On 22 July 2026, the UAE Federal Tax Authority issued Decision No. 13 of 2026, setting out the measures that taxable persons must take to verify their suppliers and the supplies they receive before deducting Input Tax. It gives effect to a provision that allows the FTA to deny Input Tax recovery where a supply forms part of a chain connected to tax evasion (Article 54(bis) of the VAT Law, inserted through Federal Decree Law No. 16 of 2025). The Decision takes effect 1 October 2026 and applies to all UAE taxable persons.
A data problem first
The new Decision requires taxable persons to verify their suppliers and the supplies they receive before deducting Input Tax. Reading past the legal language and what it actually asks for is a clean, evidenced, continuously-monitored supplier master record.
The five data domains this exposes:
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Identity & legal entity – TRN and incorporation details verified against official registries; authorised signatory identity on file and current
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Location & operations – Registered address matches actual place of business; business activity matches licensed scope
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Financial – Bank account confirmed directly by an authorised bank; payment routing consistent with supplier’s country of incorporation
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Behavioural / risk – Address and key-personnel changes tracked over a rolling 12-month window; transaction volumes benchmarked against supplier size
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Transaction-level – Pricing and margins benchmarked against market norms; goods provenance and licensed-activity match documented per supply
Why fixing it now pays twice
The UAE’s e-invoicing mandate depends on the same underlying data: verified TRNs for participant identification, validated business addresses and activity codes for line-item and party validation, and confirmed bank details for payment fields. A supplier master record that’s clean enough to survive Decision No. 13 scrutiny is, in most respects, already the record taxpayers need to ensure seamless e-invoicing process.
Bottom line
Decision No. 13 provides a legal deadline. What it is really testing is whether businesses’ supplier master data can pass scrutiny. That’s a question worth answering properly once, in a way that also gets companies ready for e-invoicing, instead of answering it twice under two separate deadlines.
