Small Business Relief has one number and one date. The revenue threshold is AED 3,000,000 (MD 73/2023 Art. 2(1)). The date is 31 December 2029: Ministerial Decision 131 of 2026, issued 29 July 2026, replaced Art. 2(2) of MD 73/2023 so that the threshold continues to apply to tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2029.

Cite the instrument, not the topic page. The FTA's own Small Business Relief topic page carries no sunset date at all. It is not wrong about the threshold, but it cannot confirm the end date in either direction, and a reader who checks the relief there will conclude there is no deadline. Cite MD 73/2023 as amended by MD 131/2026 in your working file and in any advice you give. Gaps like this survive in firm templates for years.

Two categories cannot elect, whatever their revenue: a Constituent Company of an MNE Group — a member of a multinational group — and a Qualifying Free Zone Person (MD 73/2023 Art. 3). If Lesson 5 describes your company, this lesson does not.

Then the price. Where the election is made, the tax losses and the net interest expenditure of that period cannot be carried forward (MD 73/2023 Arts. 4(1) and 5(1)). The relief is not free. It spends a year of future relief to remove a year of present tax, and the exchange is only worth making when there is present tax to remove.

Eligibility also does not end your obligations. You still register and you still file. The relief is elected through a simplified Corporate Tax return, not through silence.

Worked example — the loss-making year. A trading company has revenue of AED 2,400,000, comfortably inside the threshold, and the period produces a tax loss of AED 180,000. Two paths:

• Elect. Taxable income is treated as nil and the tax for the period is AED 0. The AED 180,000 loss cannot be carried forward.
• Do not elect. Taxable income is negative, so the tax for the period is also AED 0 — and the AED 180,000 carries forward.

Now give the company a good year. Taxable income before relief of AED 900,000 in the next period. With the loss available, relief is capped at 75% of 900,000, which is 675,000, so the whole 180,000 is used; taxable income becomes AED 720,000 and the tax is 9% of (720,000 − 375,000), or AED 31,050. Without it, the tax is 9% of (900,000 − 375,000), or AED 47,250. Electing the relief in a year that had no tax to pay cost AED 16,200 the following year.

The failure mode is electing by default. Someone ticks the relief the first year it applies, and it stays ticked. Run the two-path comparison above for every period, not once, and record the reasoning where the election is recorded.