I'm a freelancer — at what point do I become subject to Corporate Tax?

Cabinet Decision No. 49 of 2023 (effective 1 June 2023) established that a natural person — a freelancer, sole proprietor, or anyone running a business on their own account — only becomes subject to Corporate Tax once total turnover from "business activity" in a Gregorian calendar year exceeds AED 1,000,000. Below that figure, there's no registration obligation at all, even with an active trade licence or ongoing activity.

What matters is that the calculation doesn't sweep in every source of income: wage and employment income, personal investment returns (such as dividends received as an individual rather than as a trader), and personal real estate investment income are all excluded from the AED 1 million calculation regardless of amount. Only turnover genuinely generated by a regular business or professional activity counts. A common mistake is assuming every extra dirham of income counts toward the threshold — leading to registering too early, or the opposite, missing registration when the threshold has genuinely been crossed. RASEEKH helps you correctly sort your income sources and pin down exactly whether you've hit the registration threshold.