Meydan Free Zone accounting for founders with more than one line of business

Picture a Meydan company run by one founder: IT consulting for businesses, trading of networking equipment, and an online store selling accessories to consumers. All three share a bank account, a TRN and a licence. If revenue sits in one account, nobody can say which activity makes money or which income may be qualifying.

HelloBooks sets up an income account per activity group, and the AI agent tags each invoice and payment to the right one using the item, customer and your categorisation rules. Costs are tagged the same way where they belong to one activity, and shared costs such as rent can be split by a monthly journal.

• Separate income accounts per activity group
• Class tags for direct costs by activity
• Monthly journal for shared costs, set up once by your accountant

In that example, sales from the online store go to individuals, which the FTA guide normally treats as excluded activities. Suppose the company earns AED 1.9 million in total, of which AED 160,000 comes from consumer sales. The de minimis cap is 5% of revenue, AED 95,000, so consumer sales alone exceed it, before counting any consulting fees from mainland clients.

The FTA guide is clear on the consequence. A company that fails a condition stops being a qualifying free zone person from the beginning of that tax period and remains outside for the next four. Some founders restructure, for example by moving consumer sales into a separate company; that is a legal and tax decision to take with an adviser, not something a bookkeeping tool decides.

A Meydan company that is not a qualifying free zone person is taxed at 0% on taxable income up to AED 375,000 and 9% above it. With revenue under AED 3 million, it may also be able to elect small business relief for tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2029. A qualifying free zone person cannot make that election.

HelloBooks shows the revenue total against the relief limit and prepares the figures for either route. Meydan offers its own accounting services too; if you keep your books in HelloBooks, invite whoever prepares your returns as a user. For custom activity reports or invoice layouts, book a call at /book-a-demo or email hello@hellobooks.ai.