Corporate Tax

Year-End Tax Planning Checklist for UAE Businesses

2025-11-04 · 4 min read · By Aureus Worldwide

Year-end is the most valuable point in the financial calendar for getting your tax position right. Once the year closes, many decisions are locked in, but in the weeks before, you can review reliefs, tidy documentation and make legitimate elections that affect both Corporate Tax and VAT. With CT applying at 0% up to AED 375,000 and 9% above, and VAT at 5%, a structured year-end review pays for itself. This checklist sets out what to look at before you close the books.

It is important to be clear about what legitimate tax planning is and is not. Planning means making sure you claim the reliefs you are genuinely entitled to, that all your real deductible costs are captured, and that your documentation supports every position. It does not mean inventing expenses, disguising transactions or making artificial arrangements whose only purpose is to reduce tax, those carry real risk under the law's anti-avoidance provisions. Everything in this checklist is about being well prepared and well documented, not about avoidance.

Step 1: review your Corporate Tax position

Start with a forecast of where the year is heading:

1. Estimate taxable income for the period.
2. Identify which rate bands apply.
3. Check eligibility for Small Business Relief.
4. Confirm whether losses are available to carry forward.
5. Note any irrevocable elections you may want to make.

Knowing your likely position lets you act while there is still time to act. Confirm any planning decisions with the FTA or your adviser.

Step 2: capture every legitimate deduction

Make sure your accounts reflect all genuine, deductible business costs:

• Accrue expenses incurred but not yet invoiced
• Record depreciation and amortisation
• Review provisions for accuracy
• Ensure prepayments are correctly split

Missing genuine costs overstates profit and tax, but never inflate or fabricate expenses. A common year-end oversight is failing to accrue for costs that relate to the period but have not yet been invoiced, such as professional fees, bonuses or utilities. These are legitimate deductions if they genuinely relate to the year, and capturing them gives a truer picture of profit. The discipline is simple: recognise real costs in the period they belong to, supported by evidence, and resist the temptation to do anything more aggressive than that.

Step 3: review reliefs and losses

Reliefs are only useful if you plan for them:

Our guide to Corporate Tax losses explains how loss relief works.

Step 4: tidy your transfer pricing

If you transact with related parties, the arm's length principle applies year-round. Before close:

• List all related-party transactions
• Confirm pricing is supportable
• Check whether disclosure thresholds are met
• Refresh documentation where needed

Our guide to transfer pricing for SMEs explains proportionate documentation.

Step 5: run a VAT health check

Year-end is a natural point to review VAT:

• Reconcile VAT control accounts to filed returns
• Check for missed reverse-charge entries
• Confirm input tax recovery is correct
• Identify any voluntary disclosures needed

Finding a VAT error at year-end and correcting it proactively is almost always cheaper than waiting for the FTA to find it.

A formal review can help, see our VAT health check guide.

Step 6: confirm documentation is complete

Tax positions are only as strong as their evidence. Before close, ensure you hold:

• Valid tax invoices for input VAT claims
• Contracts and support for material transactions
• Workings for any reliefs claimed
• Board approvals for significant decisions

Step 7: plan cash flow for tax payments

Tax planning is also cash planning. Map out:

1. When your CT payment falls due.
2. Upcoming VAT payments.
3. Any provisions to set aside.
4. The impact on working capital.

Our year-end closing guide covers how to close cleanly.

A final point on timing: the value of year-end planning collapses the longer you leave it. Most of the useful decisions, accruing genuine costs, confirming relief eligibility, refreshing documentation, making considered elections, depend on acting before the year actually closes. Once the period has ended, your options narrow to simply reporting what happened. Giving yourself a few weeks of runway before year end, rather than turning to tax only when the return is due, is what separates genuine planning from after-the-fact compliance.

Keep the rules current

Reliefs, thresholds and elections can change, and year-end planning should always be legitimate and well documented, never aimed at avoidance. Confirm the current position with the relevant authority before acting.

How Aureus Worldwide helps

Aureus Worldwide runs structured year-end reviews for UAE businesses, identifying legitimate reliefs, tidying documentation and aligning your Corporate Tax and VAT positions before the books close. Our tax team and CFO advisory team help you plan cash flow for tax payments and make sound elections. To plan your year-end with confidence, contact our advisors.

Talk to our chartered accountants →