Small Business Relief: what it costs in a loss year

Electing Small Business Relief sets your Corporate Tax to zero for that period. It also forfeits the tax losses of that period — permanently. This calculator models both paths over three years.

Small Business Relief applies only to tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2026 (Ministerial Decision No. 73 of 2023). For a calendar-year business, the period ending 31 December 2026 is the final one in which the election is available.

Your history before Year 1

Eligibility depends on revenue in the period you are electing for and in every previous tax period since Corporate Tax became applicable to you. Once revenue passes AED 3,000,000 in any period, the relief is gone for that period and for every one after it — it does not come back if revenue falls again.

This is my first tax period — there are no previous ones
Otherwise: highest revenue in any previous tax period (AED)

Your figures

The second column is taxable income after Corporate Tax adjustments, not accounting profit. Exempt income, non-deductible expenditure, depreciation differences and related-party adjustments all sit between the two, and the difference can be large. If you only have accounting profit to hand, treat the result as an illustration.

PeriodRevenue (AED)Taxable income / (tax loss) (AED)
Year 1 — the period you would elect for (ending on or before 31 Dec 2026)
Year 2 — standard regime
forecast; does not affect Year 1 eligibility
Year 3 — standard regime
forecast; does not affect Year 1 eligibility

Two things that rule the relief out entirely

Neither depends on your numbers, so this tool cannot work them out. Tick either one and the relief is unavailable regardless of the arithmetic below.

The company is a Qualifying Free Zone Person
The company is a member of a multinational group with consolidated revenue above EUR 750 million

Working through this for your own company?

The election is made in the return and cannot be revisited afterwards, so it is worth getting right. This is a decision for your tax adviser, not for us: whether you qualify, and what your taxable income actually is after Corporate Tax adjustments, are positions someone has to sign. What we do is implement a treatment your adviser has confirmed — in your data, your item master and your validation logic — so that what you file and what your system produces say the same thing.

If you do not have an adviser for this, say so and we will point you at one. We do not take a fee for that.

What we would need from you

This material is provided for general information only and does not constitute tax, legal or accounting advice. Requirements and thresholds change; positions depend on individual circumstances. Consult a qualified adviser before acting. Position as at July 2026.

Sources

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