UAE Corporate Tax Calculator 2026
Corporate Tax Computation
UAE Corporate Tax | Financial Year 2026 | www.fame.ae
Client & Tax Period
Computation of CT Liability
Summary
History
This free UAE Corporate Tax Calculator tells you what your business owes for the 2026 tax year in about a minute. Enter your net profit, adjust for exempt income and disallowed expenses, apply any loss relief and foreign tax credit, and the tool returns your taxable income, net taxable income, corporate tax, and final payable amount, ready to download as a PDF or CSV.
What you will learn on this page:
- How UAE Corporate Tax is calculated, step by step, using the same method the Federal Tax Authority expects.
- Which income is exempt, and which expenses are you not allowed to deduct?
- How the 0% and 9% rates work, and how loss relief and foreign tax credit lower the bill.
- A full worked example you can copy with your own figures.
- Straight answers to the questions UAE businesses ask most about corporate tax.
Built and reviewed by the corporate tax team at FAME Advisory, a UAE advisory firm led by Nirav Shah. Last updated July 2026.
UAE Corporate Tax Calculator
The calculator does the arithmetic that trips most people up. You give it the numbers from your financial statements, and it walks you through every stage of a proper corporate tax computation, from accounting profit down to the final amount payable. Nothing is assumed on your behalf, and nothing is buried in a formula you cannot see.
Every figure it produces is based on the corporate tax rules in force in the UAE right now: a 0% rate on the first AED 375,000 of taxable income, 9% on the rest, a 75% cap on loss relief, a foreign tax credit set at the lower of the tax you paid abroad and the UAE tax on that income, and the Article 18 Qualifying Free Zone Person treatment for Free Zone companies. When those rules change, the tool changes with them, so you are never working from a figure that quietly went out of date.
You get more than a single number. The calculator generates a complete computation summary that mirrors the layout of a tax working paper, so you can see exactly how each adjustment moved the result. Save it, export it to PDF for your records, or download it as CSV to drop into your own spreadsheet.
The real point of the tool is confidence. When you file a return, or brief a client, or plan next quarter’s cash, you want to know the number is right and that you can show how you reached it. Because every line in the summary traces back to a figure you entered, a result that looks off can be followed back to its input and corrected in seconds. That is what separates a calculator you trust from one you second-guess.
What Is UAE Corporate Tax?
UAE Corporate Tax is a federal tax on the profit a business earns. It starts from the net profit in your financial statements, adjusts that figure for a short list of specific items, and applies a rate of either 0% or 9%. Most companies in the country now fall within its scope, which is why understanding the basics is no longer optional for anyone running a business here.
Overview of UAE Corporate Tax
The tax was introduced by Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 and applies to financial years starting on or after 1 June 2023. A business with a calendar-year end was first taxed in the 2024 year, with the return due by 30 September 2025. It is administered by the Federal Tax Authority (FTA) through the EmaraTax portal, and the return is filed within nine months of the end of your tax period.
For most owners, the practical change is smaller than it sounds. You already prepare financial statements, and corporate tax simply asks you to take that profit, make a defined set of adjustments, and apply a low rate. There is no separate set of tax books to keep and no need to reinvent your accounting. The work sits in getting the adjustments right, which is exactly where a structured calculator earns its place.
It also helps to see the rate in context. At 9%, the UAE headline rate is less than half the OECD average of roughly 23.5%, and the first slice of every company’s profit is taxed at nothing at all. The system was designed to bring the country in line with international standards while keeping it one of the most competitive places in the world to run a business. Knowing that tends to change the conversation from dread to planning.
Who Needs to Pay Corporate Tax?
Corporate tax reaches most businesses that operate through a UAE licence:
- Mainland companies and other UAE-incorporated entities are taxed on their profit.
- Free Zone companies, which remain within scope even when part of their income is taxed at 0%.
- Non-resident businesses with a permanent establishment or UAE-sourced income.
- Individuals running a licensed business where annual turnover passes AED 1 million.
Registration is a separate duty from payment. Even a loss-making or 0%-rated business generally has to register with the FTA and file a return, and missing the registration deadline carries its own fixed penalty regardless of whether any tax is due. Salary, personal investment income, and property held in your own name sit outside corporate tax altogether.
