The UAE is moving business invoices onto a national e-invoicing system. Large businesses go live on 1 January 2027, and the rest of the VAT-registered market follows in 2027. This guide sets out the dates, what an accredited service provider (ASP) does, and what changes inside your ERP. Every date below comes from a Ministry of Finance (MoF) decision or a Federal Tax Authority (FTA) notice, checked on October 27, 2026.
This guide is general information, not legal or tax advice. Confirm how the rules apply to your business with your tax adviser.
Disclosure: OPS is an Odoo partner and a NetSuite partner, and earns fees from ERP work. OPS is not an accredited service provider. We work with UAE companies from our Dubai hub.
Key dates
Ministerial Decision No. 244 of 2025 sets the phases. Ministerial Decision No. 66 of 2026 moved the first ASP deadline from 31 July 2026 to 30 October 2026. The MoF confirmed the change on May 10, 2026 and kept the 1 January 2027 go-live date. The FTA repeated the dates on September 29, 2026.
Scroll to read all columns.
| Group | Appoint an ASP by | Go live |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue of AED 50 million or more | 30 October 2026 | 1 January 2027 |
| Revenue under AED 50 million | 31 March 2027 | 1 July 2027 |
| Government entities | 31 March 2027 | 1 October 2027 |
A pilot and voluntary adoption opened on 1 July 2026. Business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions stay outside the system until a further decision by the Minister.
If your business is in the first group and has not appointed an ASP, treat it as urgent. On October 25, 2026, the FTA reminded businesses that delay brings an administrative penalty of AED 5,000 for each month, or part of a month, including failure to appoint an ASP on time.
What counts as an e-invoice
The MoF defines an e-invoice as structured data. A PDF, Word file, image, scan or email is not an e-invoice. The UAE Electronic Invoicing Guidelines say e-invoices are issued, transmitted and received in XML format, with no QR code or barcode, following the Peppol PINT AE billing specification.
Ministerial Decision No. 197 of 2026, in force from 1 October 2026, requires e-invoices to be issued and transmitted within 14 business days of the transaction.
How the five corner model works
The Guidelines describe a five corner model:
- The supplier issues the invoice from its system.
- The supplier's ASP validates and sends it.
- The buyer's ASP receives it.
- The buyer receives it in its own system.
- The FTA receives the tax data.
So every business in scope needs an ASP for both sending and receiving. Your accounts payable team will start receiving supplier invoices as structured data, not only as PDFs.
What an accredited service provider does
An ASP connects your ERP to the national network, checks invoices against the specification, exchanges them with other ASPs and reports tax data to the FTA. Ministerial Decision No. 168 of 2026 sets the accreditation rules. It repealed the earlier pre-approval decision (No. 64 of 2025) and gave pre-approved providers up to 30 days from its effective date to complete accreditation.
The FTA lists the steps as: select an ASP, sign the contract and integrate, then complete the procedures on EmaraTax. The MoF also publishes guidance called "Considerations for selecting an ASP".
Questions to ask each ASP:
- Is it on the Ministry's current list of accredited service providers?
- Does it connect to your ERP version through a supported connector, or does it need custom integration?
- How does it handle rejected invoices, corrections and credit notes?
- How does it deliver inbound supplier invoices into your ERP?
- What does it store, for how long, and where?
- What are its fees, notice periods and exit terms?
What changes inside your ERP
Map your invoice data against the MoF list of mandatory fields (version 1.0, 23 February 2026). Expect work in these areas:
- Master data. Customer and supplier TRNs, legal names, addresses and identifiers must be complete and correct.
- Document types. Tax invoices, credit notes and any self-billing need the right codes and scenarios.
- Timing. Your posting and approval steps must let invoices go out within 14 business days.
- Inbound invoices. Accounts payable needs a way to receive, match and approve structured supplier invoices.
- Status tracking. Someone must own rejected invoices and fix them quickly.
- Records. Article 11 of the e-invoicing decision, as amended by Decision No. 197 of 2026, requires you to keep e-invoices, credit notes and their data for the period set by the Tax Procedures Law, and to be able to produce them to the FTA on request. Appendix 4 of the Guidelines gives more detail on storage.
