You can register a UAE company for Corporate Tax yourself on the FTA's EmaraTax portal. With an AI agent such as Claude Code filling the form from your documents, it took me about 40 minutes and cost nothing, against the AED 1,000 to 1,500 agents charge. The skill I used is free and open source.
On September 8 I opened the FTA portal, logged in, and told Claude to fill the whole Corporate Tax registration while I watched. I read the review screen, ticked the declaration and submitted. The approval email with my Tax Registration Number came in at 7:47 the next morning.
The next day I posted about it, with the skill attached. That post did 128K views and 2K bookmarks, my second most saved post since March after the iPhone farm launch. A lot of founders in the UAE have this form on their to-do list.
#Why every UAE company has this form
The UAE introduced a federal Corporate Tax in 2023. Almost every company, mainland or free zone, has to register for it on EmaraTax, even if it ends up owing nothing. A new company has three months from incorporation to register. Miss it and the penalty is AED 10,000.
So the form is not optional, and it isn't hard either. It is one long SAP form, five steps, filled from documents you already have. Agents and consultants charge AED 1,000 to 1,500 to type it in. When I opened my free zone company in Dubai I would rather spend 40 minutes than the fee, so I had an agent do the typing.
#What the skill is
The UAE Corporate Tax Registration Skill is a set of instructions an AI agent follows to drive the EmaraTax registration in your browser. It works with Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, or any agent that can control a browser. You give it your documents and answers. It creates the Taxable Person profile, fills every step, uploads the right file to the right field, and stops at the declaration so you can submit.
It is four Markdown files. SKILL.md is what the agent follows. The references hold a documents checklist, a field-by-field walkthrough of all five steps, and the list of things that break.
The rules I cared most about are the ones about what it won't do.
| The agent does | You do |
|---|---|
| Creates the Taxable Person profile | Log in to EmaraTax, password and OTP |
| Fills entity, licence, activities, owners | Answer anything not in your documents |
| Uploads each PDF and checks it stuck | Read the review screen |
| Validates every Emirates ID | Tick the legal declaration |
| Stops on any warning it didn't expect | Press Submit |
The declaration is a legal statement by the authorised signatory, so it stays with a person. The skill also gives no tax advice. It types what you tell it into a government form you could fill yourself.
#The five steps on EmaraTax
Entity details. A free zone FZCO or a normal LLC is "Legal Person - Incorporated", sub-type "UAE Private Company". You pick the months of your financial year and the portal fills in your first tax period and your first return due date. The agent reads that date back to you, because it is the next deadline you have.
Identification. The trade licence, its issuing authority, the business activities (search by name, the portal fills the code), and every owner with 25% or more. Each owner's Emirates ID has to be validated before the row saves.
Contact details. The registered address from the licence, a mobile, an email you actually read, and a landline.
Authorised signatory. Usually the owner or GM, with the MOA as the source of authority.
Review and declaration. The agent summarises everything and hands the screen to you.
#The gotchas that eat the 40 minutes
None of these are hard once you know them. Browser agents hit the same handful every time on this portal, and they are why the skill exists instead of a "just ask ChatGPT" tip.
- The uploader keeps one file. Drop two PDFs on a field at once and it quietly registers one. The attachment list also shows up further down the page than you'd expect, so it looks empty. Upload one at a time and check the "Add/View" count.
- The landline is mandatory. Most one-founder companies don't have one. Reuse the mobile digits. The field takes 8.
- Validate renames people. The Emirates ID check pulls the official name from the federal database. Use whatever it returns, even if a middle name disappears.
- Never press Escape. Escape closes a dropdown, and it also closes the whole dialog and throws away what you typed. Click an empty part of the form instead.
- Picking UAE wipes the address. Choosing the country swaps the address block for UAE fields and clears what was there. Country first, then address.
- "Licence already registered with another account." Usually a free zone or a past agent made an account for you. The skill stops here and asks, because pushing on can create a duplicate.
- Save as draft after every step. The portal is slow, flashes blank pages, and can drop a step if it glitches.
#Before you start
Everything has to be a PDF. EmaraTax rejects photos on most upload fields.
- Trade licence
- Certificate of incorporation
- Memorandum of Association, used twice, once for the company and once as the signatory's authority
- Emirates ID and passport of each owner with 25% or more, and of the signatory
- Legal name in English and Arabic, licence number, issue and expiry dates, activities, financial year
- A UAE mobile number and an email you check, because the TRN arrives there
#Run it in Claude Code
Log in to EmaraTax in your browser first. Then install the skill:
git clone https://github.com/Git-Agni/prod-UAE-Corporate-Tax-Skill.git \
~/.claude/skills/uae-corporate-tax-registration
Open Claude Code with browser control and say "help me register for UAE Corporate Tax on EmaraTax, I'm logged in." It loads the skill, asks for anything it can't read off your documents, and walks the five steps. With Codex or another agent, paste SKILL.md into the chat instead.
When it stops at the review screen, read every field against your documents, tick the declaration and submit. Write down the reference number. Approval usually takes 5 to 20 business days. Mine took less than one. You get a TRN, a GIBAN for paying tax, and a certificate to download.
Registering is not filing. Your first Corporate Tax return is due later, and the portal shows you the date in step 1. If you think a relief applies to you, like Small Business Relief or Qualifying Free Zone Person, ask a registered tax agent before that return. This post and the skill are not tax advice.
#What people said
The top pushback was fair. One reply said you can do it in 10 minutes without AI, because it is a wizard where you copy and paste from your trade licence. If you know the portal, yes. My answer at the time was that AI makes it seamless. The skill is for people who don't know the portal, and it already knows the gotchas above.
Another reader went through the README and asked for the step before this one, an agent that gets every form together for incorporating the company in the first place. Someone else said they needed to register for VAT next and this came at the right time. That one I have already done, and open sourced as well. It is the next post in this series.
#FAQ
Do I need a tax agent to register for UAE Corporate Tax? No. Registration on EmaraTax is free and any company can do it itself. An agent only types the same form for a fee.
How long does UAE Corporate Tax registration take? Filling the form took me about 40 minutes with an AI agent. Approval usually takes 5 to 20 business days. Mine came back the next morning.
What is the deadline to register? A new company has three months from incorporation. The late registration penalty is AED 10,000.
Does the AI agent see my EmaraTax password? No. You log in yourself and the skill never types a password or OTP. It also never ticks the declaration or submits.
Does it work with ChatGPT or Codex, not just Claude?
It works with Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, or any agent that can control a browser. Outside Claude Code, paste SKILL.md into the chat.
Is this tax advice? No. The skill only enters the information you give it. For reliefs, VAT or your tax position, talk to a registered UAE tax agent from the FTA's list.
#Links
- The skill: github.com/Git-Agni/prod-UAE-Corporate-Tax-Skill, MIT
- EmaraTax: eservices.tax.gov.ae
- Registered tax agents: tax.gov.ae
- The launch post on X: x.com/consumerxai
- My notes on opening a business in Dubai: x.com/consumerxai
- Earlier in this series: the open source iPhone farm and the TikTok farming playbook