A few bodies are outside the system, such as government entities and certain qualifying investment funds and public-benefit organisations, but many of these still face registration or filing duties. For an ordinary trading company, the safest assumption is simple: you must register, file, and calculate your position every year, whether or not any tax turns out to be payable. Working the number out early, rather than in the final weeks before the deadline, leaves room to gather evidence for your exemptions and to plan the cash.
Corporate Tax Rates in the UAE
There are two headline rates, plus a special position for qualifying Free Zone income.
| Taxable income band | Rate | Who does it apply to |
|---|---|---|
| Up to AED 375,000 | 0% | All taxable persons (mainland and free zone) |
| Above AED 375,000 | 9% | The portion of taxable income over the threshold |
| Qualifying income | 0% | Qualifying Free Zone Persons who meet all conditions |
| Non-qualifying income | 9% | Free Zone income that falls outside the qualifying rules |
A Qualifying Free Zone Person can keep the 0% rate on qualifying income, but only while it meets every condition for that status. Income that falls outside those rules is taxed at 9%. The calculator handles this for you: select Free Zone Company and it asks the Article 18 question directly, then taxes qualifying income at 0% and any non-qualifying income at 9%, so both mainland and Free Zone users get an accurate figure rather than a rough guess.
The two-tier design deliberately rewards smaller businesses. A company with AED 375,000 of taxable income or less pays nothing, and one earning just above the line pays 9% only on the slice over it. This is why the exact taxable-income figure matters so much. A modest change in a single adjustment can move you across the threshold or shift how much of your profit sits in the 9% band, and that is precisely the kind of detail the calculator keeps accurate for you.
How to Use This Corporate Tax Calculator
The tool follows the same order as a tax accountant would. Work down the fields in sequence, and the summary updates as you type, so you are never left wondering what a change did to the result.
Step 1: Enter Client Information
Start with the details that label the computation:
- Client Name: the business the calculation is for. It appears in the PDF and CSV.
- Legal Type: mainland or Free Zone company. Selecting Free Zone Company opens one more question that decides how your tax is calculated.
- QFZP question: Free Zone companies are asked whether they meet all the conditions under Article 18 of the Corporate Tax Law to be a Qualifying Free Zone Person. Answer Yes and qualifying income is taxed at 0%, with any non-qualifying income taxed at 9% and no AED 375,000 relief. Answer No and the calculator proceeds with the standard computation.
- Tax Period: the financial year you are calculating, chosen from a drop-down list, for example, 1 Jan 2026 to 31 Dec 2026.
The name and the period do not change the maths, but they make the output usable; the Legal Type and the QFZP answer do, so set those first. A saved computation labelled with the client and the period is something you can find again, hand over, and trust months later when the detail has faded from memory. If you manage several entities, this is what stops one calculation from being mistaken for another.
Step 2: Enter Net Profit
Enter the net profit or loss shown in your financial statements, prepared under IFRS or IFRS for SMEs. This is the single most important number because every later adjustment builds on it. A loss can be entered too, and the calculator carries it through correctly rather than treating it as zero.
Use the final profit figure after all your normal accounting entries, not a rough management estimate. If your accounts are still in draft, the calculator is ideal for a provisional view: save it now, then reopen and update the number once the statements are signed off. That way, your early planning and your final filing both come from the same clear method.
Step 3: Deduct Exempt Income
Some income sits inside your accounting profit but is not taxed. You remove it here so you are not taxed on money that the law has already exempted. The calculator has fields for:
- Dividend income: dividends from UAE companies are exempt, and qualifying foreign dividends are exempt under the participation exemption.
- Capital gains: gains on qualifying shareholdings can be exempt where the participation conditions are met.
- Exempt gains: gains excluded under the relevant ministerial rules, such as certain restructuring or holding situations.
- Other excluded income: any further amount that qualifies for exemption in your case.
Exempt income is where careful businesses save the most and where rushed ones lose out. Dividends between UAE companies, for example, are exempt with no minimum holding, while foreign dividends and share gains depend on conditions such as a 5% stake and a 12-month holding period. Enter the amounts you are confident qualify, and treat anything borderline as a question for your adviser rather than a guess in the box. Getting this step right is often worth far more than any amount of haggling over small expenses.
