UAE Small Business Relief Extended to 2029 (Ministerial Decision 131)

Changed: the end date. Relief now covers tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2029, rather than 31 December 2026.

Unchanged: everything else. The AED 3 million revenue threshold, the election requirement, the exclusions for Qualifying Free Zone Persons and members of multinational groups above AED 3.15 billion consolidated revenue, and the treatment of losses and interest during a relief period all remain exactly as before /tax/guides/small-business-relief-uae-explained →.

Before this decision, a business planning beyond its 2026 tax period faced a cliff: relief this year, standard 9% compliance next. That uncertainty affected hiring, investment and structuring decisions for exactly the businesses the relief was designed to help. The extension removes the cliff for three years and lets SMEs plan on a stable basis.

For a business with revenue at or below AED 3 million, the practical position is now: you can elect Small Business Relief for every tax period through to one ending on or before 31 December 2029, provided you continue to meet the conditions each year.

The extension does not make relief automatic. It must be elected in the return, for each tax period, and the business must still register and file — a nil return under relief is still a required return /tax/guides/nil-corporate-tax-return-uae →.

Businesses treating relief as an exemption from filing continue to accrue late filing penalties of AED 500 per month.

Relief still comes with the same cost: tax losses and disallowed net interest arising in a period where Small Business Relief is elected cannot be carried forward. A loss-making business expecting future profits may still be better off not electing, filing the loss, and preserving the carry-forward against up to 75% of future taxable income.

The longer runway to 2029 makes this modelling more valuable, not less — there are now more periods over which the decision plays out /tax/guides/how-to-calculate-corporate-tax-uae →.

Unchanged from Ministerial Decision No. 73 of 2023:

Qualifying Free Zone Persons — cannot claim relief while claiming the 0% free zone rate /tax/guides/free-zone-corporate-tax-qualifying-income →.

Members of multinational groups with consolidated revenue above AED 3.15 billion.

Businesses whose revenue exceeds AED 3 million in the relevant period, or in any prior period.

If your revenue is at or below AED 3 million, factor the extension into your filing for the current period and your planning through 2029.

If you are a small free zone company, the QFZP-versus-relief decision is unchanged but now spans a longer horizon — worth modelling once, properly /tax/tax-advisory →.