Before your first return

In Workspace › Settings, switch on Registered for VAT and choose Monthly or Quarterly — the period the FTA assigned you.
Enter the company's Tax registration number.
Make sure every invoice has a Place of supply and every line a VAT treatment.

The seven VAT treatments

Code	Treatment	Rate	Use it for
SR	Standard rated (5%)	5%	Ordinary taxable sales and purchases in the UAE
ZR	Zero rated	0%	Supplies the law zero-rates, such as certain education and healthcare. Reported in Box 4.
EX	Exempt	0%	Exempt supplies, such as residential rent and some financial services. Not a taxable supply.
OS	Out of scope	0%	Not a supply for VAT at all — wages, donations, fines
RC	Reverse charge (5%)	5%	Services (and goods customs never saw) bought from abroad: you account for the VAT yourself — self-assessed, never paid to the supplier
EXP	Export	0%	Goods and services exported out of the UAE — reported apart from domestic zero-rated supplies
IMP	Import (5%)	5%	Goods imported into the UAE through customs: self-assessed like reverse charge, declared in box 6

How VAT is recorded

VAT on a sale is credited to 2200 Output VAT (Payable); VAT on a purchase is debited to 1400 Input VAT (Recoverable).
The return reads every line that carries a VAT treatment. A line on an invoice or credit note is a supply; a line on a bill is an acquisition — whatever account it is coded to.
VAT is worked out on each line, then added up.
A bill, debit note or payment on Reverse charge or Import self-assesses: the supplier charged no VAT, so it is owed only the amount before VAT, and approving posts the 5% as both Input VAT (debit) and Output VAT (credit). See Purchases from abroad below.
A transport deposit's tax invoice (Transport setup › Emails › VAT on deposits: when the deposit is received) is in box 1 of the month the money arrived, like any sales invoice; the final invoice's Less: advance invoiced lines take the same off in its own month, so the two returns hold the job's VAT once. A credit note on an advance — given back, kept as credit, or a cancellation — takes its VAT off in the month it is dated.

Purchases from abroad: reverse charge and imports

A foreign supplier charges no UAE VAT. The law treats you as charging it to yourself and recovering it in the same return (Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017, Art. 48), so nothing is paid to anyone, but both halves must be declared: box 3 for reverse charge or box 6 for imports, and box 10.

Enter the supplier's bill as usual, at the amount they invoiced, and choose VAT 5% - Reverse charge (RC) — or VAT 5% - Import (IMP) for goods that came through customs — on its lines.
The summary shows VAT self-assessed (reverse charge) beside the VAT, and the Total leaves it out: the supplier is owed what they invoiced.
Approve it. The journal debits the expense, debits Input VAT and credits Output VAT by the 5%, and credits the supplier with the amount before VAT.

A payment made straight to a category on Receipts & Payments — a card payment for a foreign subscription, say — does the same when you choose Reverse charge or Import: the bank pays the amount before VAT and the VAT is self-assessed in the payment's own entry.

No self-invoice is needed (since 1 January 2026), but keep the supplier's invoice: attach it under Evidence on the bill.

A software subscription from Ireland

Bill from the supplier: AED 1,000.00, line coded to 6900 with Reverse charge (RC).
Approving posts: Dr 6900 1,000.00; Dr Input VAT 50.00; Cr Output VAT 50.00; Cr Accounts Payable 1,000.00.

The return shows 1,000.00 and 50.00 in box 3 and 50.00 in box 10, and the liability posts with Output VAT and Input VAT both emptied.

Purchases posted before self-assessment

Reverse-charge and import purchases posted before 5 October 2026 put the 5% on what the supplier is owed and never credited Output VAT. They are not changed — a posted entry never is. A return covering one lists it under Posted before self-assessment, warns, and refuses to post its liability until each one is corrected.

Open each listed bill (its number is a link). If it has been paid, undo the payment's allocation first.
Void it, with a reason.
Enter it again on the same code — it now self-assesses and owes the supplier the amount before VAT. Apply the payment to it.
For a listed payment, open it on Receipts & Payments and Edit it: saved again, it self-assesses.
Recompute the return.

Prepare a return

Open Tax › VAT Return. Under A period, give it a label (for example 2026-Q1) and check From and To. They default to the last full calendar quarter.
Press Preview. It reads the ledger and writes nothing, so you can check the figures as often as you like.
Read any warnings above the form: they are what the arithmetic cannot say, such as purchases posted before self-assessment.
When the figures are right, press Compute and save. This saves a draft return and freezes the evidence behind every box.
Open a box to see the entries behind it.
Press Discard preview to throw a preview away.

Download the return

Open a computed return.
Press Download and choose PDF (on your letterhead) or Excel.

