For founders, CFOs, and international tax advisors structuring a UAE presence
A deterministic entity and vehicle selector, not an AI black box. Every result traces to a specific cited article of the Corporate Tax Law and its Cabinet and Ministerial Decisions.
Free to use, no sign-in required. Runs entirely server-side — nothing you enter leaves the evaluation.
Most Free Zone vs. Mainland guidance stops at "0% in a Free Zone." In practice, Qualifying Free Zone Person status under Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 is gated by an activity taxonomy, a de minimis ceiling, a Domestic Permanent Establishment test, and an adequate substance requirement — and it comes with a real trade-off: it is structurally incompatible with Tax Grouping and intra-group relief. This tool filters to the entity and vehicle combinations that are actually legally viable given your activities, revenue, and substance, and shows the reasoning and the citation behind every line, not just the answer.
Checks every declared activity against the full Ministerial Decision No. 229 of 2025 taxonomy — manufacturing, processing, qualifying commodity trading, fund/wealth management, HQ and treasury services, and more — and flags anything that falls outside it.
The lower of 5% of total Revenue or AED 5,000,000. Breach it and Qualifying Free Zone Person status is stripped for the current Tax Period plus the following four — the tool flags this before it happens, not after.
A fixed place of business or dependent agent outside the Free Zones creates a Domestic PE under Article 14 applied to Free Zone Persons — that income is always taxed at 9%, regardless of activity mix.
Core income-generating activities, assets, qualified staff and opex must genuinely sit in the Free Zone. The tool applies this Article 8 test and marks it explicitly as a facts-and-circumstances call, not a bright-line rule.
The AED 3,000,000 revenue election applies to Tax Periods ending on or before 31 December 2029, extended from the original 2026 sunset by Ministerial Decision No. 131 of 2026 — the tool tracks the current cutoff automatically and surfaces it when it's relevant to your numbers.
Qualifying Free Zone Person status is incompatible with Tax Grouping, Qualifying Group relief, and Business Restructuring Relief. If you want that flexibility later, the tool surfaces the conflict up front instead of burying it.
For entities with a foreign parent: how a Free Zone branch, a mainland branch, and a UAE subsidiary each play out differently on Permanent Establishment exposure and Tax Grouping eligibility.
Every selected activity is checked independently against VAT Law's zero-rated, exempt and standard-rated categories — because a Free Zone Qualifying Activity for Corporate Tax purposes is very often not zero-rated for VAT, and the tool flags that gap instead of assuming the two align.
Extractive Business, Non-Extractive Natural Resource Business, Qualifying Public Benefit Entities, Qualifying Investment Funds/REITs, and Family Foundations each carry their own Corporate Tax exemption route under Articles 7, 8, 9, 10 and 17 — independent of Qualifying Free Zone Person status. The tool flags when one of these applies instead of routing everything through the Free Zone lens.
Founders and CFOs setting up or restructuring a UAE entity; international tax advisors screening Free Zone vs. Mainland options for a client before the formal engagement; and groups with a foreign parent deciding between a branch and a subsidiary.
Every rate, threshold and rule in this tool is verified against Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 (Corporate Tax), Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017 as amended (VAT), and their implementing Cabinet and Ministerial Decisions — including Cabinet Decision No. 100 of 2023, Ministerial Decision No. 229 of 2025, and Cabinet Decision No. 49 of 2023 on natural persons — fetched and read directly from the Ministry of Finance and cross-checked against the practice manuals, not secondary commentary.
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Not tax or legal advice. A deterministic first-pass screen only — not a substitute for advice from a licensed UAE tax advisor or a Clarification from the Federal Tax Authority. Determinations marked "facts and circumstances" (such as adequate substance) require professional judgment this tool cannot make for you.
