Tax Codes
Your accounting system has its own tax rates, named however your bookkeeper named them. The FTA reads categories, not names. This screen is where the two are connected, once per entity, and it is the single most consequential piece of configuration in the product.
Why this cannot be guessed
A rate called “VAT 0%” could be a zero-rated export, an exempt supply, or something outside the scope of UAE VAT altogether. They are filed differently and they carry different obligations, so a wrong guess is a misfiled return rather than a cosmetic error.
The platform therefore refuses to infer it. Your rates are listed, you choose the category each one means, and that decision is reused on every invoice from then on.
The categories you are choosing between
| Category | What it means |
|---|---|
| Standard rated | The ordinary 5% supply. Most lines, most of the time. |
| Zero rated | 0% but still taxable — exports, and certain named supplies. Not the same as exempt. |
| Exempt | Outside the VAT charge, with no input recovery. Reported differently from zero rated. |
| Reverse charge | The buyer accounts for the VAT, not you. Carries extra requirements per line. |
| Out of scope | Not a UAE supply at all. |
| Margin scheme | Only for resellers of used goods, art, antiques and collectors' items. |
Margin scheme is only asked about once you have used it. If you do not resell used goods, art, antiques or collectors' items, leaving it unmapped is not a gap and the profile is not treated as incomplete for it.
An incomplete profile blocks filing, on purpose
A tax rate that appears on an invoice with no category mapped stops that invoice. The alternative — filing it as something plausible — would put the wrong figure in the wrong box of your return, and nobody would see it until a reconciliation months later.
The screen shows which categories are still unmapped, so the work is finite and visible. Complete it once, revisit it only when you add a new tax rate in your own system.
When you add a new rate later
A rate created in your accounting system after this screen was completed arrives unmapped. Map it before you invoice with it, or the first invoice that uses it will be held. This is the one configuration step that can quietly go stale, so it is worth remembering when your tax setup changes.
Related
What each category then requires of an invoice — particularly reverse charge, which needs more than a tax code — is covered in Invoice rules.