Step 4: Add Disallowed Expenses
The mirror image of exempt income. Certain costs reduce your accounting profit but are not deductible for tax, so you add them back. The calculator includes a field for each of the items below.
Donations:
Donations only reduce your tax when they go to a body the UAE has approved for the purpose. Amounts given to any other recipient are added back. Keep the approval status of each recipient on file, because that record is what turns a donation into a deduction if the return is ever reviewed.
Administrative Penalties:
Fines and penalties, including tax and regulatory penalties, are never deductible. The system is not designed to share the cost of a penalty with the taxpayer. That includes late-filing and late-payment penalties, which is one more reason to calculate and file on time.
VAT Paid:
Recoverable input VAT is not a business expense, so any VAT that has been claimed back or is recoverable does not belong in your tax-deductible costs. Only genuinely non-recoverable VAT that has been carried as a cost may stay in your deductible expenses.
Bribes:
Illicit payments such as bribes and kickbacks are disallowed in full. This field exists so a proper computation captures them rather than quietly leaving them in profit. Facilitation payments fall in the same category, regardless of local practice in other markets.
Entertainment Expenses:
Client and business entertainment is only partly deductible. The portion that is not allowed is added back here, so the taxable figure reflects the restriction. As a working rule of thumb, expect only around half of qualifying business entertainment to be deductible, with the balance added back.
Interest Expenses:
Interest is deductible only within the limits set by the corporate tax rules. Any interest above those limits is added back so it does not understate the tax due. Groups with significant financing should pay particular attention here, because this is where the largest single adjustment often arises.
Prior Period Adjustments:
Items that belong to an earlier year, or corrections booked in the current accounts, are adjusted here so each period carries its own tax result. Keeping periods clean also makes your year-on-year comparisons meaningful rather than distorted by one-off catch-ups.
These fields match the calculator one for one. Fill in only the ones that apply to you and leave the rest at zero. The aim of the add-backs is not to inflate your tax, but to reflect the rules honestly, because a return that leaves non-deductible costs sitting in profit is exactly the kind of thing a review tends to find.
Understanding Taxable Income
Taxable income is the figure to which the tax rate is actually applied. It is not your revenue, and it is not your accounting profit. It is your profit after the exemptions and add-backs above, and it is the number every rate, cap, and credit key off. Understanding it is the difference between a figure you can defend and one you are simply hoping is close.
How Taxable Income Is Calculated
The formula is short, and the calculator runs it for you every time you change a number:
Taxable Income = Net Profit − Exempt Income + Disallowed Expenses
In practice, almost all of the effort goes into the two middle lines. Exemptions pull genuine but tax-free income out of the base, and add-backs put non-deductible costs back in. Everything else is straightforward once those two are settled.
Get this figure right, and the rest of the computation is mechanical. Get it wrong, usually by missing an exemption or an add-back, and every number after it is wrong too. That is the main reason to let a tool handle the arithmetic: it keeps both lists in front of you, totals them, and shows the taxable income the instant you finish, so you can watch how each entry shifts the result instead of waiting for a final tally and hoping it balances.
Loss Set-Off Rules
Losses are one of the most valuable things a young or cyclical business owns, and the rules let you carry them forward and put them to work against future profits. The only real skill is using them within the limits the law sets, which is a piece of arithmetic the calculator handles for you.
What Is Tax Loss Relief?
If your business made a loss in an earlier year, you do not simply lose it. You can carry that loss forward to reduce taxable profit in a later year. This is tax loss relief, and it prevents a business from being taxed heavily in a good year that follows a bad one.
It matters most to startups, which often run losses in their early years before turning profitable. Those early losses become a genuine asset on the tax side: they reduce the tax due once the business finds its feet, smoothing what could otherwise be a harsh first tax bill. Treated properly, a loss is not just a bad memory; it is money that the tax system will let you recover against future success.
75% Loss Utilisation Limit
There is a ceiling. In any year, carried-forward losses can offset no more than 75% of that year’s taxable income. So even a company with large past losses still pays tax on at least a quarter of a profitable year. The remaining losses are not lost; they stay available for future years.
