How UAE e-invoicing works, in plain words

In the UAE you never send an e-invoice straight to your customer, and you never upload it to a government portal. You hand the invoice data to your Accredited Service Provider (ASP). Your ASP delivers it to your customer's ASP and reports it to the Federal Tax Authority (FTA) at the same time. The Ministry of Finance calls this the 5-corner model (officially "Decentralized Continuous Transaction Control and Exchange", DCTCE) ^[1][2].

The five corners

Corner	Who	What they do
1	You, the supplier	Send the invoice data from your accounting software or ERP to your ASP
2	Your ASP	Checks the data, turns it into the UAE e-invoice (XML), sends it on, reports tax data to the FTA
3	Your buyer's ASP	Receives and validates the invoice, confirms receipt, reports to the FTA
4	Your buyer	Receives the invoice in whatever format they agreed with their ASP
5	The FTA	Receives the tax data from both ASPs and sends confirmations back

Source: the Ministry's Guidelines ^[1].

One invoice, step by step

1. You send invoice data to your ASP "in an agreed format". It does not have to be XML: if your software sends something else, your ASP converts it ^[1].
2. Your ASP validates it and creates the UAE standard e-invoice in XML ^[1].
3. Your ASP sends the XML to your buyer's ASP and, in parallel, reports the tax data to the FTA ^[1].
4. Your buyer's ASP validates the invoice and confirms receipt to your ASP ^[1].
5. Your buyer's ASP passes the invoice to your buyer and also reports the tax data to the FTA. If validation fails, it tells your ASP and the FTA, and nothing is reported for that invoice ^[1].
6. The FTA confirms to both ASPs, and each ASP forwards the confirmations to its client ^[1].

As a supplier, the only extra job on your side is to collect your buyer's e-invoicing ID (see below). Looking up where to deliver it, encrypting it and generating the unique invoice number (UUID) are the ASP's job ^[1].

The legal responsibility stays with you, not your ASP: the ASP carries out the exchange and reporting on your behalf ^[1].

Why it is called Peppol

The network between corners 2 and 3 is Peppol, an international e-invoicing network run under the rules of the non-profit OpenPeppol association ^[1]. The UAE chose it so that invoices can also travel across borders ^[2]. That is why every ASP must be an active Peppol-certified service provider that has passed the OpenPeppol conformance tests ^[4]. In Peppol terms, your ASP is your "access point".

What PINT AE is

PINT AE is the UAE's version of the Peppol International invoice format (PINT). It is a set of technical rules that says which fields an e-invoice must contain and how they are written in XML, with UAE-specific additions ^[1][3]. OpenPeppol publishes it; version 1.0.4 was the current release when we checked ^[3].

Things you notice as a business owner:

• XML only, no QR code. UAE e-invoices are XML files and carry no QR code or barcode ^[1].
• Arabic and English are both supported ^[1].
• A UUID (a long unique number) is added to each tax invoice by the system, on top of your own invoice number ^[1].
• Transaction flags mark special cases on the invoice, such as free zone supplies, deemed supplies, the profit margin scheme, summary invoices, continuous supplies, agent billing, e-commerce and exports ^[1].
• Six document types exist: e-tax invoice, e-tax credit note, commercial invoice, e-credit note, and self-billed versions of the first two ^[1].

You don't write PINT AE yourself. Your ASP or your accounting software produces it. To read one, open it in our PINT AE invoice viewer; the file never leaves your browser.

Your e-invoicing ID is your TIN

Every business on the network has a participant ID: 0235 followed by its 10-digit Tax Identification Number (TIN) ^[1]. The TIN is the first 10 digits of your 15-digit Tax Registration Number (TRN). In a VAT group, each member uses its own TIN, not the group representative's ^[1].

Before your go-live date, ask your regular customers and suppliers for their TINs. You can check whether a company is already reachable, and through which provider, with our UAE Peppol / TIN lookup.

Where the data is stored

You must keep e-invoices and their associated data so they can be produced to the FTA for the legal retention period ^[5]. The Guidelines clarify that "within the State" means they must be retrievable on request, whatever the location of the servers ^[1].

Next steps

• Deadlines and penalties
• How to choose an ASP as an SME
• Official ASP list

This page summarises official sources; it is not legal or tax advice. Checked on 6 October 2026.