The file carries the stored boxes in the form's three parts — outputs (1a–8), inputs (9–11) and the net due (12–14) — with the amount, VAT and adjustment for each, your TRN, the period, the due date and the status. Boxes 2 and 6 say they are estimates, because the FTA fills them in, and any warning prints under the form.

The FTA Audit File

The FTA Audit File (FAF) is the file the FTA may ask for during a VAT audit: your company's details, every purchase and supply behind the VAT return, and the whole general ledger for the period, laid out as the FTA's Requirements Document for Tax Accounting Software (Appendix 5) sets it out.

On VAT Return, press FTA Audit File. The dates are the return you are looking at, or the last ended quarter; change From and To for any period up to a year.
If a tax agency files for you, open Filed through a tax agency? and type the Tax agency name, TAN, Tax agent name and TAAN. They are typed each time and not kept.
Press Check. You see how many purchase, supply and ledger lines the file holds, and whether its totals agree with Form 201 for the same dates.
Press Download the FAF (CSV) — the file to send to the FTA. Excel review copy is the same rows with headings, for your own checking.

Table in the file	What it holds
Company information	Your name in English and Arabic, your TRN, the tax agency and agent if typed, the period, the date made, the software and the file's version (FAFv1.0.0)
Purchase listing	Every line of a bill or purchase that feeds box 9 or box 10 of the return: the supplier and its TRN, date, number, line, description, the value and VAT in dirhams, the tax code (SR or RC), and the foreign currency where the bill was in one
Supply listing	Every line of an invoice or sale that feeds boxes 1a–1g, 4 or 5: the customer and its TRN, date, number, line, description, value and VAT, the tax code (SR, ZR or EX), the destination country of a zero-rated export, and the foreign currency
General ledger	Every posted line in the period: date, account, description, name, the entry it belongs to, its source document and type, debit, credit and the account's running balance

The supply listing's totals equal boxes 1a–1g, 4 and 5 of Form 201 for the same dates, and the purchase listing's equal boxes 9 and 10, because both are made from the very lines the return is computed from. A line coded Out of scope, or with no tax code at all, is in no box: it appears in the General Ledger table only, and Check says how many there are.

The boxes, as the FTA portal lays them out

Box	What it holds
1a–1g	Standard-rated supplies by emirate, in the form's order: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah
2	Tax refunds provided to tourists — the portal fills this; ours is a cross-check
3	Supplies subject to the reverse charge
4	Zero-rated supplies (no VAT column)
5	Exempt supplies (no VAT column)
6	Goods imported into the UAE — the portal fills this; ours is a cross-check
7	Adjustments to goods imported
8	Total output
9	Standard-rated expenses
10	Supplies subject to the reverse charge (input side)
11	Total input
12–14	Total due tax, total recoverable tax, and the payable or refundable amount

File, pay and amend

Filing

When you have submitted the return on the FTA portal, press File this return.
Enter the FTA acknowledgement reference (optional) and confirm.

Posting the liability

Press Post the liability and, if you want, set the Entry date (optional).
This moves the VAT for the period into the amount payable to (or recoverable from) the FTA, ready to be paid.
Record the payment to the FTA in Receipts & Payments when it leaves the bank.

Amending

On a filed return, press Amend and say Why it is being amended.
A new return is created that supersedes the filed one. Both are kept, so you can show what was filed and what it should have been.
Use Open the amendment and Open the filed return to move between them.

Status	Meaning
Draft	Computed and saved; can still be discarded
Ready	Prepared for filing
Filed	Submitted; figures frozen
Amended	Replaced by a later amendment
Superseded	An earlier version kept for the record

Tax Registration Numbers

A UAE TRN is 15 digits. Spaces, dashes, dots and a leading "TRN" are fine, and are tidied away when it is saved.
The company's TRN (Workspace › Settings) and a contact's are checked when they are typed or changed. A contact's number with letters in it, or one for a contact whose address is outside the UAE, is a foreign tax number and is not checked.
A number saved before these checks is never a reason to refuse saving anything else. It shows a warning on the contact, in Settings, and under Tax Registration Numbers to check on VAT Return, until somebody corrects it.

Not registered yet: the registration threshold

A company not registered for VAT sees how close it is to the registration thresholds — on VAT Return always, and on the dashboard once it reaches the first one.

Taxable supplies over the past 12 months	What it means
Below AED 187,500	Nothing to do yet.
From AED 187,500	The company can register voluntarily.
Above AED 375,000	Registration is required. Apply on the FTA's EmaraTax portal within 30 days of the day the total went above it.

It counts invoices less credit notes on standard-rated, zero-rated and export codes, income taken straight to a category on Receipts & Payments, and services and goods imported (reverse charge and import codes). Sales with no VAT code are counted as taxable, because a company that is not registered usually codes nothing; the card says how much of the total that is. Exempt and out-of-scope sales, and sales coded to a fixed asset account, are left out.

VAT and the VAT Return