The logic is that a consistently profitable business should always contribute something, even while it works through old losses. Because the unused portion carries forward, the full loss can still be relieved over time, just spread across more years. Deciding how much to use in a given year is a small but real planning lever, and the calculator lets you test different amounts on the spot to see the effect on the final bill.
How the Calculator Applies the Limit
You enter the loss you want to set off, and the calculator checks it against the 75% cap. It shows the maximum allowable amount for your figures and flags the entry if you try to use more than the rules allow, so your computation stays within the limit without you having to work out the percentage by hand.
You stay in control of the figure, but you never have to trust your own mental maths on the cap. The ceiling sits right next to the field, and the warning appears the moment an entry goes over it, so a genuine slip is caught on screen rather than in a return you have already filed.
Corporate Tax Rates Applied
Once you have your net taxable income, applying the rates is the simplest part of the whole exercise, provided you apply them the way the law intends. The errors that happen here are not complicated, but they are expensive, so it is worth being precise about how the two bands work.
Tax on First AED 375,000
The first AED 375,000 of taxable income is taxed at 0%. This band gives smaller businesses real breathing room, and it applies to everyone, so every taxpayer benefits from it before the 9% rate starts.
It is worth stressing that this band belongs to every taxpayer, not just small ones. Whether your taxable income is AED 400,000 or AED 40 million, the first AED 375,000 is always taxed at nothing. The cleanest way to think about it is as a fixed relief that comes off the top before the 9% rate touches a single dirham.
Tax Above AED 375,000
Only the income above AED 375,000 is taxed at 9%. A company with AED 800,000 of taxable income, for example, pays 9% on AED 425,000, which is AED 38,250. The threshold is not a cliff: you are never taxed on the first AED 375,000, whatever your total.
This is also why splitting a business into two companies to double the threshold does not work. The authorities can treat an artificial split as a single arrangement and tax it accordingly. The honest and durable way to reduce the 9% burden is to get the earlier steps right, through legitimate exemptions, allowable deductions, and loss relief, all of which the calculator already captures in the correct order.
Custom Tax Rate Options
The calculator sets the standard 0% and 9% rates by default, but both are configurable, which suits anyone who wants to stress-test a scenario before committing to it. Free Zone users get more than a rate field: answering Yes to the QFZP question switches the tool into a dedicated mode that taxes qualifying income at 0% and any non-qualifying income at 9%, with no AED 375,000 relief on the non-qualifying slice.
Being able to set the rate also makes the tool genuinely useful in planning conversations. You can put qualifying and non-qualifying Free Zone income side by side, or show a client what a change in their circumstances would mean for the bill, all without editing a single spreadsheet formula. Change the rate or the QFZP answer and the entire computation recalculates instantly.
Foreign Tax Credit
If your business only earns in the UAE, you can skip this section. If any of your income has been taxed in another country, the foreign tax credit is how you avoid paying for the same profit twice, and it is worth understanding before you assume anything about your final number.
What Is Foreign Tax Credit?
If your UAE company has already paid tax abroad on income that is also taxed here, a foreign tax credit reduces your UAE bill by the tax paid overseas. It exists to stop the same income being taxed twice.
Cross-border income is increasingly common for UAE businesses, from consultancy fees earned abroad to returns on overseas operations. Where another country has already taxed that income, the credit recognises the tax you have paid and lowers your UAE liability by a matching amount, so the total you hand to both governments is fair rather than duplicated. For a regional hub economy, this is a core part of keeping business competitive.
Lower-of Rule
The credit is not unlimited. It is capped at the lower of two amounts:
- the foreign tax actually paid, and
- the UAE corporate tax payable on that same income.
So if you paid more tax abroad than the UAE would charge, you can only claim up to the UAE amount. The cap protects the UAE tax base while still relieving genuine double taxation: the UAE will credit foreign tax, but only up to what it would have charged on that income itself. Any excess foreign tax is not refunded here, which is a useful thing to know before you assume a large overseas bill will wipe out your UAE position. The calculator applies the lower-of test automatically and shows the exact credit it allows, so you never overstate the claim.
Final Corporate Tax Liability
Once every input is in, the calculator brings the whole computation together and presents each stage on one screen:
- Taxable income after exemptions and add-backs.
