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Key takeaways
  • The UAE has no personal income tax, so salary and dividends are untaxed at the individual level in Dubai.
  • You only stop paying UK tax once you have genuinely broken UK residence under the Statutory Residence Test.
  • Your UK company keeps owing UK Corporation Tax (19% to 25%) because it is UK-incorporated.
  • Since June 2023 the UAE levies 9% corporate tax on profits above AED 375,000 (around £80,000).
  • Running the company entirely from Dubai risks the Central Management and Control trap, the most expensive mistake here.

Check your risk profile

Quick check: your cross-border risk profile
This is an informational indicator, not a residence determination or advice. The Statutory Residence Test, Central Management & Control and Permanent Establishment all turn on the full facts. Take Home models your actual day-count and exposure across both regimes.

Your personal tax: 0%, with conditions

The headline is real. The UAE levies no personal income tax. Salary, dividends and most personal income are untaxed at the individual level in Dubai. For a higher-rate UK taxpayer, that is a step change.

But "0% in Dubai" only describes the Dubai side. Whether the UK also stops taxing you depends on whether you have genuinely broken UK residence under the Statutory Residence Test.

Becoming UK non-resident

You become non-UK-resident by satisfying the Statutory Residence Test (SRT), principally by keeping your UK days below the relevant limits and cutting UK ties. Full-time work abroad and limited UK day-counts are the usual route, and most full-time Dubai residents clear it, but not automatically.

You would typically file a P85 (or report through Self Assessment) when you leave, and you may get split-year treatment for the year of departure. Until you have properly broken residence, the UK can still tax your worldwide income.

Your UK company still owes UK Corporation Tax

This is the step people skip. Your UK limited company was incorporated in the UK, so it remains UK tax-resident and owes UK Corporation Tax on its profits, 19% to 25% for 2025/26, regardless of where you now live.

Worked example: your company makes £85,000 of profit. At the 19% small-profits rate that is £16,150 of UK Corporation Tax, due before a penny reaches you. Moving to Dubai does not touch that bill.

The UAE's 9% corporate tax

Since June 2023 the UAE has its own corporate tax of 9% on business profits above AED 375,000 (roughly £80,000). It is low, but it is no longer zero, and if your company is treated as having a presence or being managed in the UAE, this can come into play.

For most people the live question is not the rate. It is which country gets to tax the company at all, which brings us to the trap below.

The Central Management & Control trap

Run your UK company entirely from Dubai, with every decision made there, and you risk the UAE arguing the company's Central Management and Control sits in Dubai, making it UAE-resident too. Now two regimes potentially tax the same company, resolved by the UK-UAE double-taxation treaty's tie-breaker.

This is the most common and most expensive mistake for UK directors in Dubai. It is covered in depth in our guide to running a UK Ltd from abroad. The short version: where the decisions are genuinely made matters more than the registered office.

Before-you-move checklist

  1. Map your SRT day-count for the year of departure and the years after
  2. Plan your P85 or Self Assessment departure filing, and check whether split-year treatment applies
  3. Confirm your company's Corporation Tax obligations continue and budget for them
  4. Think hard about where decisions are made to protect the company's UK residence (CMC)
  5. Take cross-border advice before you go, because the order you do things in can change the tax outcome