guide: How UAE Corporate Tax is computed.

Sources

• Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 on the Taxation of Corporations and Businesses, Articles 21, 48(1) and 53(1).
• Cabinet Decision No. 75 of 2023 on the Administrative Penalties on Violations Related to the Application of the Corporate Tax Law, violations 7 and 8, as amended by Cabinet Decision No. 10 of 2024.
• Ministerial Decision No. 73 of 2023 on Small Business Relief; Ministry of Finance announcement of 7 August 2026 on Ministerial Decision No. 131 of 2026.
• FTA Decision No. 3 of 2024 on the registration timeline.

Last checked 26 September 2026.