We are Aurifer. We are a boutique tax and technology services firm established in Abu Dhabi, Doha, Dubai and Riyadh.

As at October 2026, Qatar has not yet introduced VAT and no implementation date has been officially announced. Together with the other GCC States, Qatar has signed up to the Common VAT Agreement of the States of the Gulf Cooperation Council (the GCC VAT Framework) and has committed to implement the common VAT system through national VAT legislation. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Oman have already done so, leaving Qatar and Kuwait as the only GCC States without VAT.

In a recent Corporate Tax audit of an owner-managed UAE company, the Federal Tax Authority ('FTA') proposed to add back every element of the pay of its shareholder-director (the 'person') that went beyond the person's written employment terms. The amounts themselves were not the issue. The paperwork was.

By way of a Federal Cabinet Decision (Cabinet Decision No. 149 of 2026, issued on 1 September 2026), the UAE has amended the VAT Executive Regulations. Some of the amended provisions govern how partly exempt businesses calculate recoverable input tax. These same provisions apply from the first Tax Year commencing after 1 October 2027.

Qatar has amended more of its tax framework in the past twelve months than in the several years before it. A capital gains relief for corporate restructurings, a new mechanism allowing treaty relief to be applied directl...