E-invoicing in the United Arab Emirates

From 1 January 2027, the UAE mandates e-invoicing for B2B and B2G transactions. The UAE introduces the mandate in stages based on annual revenue. The mandate applies first to businesses with an annual revenue of AED 50 million or more. Then, from 1 July 2027, the mandate applies to all other businesses and, finally, from 1 October 2027 to government entities. The mandate excludes transactions between members of the same tax group until 1 January 2029. E-invoicing for B2C transactions is not required.

The UAE uses a decentralised continuous transaction control and exchange model, based on the Peppol five-corner model. This means that accredited service providers exchange e-invoices and report tax data to the Federal Tax Authority in near real time. Both the supplier and the buyer of an in-scope invoice must exchange it through an accredited service provider.

E-invoices must use the PINT AE format, the UAE specialisation of the Peppol International invoice model, based on UBL 2.1. The Ministry of Finance sets the e-invoicing rules and accredits service providers.

For invoices between businesses in the UAE, both the supplier's and the buyer's accredited service providers send a Tax Data Document (TDD) to the Federal Tax Authority. The TDD contains a subset of the invoice data. The buyer's accredited service provider acknowledges the invoice with a Message Level Status (MLS) and the Federal Tax Authority acknowledges each TDD with an MLS.

For invoices to buyers outside the UAE, the supplier's accredited service provider also sends a TDD to the Federal Tax Authority. If the buyer is registered on Peppol, the invoice is sent over Peppol. Otherwise, the invoice is sent to the buyer by other means, for example, by email. Invoices from suppliers outside the UAE don't require a TDD.

E-invoice records must be retained for at least seven years.

Terms and abbreviations

The following terms and abbreviations are specific to e-invoicing in the UAE.

Mandate at a glance

The following table contains a summary of the UAE e-invoicing mandate.

Learn more about compliance transaction terms and concepts.

Timeline

ecosio's solution

ecosio is an accredited service provider in the UAE. This means that ecosio acts as your sender ASP for the accounts receivable flow and your receiver ASP for the accounts payable flow. ecosio also automatically sends the TDD to the FTA in near real time.

Accounts receivable

The following diagram and steps illustrate the AR process for buyers in the UAE.

1. You (corner 1) send the invoice data from your ERP system to ecosio in the agreed format.
2. ecosio (corner 2) validates the received invoice data, converts it into the PINT AE format, and generates the TDD.
3. The following steps happen in parallel:
   • ecosio sends the invoice to the buyer's ASP (corner 3).
   • ecosio sends the TDD to the FTA (corner 5).
4. The buyer's ASP validates the invoice.
5. Depending on the results of the validation, one of the following happens:
   • If the validation succeeds, the buyer's ASP confirms receipt to ecosio with an MLS and transmits the invoice to the buyer's ERP system (corner 4). The buyer's ASP also sends a TDD to the FTA.
   • If the validation fails or the buyer's ASP can't deliver the invoice to the buyer, the buyer's ASP notifies ecosio with a negative MLS and sends a TDS to the FTA. ecosio then sends a withdrawal TDD to the FTA.
6. The FTA validates the TDD and sends an MLS to ecosio.
7. ecosio stores the invoice, TDD, and MLS data so that you can access it via the Monitor or the Messaging APIs. The transaction is complete only when both the buyer's ASP and the FTA accept the documents.

Invoices to buyers outside the United Arab Emirates

If you invoice a buyer outside the UAE, ecosio still sends the TDD to the FTA. How the invoice reaches the buyer depends on whether the buyer is registered on Peppol:

• If the buyer is registered on Peppol, ecosio sends the invoice to the buyer's Peppol service provider over Peppol.
• If the buyer isn't registered on Peppol, ecosio reports the TDD with the placeholder participant ID 0235:9900000099 instead of the buyer's ID. Depending on your setup, ecosio either only reports the invoice or also sends a PDF version of the invoice to the buyer by email.

The buyer's side doesn't send an MLS to ecosio for these invoices. The transaction is complete when the FTA accepts the TDD.

Accounts payable

The following diagram and steps illustrate the AP process for suppliers in the UAE.

1. The supplier's ERP system (corner 1) sends the invoice data to their ASP (corner 2).
2. The following steps happen in parallel:
   • The supplier's ASP transmits the invoice to ecosio (corner 3) in the PINT AE format.
   • The supplier's ASP sends the TDD to the FTA (corner 5) and receives an MLS.
3. ecosio validates the invoice.
4. Depending on the results of the validation, one of the following happens:
   • If the validation succeeds, ecosio confirms receipt to the supplier's ASP with an MLS, converts the invoice to the agreed format, and makes it available to you (corner 4). ecosio then sends a TDD to the FTA and receives an MLS.
   • If the validation fails or ecosio can't deliver the invoice to you, ecosio stops processing the invoice. ecosio notifies the supplier's ASP with a negative MLS and sends a TDS to the FTA.

Archiving

ecosio stores invoice, TDD, and MLS data for three months. During this time, you can download all the required data for long-term archiving. UAE law requires you to retain records for a minimum of seven years.