- Net taxable income after loss relief.
- Corporate tax from the 0% and 9% bands.
- Foreign tax credit under the lower-of rule.
- Final payable tax, the amount you would actually owe.
Seeing the whole chain in one view is what turns a calculation into something you can act on with confidence. You are not left holding a single figure and a leap of faith; you can point to each stage and say why it is what it is, which is exactly the position you want to be in before you file or advise.
That transparency is practical as well as reassuring. When a client questions a number, or an auditor asks how you arrived at it, the summary is your answer. Export it, attach it to your working papers, and the reasoning travels with the result instead of living only in your head.
Features of This UAE Corporate Tax Calculator
Automatic Tax Computation
Every field recalculates the result the moment you change it. There are no buttons to press and no formulas to maintain. That also means you can experiment freely: nudge an add-back, adjust a loss, change the rate, and watch the final figure respond, which makes the tool as good for planning as it is for a one-off calculation.
Summary Dashboard
A clear panel shows the full computation from net profit to final tax, so the whole picture is in front of you at once. Nothing is hidden behind an extra click. The layout follows the order of a proper computation, so reading it from top to bottom is the same as reading the logic of your tax position.
Save Multiple Calculations
Working across several companies or scenarios? Save each one and come back to it without starting over. This is built for advisers and finance teams juggling more than one entity, and for owners comparing this year with last, or a cautious scenario against an optimistic one.
Export PDF Report
Download a clean, branded PDF of the computation for your files or to share. The report carries the FAME Advisory logo and contact details, and it is designed to look like a document you would be comfortable sending to a client, not a screenshot. Because only the report is exported, the working controls never end up in your records.
Download CSV
Export the figures as CSV to drop straight into Excel or your accounting workpapers. From there you can slot them into a larger model, reconcile them against your ledger, or keep a lightweight audit trail, all without retyping a single number.
Calculation History
Your saved computations are kept in a history list, so you can reload, review, or re-export a past calculation whenever you need it. Nothing you save is lost between visits on the same device, so the tool doubles as a simple, private record of the positions you have worked through.
Example Corporate Tax Calculation
Here is a realistic example, worked exactly the way the calculator does it. Suppose a company reports AED 1,200,000 of net profit, receives AED 150,000 of exempt dividends, has AED 75,000 of disallowed expenses, sets off AED 300,000 of prior losses, and has paid AED 10,000 of tax abroad.
| Particulars | Amount (AED) |
|---|---|
| Net profit as per financials | 1,200,000 |
| Less: Exempt income (dividends) | (150,000) |
| Add: Disallowed expenses (penalties, entertainment, donations) | 75,000 |
| Taxable income | 1,125,000 |
| Less: Loss set-off (within the 75% cap of 843,750) | (300,000) |
| Net taxable income | 825,000 |
| Tax on first AED 375,000 at 0% | 0 |
| Tax on AED 450,000 at 9% | 40,500 |
| Corporate tax liability | 40,500 |
| Less: Foreign tax credit (lower of AED 10,000 and AED 40,500) | (10,000) |
| Final corporate tax payable | 30,500 |
The company ends up with a final corporate tax bill of AED 30,500. Notice how much the exempt income, the loss relief, and the foreign tax credit moved the number. Skip any one of them and you would overpay. Swap in your own figures and the calculator produces your version of this table in seconds.
Common Mistakes When Calculating Corporate Tax
The rules themselves are not the hard part. Most errors come from small oversights in the arithmetic, and every one of them is avoidable. Here are the five that come up most, and how the calculator guards against each.
Forgetting Exempt Income
Leaving exempt dividends or qualifying gains inside taxable profit is one of the most common and most expensive errors. It inflates the tax base and the bill. The calculator gives exempt income its own step so it is not overlooked, and a quick habit helps too: list every material receipt for the year and ask, one by one, whether it is genuinely taxable.
Missing Disallowed Expenses
The reverse mistake understates tax. Penalties, non-deductible interest, and the restricted part of entertainment all have to be added back. Omit them and the figure is wrong, which is a problem if the FTA reviews the return. A quick scan of your expense ledger for fines, penalties, and entertainment before you file is usually enough to catch them.
