Who This is for
Or held them until recently, and nobody has confirmed what remains reportable in the country you left.
A spouse, parent or adult child who is resident elsewhere may bring the structure within that country’s rules through their own holding or through attribution.
The entity was formed before the move, or instead of one, and no notification was made at the time it was incorporated.
A notice, an information request, or a query arising after financial account information reached them through routine exchange between jurisdictions.
A foreign adviser needs financial statements for a UAE entity that has never prepared any, in a format and to a standard the UAE company was not set up to produce.
What These Regimes Typically Ask for
Written as general principle — the specifics are set by each country and established with an adviser qualified there. What is consistent is when things fall due:
Due on incorporation, acquisition or a change in holding rather than at year end — and commonly missed for exactly that reason: it does not feel like a tax return, so nobody treats it as one.
Financial statements to a recognised standard, whether or not the company traded. A computation of attributable profit — the point of the regime, in some cases irrespective of whether a dividend was paid. And evidence for any exemption: conditions satisfied annually, not a permanent category.
Many systems keep a former resident within scope for a defined period, or apply the rules to the year of departure in full. Assuming the obligation ended on the date the flight left is the single most common failure in this area.
Why the UAE Company is Visible
Clients sometimes arrive with the impression that a UAE entity is unknown abroad unless they mention it. That has not been a realistic position for some years.
Financial account information is exchanged automatically between participating jurisdictions as a matter of routine, and the account behind a company is generally reported by reference to the person who controls it. Ownership and beneficial ownership are recorded here, and corporate tax registration is required of taxable persons regardless of profit or trading, so the entity has a UAE filing footprint as well. Banks ask directly about tax residence and foreign reporting status at onboarding and again at periodic review.
So the choice is not between reporting and not being seen. It is between reporting on your own timetable, with accounts you prepared and an exemption position you can evidence, and answering a question raised by someone who already has the information.
What's Included
How it Works
Structure review
Every entity, holding, director and signatory, including dormant companies, entities held through others and interests held by family members. Attribution rules mean the chart matters more than the percentage on the licence.
Reportability assessment
With your adviser in the relevant country: who reports what, from when, and under which head. Where you have no adviser there, obtaining one is part of the work.
Notifications
Any outstanding notification identified and made — commonly the first thing overdue and the cheapest to correct.
Financial statements
Bookkeeping brought current and statements prepared for each UAE entity in scope, to the standard and in the form the foreign filing needs, in time for that filing rather than after it.
Exemption and computation support
The exemption position tested and evidenced, or the figures the foreign computation requires produced and reconciled.
Filing and record
The foreign filing made by the adviser qualified to make it; the underlying UAE record retained in a form that would survive an examination years later.
Annual cycle
Conditions re-tested each period, because an exemption satisfied in one year is not thereby satisfied in the next.
What We Need from You
Most of this is a scan and an email — none of it needs to be perfect before we talk, and we tell you exactly what is missing after the first review.
Timeline and Cost
The binding constraint is almost never our work; it is the state of the records and the foreign deadline. Where bookkeeping has never been done, financial statements cannot be produced quickly, and a notification that is already late does not become less late while accounts are reconstructed. Structures identified early in the year are ordinary work; structures identified two weeks before a foreign filing deadline are not.
Our fee is fixed and agreed in writing before we start, against a defined scope — entities in scope, periods, statements to be prepared — and anchored to the work rather than to the size of the balance sheet.
The foreign filing is made and charged by the adviser qualified in that country. A UAE firm submitting foreign tax filings is a position we are not prepared to take.
Get a Fixed QuoteWhere it Goes Wrong
It frequently does not. Many systems apply their rules for the whole of the year of departure and keep a former resident in scope for a defined period afterwards. The filings missed in that window are the ones that surface later, with penalties that accrued while nobody was looking.
Reporting and paying are separate obligations. A company that owes nothing anywhere, made a loss, or never traded can still trigger a filing default — and in many systems the penalty for not filing is fixed, so it is unaffected by there being no tax at stake.
Exemptions are conditional and are usually tested annually. Whether the income is of the right kind, whether the activity is genuine, whether the substance exists — these are questions of evidence for each period, not a status the company acquires once.
Most regimes look at beneficial ownership, control in substance and attribution between connected persons. Inserting a layer that does not change who decides tends to add a disclosure problem rather than remove a reporting one.
A UAE company kept without bookkeeping cannot produce financial statements on demand, and reconstructing several years from bank statements and memory is slow, expensive, and weaker evidence than contemporaneous records.
A holding by a spouse, parent or adult child resident elsewhere can bring an entire structure into a regime that would not otherwise reach it. It is left out of the initial disclosure more often than any other fact.
Questions
What is a controlled foreign company, in general terms?
Broadly, a company resident in one country that is controlled by a person resident in another, where that second country applies rules requiring the owner to report it and, in defined circumstances, to be taxed on part of its profit. The tests for control, the thresholds and the consequences are set by each country individually.
My UAE company pays little or no tax. Does that make it reportable?
It can be relevant. Several regimes use the level of tax borne as one of the tests, alongside the nature of the income and whether the activity is genuine. A low effective rate is not by itself a problem; it is a factor that may bring the entity within scope and therefore something to establish rather than assume.
I have moved to the UAE. Do the obligations stop?
Not necessarily, and rarely immediately. Assume they continue until an adviser in that country has confirmed otherwise, in writing, for a specific period.
The company is dormant. Do I still have to file?
Very often yes. Notification and filing obligations commonly apply irrespective of activity, and dormancy is something you report rather than a reason not to report.
What are the penalties for not filing?
They vary by country, and we do not state another jurisdiction’s figures. The general pattern is worth knowing: penalties for late or absent filings are frequently fixed rather than proportionate, are often applied per entity and per period, and can therefore exceed any tax that was at stake. Some systems also extend the period during which they may open an enquiry where a required filing was never made.
Do you file the foreign return for me?
No. We prepare the UAE-side accounts, evidence and corporate records, run the assessment, and coordinate with the adviser in that country who is qualified to file.
Who prepares the financial statements?
We do, for the UAE entities, to a recognised standard and in the form the foreign filing requires. Whether audit is required depends on the entity, its jurisdiction and its size.
I have missed several years. What now?
It is remediable more often than people expect, and it gets worse with time rather than with disclosure. The sequence is: establish what was due, prepare the accounts, then take advice in that country on the correction route — several systems treat a voluntary correction differently from one prompted by an enquiry.