7 Days Left: The Corporate Tax Penalty Waiver Closes 31 July 2026
If your business has a calendar financial year and registered late for UAE Corporate Tax, you have until 31 July 2026 to file your first return and have the AED 10,000 late-registration penalty waived. After that date, the waiver closes for good.
When UAE Corporate Tax rolled out, many businesses missed their registration deadline and were hit with a fixed AED 10,000 penalty, regardless of whether they owed any tax. The FTA's relief mechanism waives that penalty entirely if a business files its first return within seven months of the end of its first tax period — one month ahead of the standard nine-month deadline. If the penalty was already paid, it's credited back to the business's EmaraTax account automatically.
For the most common case — a calendar financial year running 1 January to 31 December 2025 — the seven-month window closes on 31 July 2026. Businesses with a different year-end have a different window, calculated the same way: seven months from the end of their first tax period.
Assuming the waiver is automatic just because you eventually registered — it isn't, you must actually file within the window. And confusing the seven-month waiver deadline with the standard nine-month filing deadline, assuming there's more time than there is.
For official guidance, see the Federal Tax Authority website.