Electronic invoicing in The United Arab Emirates

The UAE authorities, through the Ministry of Finance (UAE) (MOF) and the Federal Tax Authority (UAE) (FTA), have launched an electronic invoicing system that requires commercial invoices to be issued, transmitted, received, and stored in a structured electronic format.

The electronic invoicing system in the UAE will be mandatory in phases for entities that issue invoices under VAT law. According to the legislation introduced by Federal Decree-Law No. 16 of 2024 and Federal Decree-Law No. 17 of 2024, the concepts of "tax invoice," "credit note," and "electronic invoice" are expanded to include digital formats.

EDICOM is officially certified as an electronic invoicing service provider in the United Arab Emirates. This accreditation guarantees that EDICOM's Peppol Access Point can send and/or receive valid electronic invoices according to the standards established by the Ministry of Finance and report tax data to the Federal Tax Authority (FTA). 

The United Arab Emirates will adopt a decentralized continuous transaction control (CTC) model based on the Peppol standard, also known as the five-corner model.

Key components of the model:

• Issuers and recipients must use certified Peppol Access Points.
• The UAE Peppol PINT standard is used, adapted to the local tax context.
• The central government platform acts as a repository, without validating invoices.

Process flow:

• The seller sends the invoice to their certified service provider.
• This provider converts the document to the standard structured XML format.
• The invoice is transmitted to the buyer's service provider, and then to the buyer.
• Simultaneously, the tax data is sent to the government platform.
• The government notifies successful receipt but does not validate the content.