UAE E-Invoicing Deadlines for SMEs: The Complete Timeline

If your UAE business earns under AED 50 million a year, you have two dates to plan around: appoint an Accredited Service Provider (ASP) by 31 March 2027, and go live with e-invoicing on 1 July 2027. Here's the full timeline, who it applies to, and what to get ready.

Who the mandate applies to

The e-invoicing mandate applies to any person conducting business in the UAE, regardless of VAT registration, unless specifically excluded (Article 4, Ministerial Decision 243 of 2025).

It covers:

• B2B invoices (business to business)
• B2G invoices (business to government)

Sales to consumers (B2C) are not part of the current mandate.

The full timeline

Dates depend on your annual revenue. SMEs (under AED 50 million) are in bold.

Source: Ministerial Decisions 243 and 244 of 2025.

What the two SME deadlines mean

31 March 2027: appoint an ASP

An Accredited Service Provider is the company that carries your e-invoices over the national network and reports the tax data to the Federal Tax Authority (FTA). You need one in place by this date. Appointing early leaves time to connect your invoicing and test before go-live.

1 July 2027: go live

From your go-live date, only an e-invoice issued through the e-invoicing system is a valid invoice. A PDF on its own no longer counts. Every B2B and B2G invoice you send from that day has to go through the system.

How an e-invoice travels

The UAE uses a 5-corner model built on the Peppol network:

1. You (the seller) create the invoice.
2. Your ASP checks it and sends it on.
3. Your buyer's ASP receives and checks it.
4. Your buyer gets it in their own system.
5. In parallel, both ASPs report the tax data to the FTA in real time.

You don't connect to the network or the FTA yourself; your ASP does.

What to prepare now

• Find your TIN. For e-invoicing, your TIN is the first 10 digits of your Corporate Tax TRN, not your VAT TRN. If you're in a tax group, each member uses its own TIN, not the group representative's.
• Check your invoice data. A tax invoice has 51 mandatory fields. A commercial invoice (issued without a TRN) has 49. Your invoices need to carry every one of them.
• Review how you invoice today. Spreadsheets, Word templates and PDFs won't be enough after go-live. Your invoices need to be produced in the UAE's structured e-invoice format.
• Shortlist ASPs early. You must have one appointed by 31 March 2027.

Penalties for non-compliance are set by the UAE authorities. We don't quote amounts here; check the latest guidance with your tax adviser or the FTA.

Where Taxcore fits

Taxcore is software for UAE SMEs: you create or sync invoices as usual (Arabic or English), and Taxcore checks every field and sends them through our partner, an Accredited Service Provider. Taxcore is not an ASP and is not government-endorsed; the ASP handles delivery and FTA reporting.

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This article is general information, not tax or legal advice. It's based on Ministerial Decisions 243 and 244 of 2025 and the Ministry of Finance's "UAE Electronic Invoice Mandatory Fields" (v1.0, 23 February 2026).