Dubai Silicon Oasis company accounting for tech start-ups

Under the FTA guide, income from a customer that is a free zone person and the beneficial recipient can be qualifying, as can income from a listed qualifying activity. Income from a mainland or overseas customer that does not come from a qualifying activity is not. Selling software subscriptions is not on the list of qualifying activities by itself, so who the customer is starts to matter.

The guide also covers income from qualifying intellectual property. Whether a company's own software counts, and how the income is computed, is a technical question to take to a tax agent before relying on it.

Suppose a DSO company sells a field-service app. Its revenue for the year is AED 2.8 million: AED 1.1 million from customers in other UAE free zones, AED 1.3 million from mainland UAE businesses and AED 400,000 from overseas clients. If the mainland and overseas income does not come from a qualifying activity, non-qualifying revenue is AED 1.7 million. The de minimis cap is 5% of AED 2.8 million, only AED 140,000, so the company cannot be a qualifying free zone person on these facts.

In that case the company is taxed like a mainland one: 0% on taxable income up to AED 375,000 and 9% above it. It may also look at small business relief, because its revenue is under AED 3 million and it is not a qualifying free zone person. A qualifying free zone person could not elect that relief. Which route gives the better result is a question for the founder and a tax agent.

• Customer location and type stored on each customer record
• Revenue split by free zone, mainland and overseas customers
• Rolling revenue total against the AED 3 million relief limit

Recurring invoices bill monthly and annual subscriptions in AED, USD or EUR, and the agent drafts usage-based invoices from the figures you upload. Card processor payouts land on the bank statement net of fees; the agent matches them and posts the fees to their own account. Cloud hosting, software tools and contractor bills are read from email and coded automatically.

Ask "what was our monthly recurring revenue from free zone customers in Q3?" and the answer comes from the tagged ledger. If you want deferred revenue schedules, a SaaS chart of accounts or approval rules on contractor bills set up for you, book a call at /book-a-demo or email hello@hellobooks.ai.