24 July 2026 · What to Keep
Which Records You Must Maintain
You must keep every record that lets the FTA readily verify your taxable income, not just a copy of the return itself. That means financial statements, general ledgers, journals and trial balances; invoices, contracts, receipts and bank records for every transaction; records of assets, liabilities and provisions; and shareholding, related-party and connected-person records that explain who owns and controls the business. The set has to reconcile to your corporate-tax return line by line, so nothing an FTA reviewer asks about is left unexplained. Records may be kept in English or Arabic, but the FTA can require an Arabic translation of any specific document, at your own cost, within a deadline it sets, so a contract held only in a third language is worth revisiting. As a working test, treat a document as required if removing it would leave any single figure in the return unsupported, and organise the file by tax period rather than by document type, since that is how a reviewer actually works through it.
Exiloz Management & Tax Consultant · Dubai-based FTA-focused advisory · VAT, corporate tax & accounting
The financial records
These documents are the backbone of the file, because they are what an FTA reviewer checks first against the figures in your return. A trial balance without the invoices behind it, or a ledger that does not reconcile to the bank, is exactly the kind of gap an audit is designed to find. Keeping this core set current, month by month, is far cheaper than reconstructing it once a request arrives.
- Financial statements and trial balances for the relevant tax period.
- General ledgers and journals showing every posted transaction.
- Invoices, contracts and receipts that support each recorded figure.
- Bank statements and reconciliations tying the books to actual cash movement.
- A clear bridge from accounting profit to the figure actually reported in the return.
- Payroll records and employee cost schedules where these feed into the return.
- Fixed-asset registers showing acquisition cost, depreciation and disposals.
Balance-sheet and ownership records
The FTA looks beyond the profit-and-loss account, so the record set has to cover the balance sheet and the ownership structure too. Assets, liabilities and provisions all feed into taxable income over more than one period, and related-party dealings carry their own scrutiny, so the underlying documents need to be as complete as the transaction records themselves.
- Records of assets and liabilities, including how they were valued and when they moved.
- Provisions and adjustments, with the reasoning behind each one documented.
- Shareholding and ownership records showing who ultimately controls the business.
- Related-party and connected-person data, including the terms of any dealings between them.
- Evidence for any unusual transaction, such as an asset disposal, created at the time it happened.
- Loan agreements and financing documents showing terms, interest and repayment schedules.
- Corporate documents such as trade licences, memoranda and board resolutions relevant to the tax position.
The mistake of keeping totals but not documents
A recurring gap in FTA reviews is a business that can show a trial balance or a summary schedule but cannot produce the invoices, contracts and receipts behind it. Totals on their own do not satisfy the FTA; the underlying documents are what actually let a reviewer verify that a figure is real. This is especially common after a bookkeeping clean-up, where historical summaries survive but the original paperwork behind them does not.
- A trial balance alone is not evidence; the invoices and contracts behind each line are what get checked.
- Summarised schedules built after the fact do not replace contemporaneous documents.
- Keep the source document, not just the accounting entry it produced.
- Where a document genuinely no longer exists, note why and when it was lost, rather than leaving a silent gap.
- Rebuild the missing-document register periodically, before an audit forces you to do it under pressure.
Related guides
Frequently Asked Questions
For businesses building, or auditing, a complete corporate-tax record file before the FTA asks for one.
Do I need to keep contracts?
Yes. Contracts sit alongside invoices and receipts as the direct evidence behind a transaction, and the FTA can ask for any of the three when checking a figure in your return, so all three need to be kept together, not just the invoice.
Do I keep related-party records?
Yes. Shareholding, related-party and connected-person records are part of the required set, because they show who controls the business and on what terms it deals with connected parties, which matters for how income and expenses are treated.
Should records reconcile to my return?
Yes. The full record set must let the FTA verify and reconcile every figure in your return, from the top-line revenue down to individual adjustments and provisions, so a reviewer can trace any number back to its source document.
Is a trial balance enough on its own?
No. A trial balance without the underlying invoices, contracts and receipts does not satisfy the FTA, because a summary figure cannot be independently verified without the documents that produced it.
Can records be kept in Arabic or English?
Yes, either is acceptable. The FTA can still request an Arabic translation of a specific document, at your cost, within a deadline it sets, so it is worth knowing which of your key documents exist only in a third language.
What counts as an asset or liability record?
Anything showing how an asset or liability was valued, acquired, adjusted or disposed of, including the reasoning behind provisions, so the movement in the balance sheet can be explained rather than just observed.
Do payroll and fixed-asset records count too?
Yes. Payroll and employee cost schedules matter wherever they feed into the return, and a fixed-asset register showing acquisition cost, depreciation and disposals is what lets the FTA verify how those figures moved through the balance sheet over more than one period.
Can Exiloz organise our records?
Yes. We build a complete, reconciled record set covering financials, transactions, balance-sheet items and ownership, and check it ties back to every figure in your corporate-tax return before an FTA reviewer ever sees it.
Keep the right records
Exiloz builds a complete, reconciled record set that supports every figure in your corporate-tax return, from financial statements down to the individual contracts and ownership documents behind it.