UAE amends its VAT Executive Regulation: fund management and virtual assets exempt from 15 November 2024
This page records one dated change. For the rules in United Arab Emirates as they stand today, see the United Arab Emirates guide →
- Jurisdiction
- United Arab Emirates
- Tax
- VAT
- Change type
- Update
- Status
- In force
- Impact
- FYI
- Announced
- 6 September 2024
- Effective
- 15 November 2024
- Instrument
- AE-CABINET-DECISION-100-2024
- Authority
- UAE Ministry of Finance
- Verified
- Fetched from official source · high confidence
UAE investment fund managers, virtual-asset businesses, charities and government entities making in-kind donations, and any VAT registrant the Federal Tax Authority may deregister.
No action — monitoring only.
Cabinet Decision No. 100 of 2024, issued 6 September 2024, announced by the UAE Ministry of Finance on 5 October 2024 and effective 15 November 2024, amended the Executive Regulation of Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017 on VAT (Cabinet Decision No. 52 of 2017). Key changes: (1) management of investment funds is an exempt financial service; (2) the transfer and conversion of virtual assets are exempt, including supplies made on or after 1 January 2018; (3) deemed supplies made by way of in-kind donations between charities and government entities fall outside the deemed-supply rules where the output tax on them does not exceed AED 250,000 in 12 months (about AED 5 million of value at 5%), so donors can recover the input VAT; (4) a new Article 14 (bis) lets the Federal Tax Authority deregister a person on its own initiative where keeping the registration may prejudice the integrity of the tax system; (5) other provisions were aligned with Federal Decree-Law No. 18 of 2022.
What changed in detail
Cabinet Decision No. 100 of 2024, issued on 6 September 2024 and effective from 15 November 2024, amends the Executive Regulation of Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017 on VAT (Cabinet Decision No. 52 of 2017). The UAE Ministry of Finance announced it on 5 October 2024.
The main changes are:
- Investment fund management is added to the exempt financial services.
- The transfer and conversion of virtual assets are exempt, including supplies made on or after 1 January 2018.
- In-kind donations between charities and government entities fall outside the deemed-supply rules where the output tax on them does not exceed AED 250,000 in 12 months (about AED 5 million of value at 5%, the figure the Ministry’s announcement used), so the donor can recover the input VAT.
- A new Article 14 (bis) lets the Federal Tax Authority deregister a person on its own initiative where keeping the registration may prejudice the integrity of the tax system.
- Other provisions are aligned with Federal Decree-Law No. 18 of 2022, which amended the VAT law.
The Federal Tax Authority’s consolidated text of the Executive Regulation lists the decision as issued on 6 September 2024 and effective from 15 November 2024.
What it means
The decision is in force, and its provisions sit in the consolidated Executive Regulation that the FTA still publishes. The retroactive virtual-asset exemption is the part with lasting consequences. Businesses that charged VAT on those supplies since 2018 had a question about corrections and input tax to work through. The Executive Regulation has been amended again since: Cabinet Decision No. 100 of 2025 (effective 29 September 2025), and a further 2026 amendment recorded as Cabinet Decision No. 149 of 2026. Read the current consolidated text, not this decision alone.
Proof
The Ministry of Finance announced that the UAE Cabinet has approved Decision No. 100 of 2024, which amends certain provisions of the Executive Regulations of Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017 on Value Added Tax (VAT).
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