Trading & Import/Export
Goods that cross a UAE border are accounted for twice — once on the way in, once on the way out — and the evidence that proves it moves faster than most finance teams can file it. An export without its exit certificate is not a zero-rated sale.
MHBC Finance coordinates the accounting, VAT and Corporate Tax work behind businesses that buy, sell, import and export goods in the UAE, so the reverse charge reconciles, the evidence file holds, and the stock behind both ties back to the return.
Registration for VAT is mandatory once taxable supplies exceed AED 375,000, and Corporate Tax applies at 9% on taxable income above AED 375,000, with the return due within nine months of the end of the tax period.
Where this work lands
Importer clearing stock through a designated zone
Distributor selling into and out of the mainland
The accounting and tax work behind the trade
The goal is simple: keep the ledger, the VAT return and the Corporate Tax computation telling the same story about the same goods. For a trading business, that work concentrates in five areas.
Import VAT and the reverse charge
MHBC records import VAT under the reverse charge mechanism and reconciles it to your customs declarations so that output and input tax are declared correctly in each VAT 201 return.
Rather than paying VAT at the border in most cases, you declare the import VAT as output tax and recover it as input tax in the same return, provided the goods are for taxable business use. The customs declaration and the supplier documentation are what support those entries.
Export zero-rating and evidence
MHBC applies the 0% rate to qualifying exports and maintains the official and commercial evidence proving goods left the UAE within 90 days, as the Federal Tax Authority requires.
Charging 0% does not remove your right to recover the input VAT on related costs. What it does require is a file that holds up on audit: official evidence, such as an exit certificate from the customs department, alongside commercial evidence of the export.
Inventory and cost-of-goods accounting
MHBC sets the inventory valuation and cost-of-goods-sold basis so that stock movements, landed costs and margins reconcile to the financial statements and the Corporate Tax computation.
This is the basis the rest of the year is measured against. Once it is set, the same numbers carry through the management accounts, the statutory financial statements and the tax computation, rather than being rebuilt three times from three different views of the same stock.
Corporate Tax computation and filing
MHBC prepares the Corporate Tax computation and return, applying the 0% band up to AED 375,000 and 9% above it, and files within nine months of the end of the tax period.
The computation runs off the financial statements, so the accounting decisions taken during the year — inventory basis, landed cost, how intercompany sales are priced — are what determine the taxable income at the end of it. MHBC prepares both, which keeps the two consistent.
Free zone qualifying income and audit coordination
For stock traded in or from a designated zone, MHBC assesses whether income meets the qualifying free zone conditions and coordinates the mandatory audited financial statements with a Ministry of Economy-licensed auditor, who performs the audit.
A free zone company pays 0% Corporate Tax only on income that qualifies; income that is not qualifying is taxed at 9%. For goods, distribution generally qualifies only when carried out in or from a designated zone, and every qualifying free zone person must maintain audited financial statements regardless of revenue.
Related service
Accounting & Bookkeeping
Every item on this page resolves back to the ledger. MHBC keeps the books that the VAT return, the Corporate Tax computation and the audit file are all drawn from — so a trading business is not reconciling three versions of the same year.