Excise Tax Filing Services
Registered Tax Agent Regulated by the FTA (Federal Tax Authority)
Excise Tax Filing Services in UAE
Get monthly returns filed accurately and on time, every period, without the deadline creeping up on you.
Excise tax registered businesses must file monthly returns and settle any tax due within strict FTA deadlines, and the filing obligation continues for as long as the registration remains active, regardless of whether a given month had significant excisable activity. Farahat & Co. is a registered FTA tax agent managing the full filing and payment process for businesses across the UAE, covering return preparation, accurate tax calculation, and refund applications where excess tax has been paid.
- Monthly return preparation: declarations reviewed and submitted through EmaraTax every filing period.
- Accurate calculation: tax calculated correctly across all excisable goods your business handles.
- Refund applications: managed submission where excess excise tax has been paid.
- Ongoing monitoring: deadline tracking to prevent late filing penalties before they occur.
Filing errors, missed deadlines, and incorrect tax calculations are common sources of FTA penalties, and our team manages the complete cycle so your business isn’t relying on an internal reminder system to stay compliant.
Get Excise Tax Filing SupportHow to File and Pay Excise Tax in the UAE
Excise tax returns and payments are submitted through the FTA’s EmaraTax portal, following a clear process each tax period.
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Excise Tax Filing Deadlines and Timing Rules
Returns and payment are due 15 days after the end of each tax period, which typically aligns with a calendar month. If this date falls on a weekend or public holiday, the deadline automatically shifts to the next working day, giving businesses a small buffer without penalty.
This 15-day window is considerably tighter than the deadlines businesses may be used to from other UAE tax obligations, which is part of why excise tax filing tends to catch out businesses managing compliance internally without a dedicated process. Because the filing cycle repeats every single month without exception, even a business with genuinely low excisable activity in a given period must still file a return confirming that position, since silence is not treated as compliance by the FTA.
What You Need to File an Accurate Excise Tax Return
Accurate filing depends on having clean underlying data available before the filing window opens, not scrambling to reconstruct it once the deadline is close. This means maintaining current records of goods imported, produced, or released from a designated zone during the period, along with accurate inventory movement data showing what stock changed hands and when.
Businesses also need up-to-date pricing information for each excisable product, since tax is calculated against the retail selling price, import value, or production cost, whichever is higher, and any change in pricing structure needs to be reflected before the return is filed. Where a business handles multiple excisable product categories with different rates, such as both tobacco products at 100% and sweetened drinks at 50%, keeping these categorised correctly in the underlying records is what prevents calculation errors from carrying through into the filed return.
Get Excise Tax Filing SupportExcise Tax Refunds Through EmaraTax
Businesses that have overpaid excise tax can apply for a refund directly through the EmaraTax portal, and the process is more manageable when the original filings are well-documented in the first place.
The refund process involves submitting the refund application with supporting documents and evidence, after which the FTA reviews the claim and supporting records, and a decision is typically issued within 20 business days of submission. Overpayment can arise from several sources, including a calculation error identified after filing, a product misclassified at a higher rate than it should have carried, or a return filed before final adjustments to a period’s figures were confirmed.
Identifying an overpayment early and filing a well-supported refund claim is generally more straightforward than trying to reconstruct the justification months after the fact.
Common Excise Tax Filing Errors and How to Avoid Them
Certain mistakes recur often enough in excise tax filing to be worth naming directly. Filing late, even by a day, triggers a fixed penalty regardless of how minor the delay, since the FTA’s 15-day window doesn’t carry any built-in grace period beyond the weekend and holiday shift.
Miscalculating tax due to incorrect product classification is another common error, particularly for businesses handling several product categories with different rates within the same filing period. Businesses also sometimes fail to reconcile their EmaraTax declaration against their own internal inventory and sales records before submission, which means an error in the underlying data flows straight through into the filed return unnoticed.
Treating excise tax filing as a routine monthly task assigned to whichever staff member has time that week, rather than a dedicated, reviewed process, is often the underlying reason these errors recur period after period.
Get Excise Tax Filing SupportWork With Farahat & Co.’s Excise Tax Filing Team
As a registered FTA tax agent, we manage the complete excise tax filing cycle on your behalf, including return preparation, accurate tax calculation across all excisable product categories your business handles, timely EmaraTax submission, and refund applications where applicable.
Our monthly filing process is built to catch errors before submission, not after an FTA query arrives, and we monitor deadlines actively rather than leaving compliance dependent on an internal calendar reminder. Where a refund is due because of an identified overpayment, we handle the application and supporting documentation directly, and where past filings need review or correction, we assess the position and manage FTA correspondence on your behalf.
Our objective every month is the same: an accurate return filed on time, with the underlying calculation properly reconciled against your actual records rather than assumed correct.
Talk to Farahat & Co. About Excise Filing