What's the most common mistake new businesses make when registering for VAT?

The mandatory registration threshold is AED 375,000 in taxable revenue over the trailing 12 months (or expected within the next 30 days), and the common mistake is business owners calculating revenue from the start of the financial year instead of reviewing it month by month — meaning they can cross the threshold in a given month and not notice for several more, which triggers a late-registration penalty. There's also a voluntary threshold of AED 187,500, useful for startups that want to recover input VAT from day one even while still under the mandatory threshold.

The second mistake is some businesses register the moment they hit the threshold without reviewing whether their activity includes any exemptions or zero-rated items that would change the calculation. At RASEEKH, we review your monthly revenue in detail from day one of operations, so we can pin down the correct registration date before it's missed — not after you're already facing a penalty.