DWTC Free Zone accounting for consultancies, event firms and family offices

A DWTC-licensed exhibition organiser sells stand space to exhibitors, sponsorship packages to brands and, sometimes, tickets to visitors. Costs land weeks before the show: venue, stand builders, marketing, travel. Profit only becomes visible once everything is matched to the event, which HelloBooks does with an event tag on every sale and bill.

Ticket income from individual visitors is a transaction with natural persons, which the FTA guide normally treats as an excluded activity. Stand and sponsorship income from exhibitors that are free zone persons can be qualifying, while exhibitors from the mainland or abroad generally only produce qualifying income if the activity is on the FTA list. An organiser with mixed income should have a tax agent map each stream.

A DWTC management consultancy earns AED 4.4 million in a year. AED 3.9 million comes from clients licensed in other free zones; AED 500,000 comes from a mainland government-related company. The de minimis cap is the lower of AED 5 million and 5% of revenue, so here it is AED 220,000. If the mainland income is non-qualifying, the consultancy is AED 280,000 over the cap and cannot be a qualifying free zone person for that year.

In that scenario the firm is taxed at the regular rates: 0% up to AED 375,000 of taxable income and 9% above. If it had stayed within the cap and met every other condition, its qualifying income would be taxed at 0%, but it would lose the AED 375,000 band on any non-qualifying income, according to the FTA guide.

• Event or engagement tags on income and costs
• Client type stored on each customer record
• Plain-English answers such as "how much did we bill mainland clients this year?"

A single family office often owns a portfolio of shares, property interests and private investments through several entities. On the Business plan, HelloBooks keeps each entity separate with consolidated reporting for the family. Dividends, capital calls and management fees are posted from bank statements and broker reports, with the AI matching receipts to the right holding.

Holding shares for investment purposes is a qualifying activity in the FTA guide, with conditions. Income from immovable property is treated differently, and the guide says it does not give rise to qualifying income except in specific cases involving commercial property in a free zone. For a tailored chart of accounts per entity, book a call at /book-a-demo or email hello@hellobooks.ai.