Decision No. 197 of 2026 also lists exclusions. They include transactions between members of the same tax group for 24 months from 1 January 2027, exempt or zero-rated financial services, sovereign government transactions and certain airline items. It removed the "System Failure" definition and repealed Article 12 of Decision No. 243 of 2025. If your project plan relied on those provisions, review it.
If you run Odoo
Odoo's Odoo 20 release notes list UAE changes: an FTA VAT audit file from the general ledger (available from 19.0), a chart of accounts redesigned for IFRS and the UAE Commercial Companies Law, and payroll updates. They do not list a UAE e-invoicing feature. When we checked on October 27, 2026, a pull request adding UAE PINT support was still open, not merged, in Odoo's public code repository.
What to do:
- Ask Odoo and your shortlisted ASPs how invoices will reach the ASP from your Odoo version: a native module, an ASP connector or a custom integration.
- Check your Odoo version's support window. Odoo 17 left standard support in September 2026. See our Odoo 17 end of support guide.
- Test the full flow, including credit notes and inbound bills, in a test database before go-live.
If you run NetSuite
Oracle's NetSuite release documentation describes a United Arab Emirates Electronic Invoicing SuiteApp, available on the SuiteApp Marketplace. Oracle says it generates and certifies e-invoices using PINT AE, supports outbound invoices and credit memos and inbound vendor bills and vendor credits, and certifies e-documents through Avalara.
What to do:
- Confirm with Oracle or your NetSuite partner whether the SuiteApp fits your account, subsidiaries and edition.
- Confirm that the certifying provider in your setup is on the Ministry's list of accredited service providers, and decide who holds the ASP contract.
- Complete the UAE fields the SuiteApp adds, such as legal registration identifiers, credit memo reason codes and tax exemption reasons, and test them end to end.
Readiness checklist
- Confirm which phase applies to you, with your tax adviser.
- Name an owner in finance and one in IT.
- Shortlist ASPs and check each one against the Ministry's accredited list.
- Map your invoice data to the mandatory fields.
- Clean customer and supplier master data, starting with TRNs.
- Decide how your ERP connects to the ASP, and get a written plan for your version.
- Design the inbound invoice flow for accounts payable.
- Set up rejection handling and a daily status check.
- Confirm record retention and storage with your adviser and your ASP.
- Test in a sandbox with real scenarios: standard invoices, credit notes, exclusions and inbound bills.
- Complete the EmaraTax procedures before your go-live date.
Common questions
Is a PDF invoice still valid under e-invoicing?
The MoF says PDFs, Word files, images, scans and emails are not e-invoices. In-scope invoices must be structured data in XML, sent through an ASP.
What happens if we miss the ASP deadline?
The FTA says delay brings an administrative penalty of AED 5,000 for each month, or part of a month, including failure to appoint an ASP on time.
Do B2C sales need e-invoices from 2027?
Not yet. Ministerial Decision No. 244 of 2025 keeps B2C transactions out until the Minister issues a further decision.
Can we start before our deadline?
Yes. Voluntary adoption opened on 1 July 2026.
Does our ERP need replacing?
Not necessarily. Start by checking whether your ERP version has a supported path to an ASP, and what data cleanup and testing it needs. Replace an ERP only if it fails for wider operating reasons.
Sources
All checked October 27, 2026.
- MoF, Ministerial Decision No. 244 of 2025 on the implementation of the e-invoicing system
- MoF, Targeted amendments to e-invoicing decisions, May 10, 2026
- MoF, E-invoicing initiative page, with Decision No. 66 of 2026
- MoF, Ministerial Decision No. 197 of 2026
- MoF, Ministerial Decision No. 168 of 2026 on accreditation
- MoF, UAE Electronic Invoicing Guidelines
- MoF, Mandatory fields, version 1.0, 23 February 2026
- FTA, Awareness meeting for accredited service providers, September 29, 2026
- FTA, Call to comply with e-invoicing deadlines, October 25, 2026
- Odoo, Release notes September 2026 (Odoo 20)
- Odoo, Pull request: add UAE PINT support
- Oracle, NetSuite localization SuiteApps release notes
Related: ERP solutions at OPS and Odoo 20 vs Odoo 19.