How to verify Your UAE visa Validity

The UAE Government offers online and offline facilities to check your resident visa validity and track your visa application with very simple steps. Generally, the validity of visa is two years. Visa is renewed subject to conditions similar to those of fresh visas.

How to verify your resident visa validity online:

Just visit ICP Smart Services

Add your resident visa Unified number or passport number and click.

Then you will get your visa validity

Cash Back Before Day One: Reclaiming Pre-Registration VAT in the UAE

Starting a business in the UAE involves significant upfront costs—office fit-outs, equipment purchases, inventory, and professional services—all of which carry a 5% Value Added Tax (VAT). If you weren't registered for VAT when you paid these bills, that money isn’t necessarily lost.

Under Article 56 of Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017 on Value Added Tax, the Federal Tax Authority (FTA) allows newly registered businesses to claw back the Input VAT (the tax charged by your suppliers) paid on goods, services, and imports before their official tax registration date.

However, this isn't an open checkbook. The FTA enforces a strict matching principle alongside four critical exceptions.

🔍 The Golden Rule: The Matching Principle

To reclaim any pre-registration VAT, your historical expenses must pass a basic test: If you had been registered on the day you bought it, would you have been legally allowed to claim it?

The law states that these historical goods and services must have been used to make taxable supplies (sales that attract 5% or 0% VAT). If an expense falls under standard "blocked" or excluded categories, it cannot be reclaimed.

⚠️ Standard Blocked Tax Reminders: You can never reclaim pre-registration VAT on client entertainment, or on a company motor vehicle if it was ever made available for an employee's personal use.

🚫 The 4 Crucial Exceptions

The UAE VAT framework outlines four strict scenarios where your right to reclaim pre-registration Input VAT is partially or completely denied:

1. Non-Taxable Business Activities

If you bought goods or services to facilitate exempt supplies (such as certain financial services or bare residential real estate leases), you cannot reclaim the VAT. The expenses must directly link to future taxable business activities.

2. Partially Depreciated Capital Assets (Fixed Assets)

If you purchased a long-term asset (like machinery, computers, or office furniture) before registering, you can only claim VAT on its remaining economic value.

• How the calculation works: If you bought an IT server with an expected life span of 10 years, but you only register for VAT when the asset has 3 years of use left, you are only entitled to reclaim three-tenths (30%) of the original VAT paid. The 70% consumed before registration is lost.

3. The Strict Time Limits (Goods vs. Services)

The FTA draws a hard, definitive line between physical items and intangible services:

• Goods & Inventory: Can be claimed no matter how long ago they were bought, provided they were acquired for business purposes and are still in stock on your official VAT registration date.

• Services: Under the law, any services received more than 6 months prior to your VAT registration date are completely ineligible for recovery.

4. Cross-Border GCC Asset Movements

If you imported or bought goods in the UAE but physically moved them to another implementing GCC state before registering for VAT in the UAE, your recovery right is blocked here. The tax must be recovered in the destination GCC country, meaning you would need to hold a valid tax registration in that specific state to claim it.

⏳ Critical Timing: The "First Return" Rule

There is a massive operational trap that catches many new UAE business owners off guard: You only get one shot to claim this.

1.Secure Official VAT Registration:TRN Issued.

Complete your voluntary or mandatory registration via the EmaraTax portal to receive your Tax Registration Number (TRN).

2.Audit Historical Invoices:Critical Step.

Isolate all invoices for goods still in stock and services received within the immediate 6 months prior to your effective registration date.

3.Declare in the First VAT Return:Inaugural Filing.

You must declare your total eligible pre-registration Input VAT in the very first VAT return you file.

4.Compliance Deadline Closes:Forfeiture Penalty.

If you miss this first window and omit these costs from your inaugural filing, you cannot add them to your second or third return later. The credit is permanently forfeited.

💡 Your Next Steps for Compliance

• Gather Concrete Evidence: You must hold original, valid Tax Invoices matching your legal corporate name, showing the supplier's TRN, and displaying a clear breakdown of the 5% VAT paid.

• Audit Your Inventory: Take a formal physical stock count on the exact date your registration becomes effective to prove what goods are genuinely on hand.

• Check Refund Limits: Once your first return creates a refundable credit balance on your EmaraTax portal, you must proactively apply to get that cash back or let it sit to offset future tax liabilities.

Number plate upgrade mandatory in Dubai from July 2018

Following the introduction of a new number plate design last year, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has now kicked off a campaign urging all motorists to upgrade to the new plates, ahead of mandatory upgrades from July for select codes.

The upgrade is currently available for all types of distinguished and special number plates across all codes, and from May it will also be available optionally for unowned (allotted randomly through vehicle registration) plates.

According to RTA, over the next couple of years, all categories of vehicle number plates will have to be replaced. As the RTA presses ahead with its new plates regime, unowned car plates with codes A, B and C will be among the first to be up for mandatory replacement from July.

The new number plate design that includes either a black and white or colour Dubai logo, depending on the amount you pay, was launched last year after the introduction of double codes necessitated a redesign.

“The RTA has developed a new strategy for number plates resulting in a new generation of number plates with double codes. This has accordingly resulted in the whole design for the number plates to be changed to adopt the single and double codes with the same design language,” said Sultan Al Marzouqi, director of RTA’s Vehicle Licensing.

The double codes are being introduced as the RTA is running out of single codes, as the number of vehicles continues to rise at an alarming rate in Dubai.

Replacement in 2 years

According to RTA, over the next couple of years, all categories of vehicle number plates — whether purchased online, bought in an auction or allotted through the vehicle registration process — will have to be replaced in phases.

In the next phase, beginning January next year, plates with codes D, E, F, G, H and I will have to be replaced, while in January 2020 replacement for codes J, K, L, M, N and O will start and following that in January 2021, it will be the turn of all unowned plates with codes P to Z as well as other types of plates.

Depending on the size of the plates and colour of the logo, the prices of the plates vary.

A regular short number plate with a black and white logo will cost Dh35, while a long number plate in the same category will cost Dh50.

For those who already own number plates with the colour logo of Dubai, the replacement for the long and short plates will cost Dh35 and Dh50, respectively, while those who want to buy a new plate with coloured Dubai logo will have to pay Dh400 irrespective of the plate’s size.

As for the distinguished or special number plates, the replacement will cost Dh500, with the process to be completed mandatorily by the end of this year.

Al Marzouqi said motorists with owned number plates willing to get the plates replaced can either proceed immediately to any of the RTA-affiliated vehicle testing and registration centres or get it replaced at the time of their scheduled renewal, while those with unowned number plates can wait till May to do the same