I run a cloud kitchen and sell only through delivery apps — how does VAT get split between me and the platform?

A cloud kitchen is a fully licensed restaurant business even without a dine-in space, selling entirely through apps like Talabat, Deliveroo, or Careem — food and drinks still carry the standard 5% VAT rate like any restaurant. Under most platform agreements, the kitchen brand is the actual seller to the end customer, and the platform acts as a disclosed agent collecting payment on the kitchen's behalf and passing it on after deducting its commission — so the sales invoice to the end customer needs to reflect the full order value, not the net amount that actually lands in the kitchen's account.

The platform's commission is an entirely separate supply — the platform is providing you with marketing and order-facilitation services, and that also carries 5% VAT, with the platform issuing you a separate tax invoice for the commission (which you can recover as input tax if you're VAT-registered). A common mistake is recording only the net amount received from the platform as revenue, without separating the full sale value to the customer from the platform's commission as its own expense — which understates declared output VAT without anyone intending it. RASEEKH helps cloud kitchen owners set up their accounting so both invoices are reflected correctly, instead of working from the net figure alone.