United Arab Emirates Withholding tax rates
United Arab Emirates Withholding tax rates: no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.
Withholding tax the United Arab Emirates levies on payments to non-residents - dividends, interest and royalties - under the Corporate Tax regime of Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022. The statutory rate is 0% on every category: the UAE currently imposes no withholding tax on any outbound payment. Administered by the Federal Tax Authority.
Compare withholding tax rates across all 9 Middle Eastern countries →
| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2023-06-01 |
| Official source | Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 on the Taxation of Corporations and Businesses, Article 45(1): 'The following income shall be subject to Withholding Tax at the rate of 0% (zero percent) or any other rate as specified in a decision issued by the Cabinet at the suggestion of the Minister: a) The categories of State Sourced Income derived by a Non-Resident Person as prescribed in the decision issued by the Cabinet pursuant to this Article...' (Ministry of Finance unofficial English translation) |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
THERE IS NO SINGLE WITHHOLDING TAX RATE, WHICH IS WHY value IS NULL - although in the UAE's case the reason is unusual: the statutory rate on every category is 0%, so no tax is actually withheld on any payment to a non-resident. Article 45(1) of Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 sets Withholding Tax at '0% (zero percent) or any other rate as specified in a decision issued by the Cabinet'; as at the last confirmation date no Cabinet decision has prescribed any non-zero rate or any category of State Sourced Income subject to withholding, so dividends, interest and royalties paid to non-residents all leave the UAE gross. A caller wanting a number must still name the payment type; read withholding_rates rather than expecting a headline figure. ALL RATES ARE DOMESTIC STATUTORY RATES, BEFORE TREATY RELIEF. Since the domestic rate is 0%, the UAE's double-tax agreements have nothing to reduce on outbound payments - treaty relief is irrelevant to UAE withholding today. The mechanism nevertheless exists in law: the Cabinet can activate withholding at any time by decision, and Article 46 already provides the Withholding Tax Credit machinery for that eventuality. We do NOT serve treaty rates in any case: they are bilateral and applying one is a legal determination rather than a lookup. The series effective_from is 1 June 2023, the date the Corporate Tax regime (including Article 45) applies from for tax periods starting on or after that date. Before the CT regime the UAE likewise levied no withholding tax at federal level, so 0% has in practice always been the position.
Get it programmatically
curl https://mearef.dev/v1/ae/withholding-tax
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://mearef.dev/v1/ae/withholding-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://mearef.dev/provenance/ae/withholding-taxOther United Arab Emirates series: CBUAE Base Rate (Overnight Deposit Facility) · VAT standard rate · VAT registration threshold · Statutory minimum wage · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate Tax (headline rate) · Statutory delay interest on commercial debts · Personal income tax · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Bahrain · Iraq · Israel · Jordan · Kuwait · all 9