UAE issues a directive on converting digital-currency values into AED for tax purposes
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
- Compliance
- Status
- Enacted
- Impact
- Plan ahead
- Announced
- 14 July 2026
- Effective
- 17 July 2026
- Authority
- UAE Federal Tax Authority
- Systems
- Tax engine, Invoicing, Reporting
- Verified
- Fetched from official source · medium confidence
UAE taxable persons supplying a digital currency, or receiving consideration in digital currency, who must express the value in AED for disclosure in the VAT return and retain the rates used.
UAE taxable persons that receive consideration in digital currency should obtain FTA Directive No. 3 of 2026 and align their AED conversion and record-keeping method to it before their next VAT return.
Tax engineInvoicingReporting
The UAE Federal Tax Authority issued Directive on Tax Transactions No. 3 of 2026 on the method of converting the value of digital currencies into AED, published on the FTA legislation portal with a document date of 17 July 2026. The FTA also issued Directive No. 4 of 2026 (17 July 2026) on life-insurance fees and Directive No. 5 of 2026 (22 July 2026) on the valuation of deemed supplies.
What changed in detail
The UAE Federal Tax Authority issued Directive on Tax Transactions No. 3 of 2026 on the method of converting the value of digital currencies into AED. The directive’s own issuance line reads 14 July 2026; the FTA legislation portal lists it with a publish date of 17 July 2026.
Two further directives were issued alongside it: Directive No. 4 of 2026 (14 July 2026) on life-insurance fees, and Directive No. 5 of 2026 (20 July 2026) on the valuation of deemed supplies.
The method is prescribed rather than left to the taxpayer. A taxable person selects three platforms from the list of centralised public digital-currency exchange platforms published by the Authority, and takes the numerical average of their exchange rates at the date and time of the supply or of receipt of the consideration. The same three platforms must be used for the whole year, and the rates obtained must be retained. Conversion is required for disclosure in the tax return.
What it means
Crypto-denominated consideration has been a practical reporting gap in the UAE: businesses accepting payment in digital currency have had no authoritative basis for the AED figure that goes into the return, and have generally picked a rate source and documented it.
That gap is now closed, and the rule is more specific than a “use a reasonable rate” standard — three named platforms, fixed for the year, averaged at the moment of supply. Two things follow. Picking the three is a decision to make once and record, because switching mid-year is not available. And the retention requirement means the rate has to be captured at transaction time; it cannot be reconstructed at year-end from whatever the platforms are showing then.