Incorrect Loss Utilisation
Applying more than 75% of taxable income in losses, or setting off losses a business is not entitled to, produces a figure the rules do not support. The built-in cap check keeps loss relief within the limit and shows you the ceiling as you go, so the mistake is hard to make in the first place.
Ignoring Foreign Tax Credits
Businesses that paid tax abroad sometimes forget to claim the credit and simply pay twice. Others claim more than the lower-of rule allows. Both are avoidable when the credit is calculated for you. Keep the foreign tax receipts on file, because they are the evidence that supports the credit if it is ever questioned.
Applying the Wrong Tax Rate
Taxing the whole profit at 9%, or assuming Free Zone status makes all income tax-free, are frequent slips. The correct treatment applies 0% to the first AED 375,000 and 9% above it, with qualifying Free Zone income handled on its own terms. When in doubt, apply the standard bands and confirm any Free Zone 0% treatment separately, rather than the other way round.ome from small oversights in the arithmetic, and every one of them is avoidable. Here are the five that come up most, and how the calculator guards against each.
Benefits of Using an Online Corporate Tax Calculator
- Saves time: a full computation in minutes instead of an afternoon in a spreadsheet.
- Reduces manual errors: the arithmetic and the caps are handled for you.
- Supports tax planning: model different scenarios before you commit to anything.
- Instant calculations: results update the moment a number changes.
- Downloadable reports: PDF and CSV output for files, clients, and auditors.
- Easy record keeping: saved history keeps every computation in one place.
Who Can Use This Calculator?
The tool is built for anyone who needs a fast, accurate view of a corporate tax position:
- SMEs working out what they owe for the year.
- Startups planning cash flow around a first tax bill.
- Mainland companies of every size.
- Free Zone companies modelling qualifying and non-qualifying income.
- Accountants preparing computations for clients.
- Tax consultants running quick checks and scenarios.
- CFOs reviewing the numbers before sign-off.
- Finance managers handling compliance in-house.
Frequently Asked Questions
You start with your accounting net profit, remove exempt income such as qualifying dividends, add back disallowed expenses such as penalties, apply any loss relief, and then apply the rate: 0% on the first AED 375,000 and 9% above it. A foreign tax credit can reduce the final amount.
Taxable income is your profit after the tax adjustments. It equals net profit minus exempt income plus disallowed expenses. It is the figure the corporate tax rate is applied to, not your total revenue.
Common exemptions include qualifying dividends, gains on qualifying shareholdings under the participation exemption, and certain other amounts the law excludes. Exempt income is removed before the rate is applied.
Dividends from UAE companies are exempt from corporate tax. Dividends from foreign companies are also exempt when they meet the participation exemption conditions, such as the ownership and holding-period tests.
Yes. Losses can be carried forward and used against future taxable income, but the offset in any year is capped at 75% of that year’s taxable income. The unused portion stays available for later years.
Fines and administrative penalties, bribes, recoverable VAT, donations to non-approved bodies, interest above the deduction limits, and the restricted part of entertainment are all added back when computing tax.
It is a credit for tax you already paid abroad on income that is also taxed in the UAE. The credit is limited to the lower of the foreign tax paid and the UAE tax on that income, which prevents double taxation.
The standard rate is 0% on taxable income up to AED 375,000 and 9% on the amount above it. Qualifying Free Zone income can be taxed at 0% where all the conditions are met.
Yes. Free Zone companies are within the corporate tax system. Select Free Zone Company and the calculator asks whether you qualify as a QFZP under Article 18: answer Yes and qualifying income is taxed at 0% with any non-qualifying income at 9%, answer No and the standard computation applies.
Yes. The UAE Corporate Tax Calculator is free to use, with instant results and PDF and CSV export at no cost.
Calculate Your UAE Corporate Tax Now
You do not need a spreadsheet or a tax degree to see where you stand. Enter your numbers and the calculator returns your taxable income, net taxable income, corporate tax, and final payable amount instantly, then lets you export the whole computation as a PDF or CSV for your records.
It is the quickest way to turn a set of accounts into a clear tax figure you can act on. Try it now, and when you want a second opinion on the treatment of a specific item, the team at FAME Advisory is here to help.