UAE VAT and Corporate Tax deadlines, in one place

VAT: 28 days after the tax period ends

UAE VAT returns are filed, and the tax paid, within 28 days of the end of the tax period the FTA assigned you — quarterly for most businesses, monthly for larger ones. When the deadline lands on a weekend or public holiday it moves to the next business day.

Missing a filing carries a fixed penalty for the first offence and a larger one on repetition within 24 months; late payment adds percentage-based penalties that grow the longer the tax stays unpaid.

Corporate Tax: nine months after year-end

The UAE Corporate Tax return is filed, and the 9% tax paid, within nine months of the end of the relevant financial year. A December year-end means the following 30 September. There is no monthly CT filing — but a business that only thinks about CT in month eight has usually already told the FTA a different story through its VAT returns.

That is why reconciling VAT-declared revenue against the CT position monthly matters: the two returns must tell one story, and the time to explain a gap is when it appears, not at filing.

KSA, briefly

KSA VAT (15%) is filed monthly for businesses with annual taxable supplies above SAR 40 million and quarterly otherwise, with returns and payment due by the last day of the month following the period. ZATCA's e-invoicing regime additionally requires cleared or reported e-invoices depending on your integration wave.

How Orbit applies this

A deadline watchdog tracks every registration's filing calendar, escalates as dates approach (green → amber at 14 days → red at 3), assembles the VAT return from the ledger as the month runs, and reconciles VAT against CT continuously so the filings never diverge silently.