Zoho Books Pricing in the UAE (and FTA VAT Compliance)
Zoho Books in the UAE costs between AED 0 and AED 799 per organisation per month, as of August 2026. Pay annually and the top plan drops to AED 660 per month. The number most UAE businesses care about is AED 60 per month: that is the Standard plan on annual billing, and it is the cheapest tier that tracks VAT and files returns to the FTA. The Free plan cannot do either.
Prices below are per organisation, not per user, and they exclude 5% UAE VAT.
Zoho Books UAE price list (August 2026)
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing (per month) | Users | Invoices per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | AED 0 | AED 0 | 1 + 1 accountant | 1,000 |
| Standard | AED 69 | AED 60 | 3 | 5,000 |
| Professional | AED 129 | AED 90 | 5 | 10,000 |
| Premium | AED 159 | AED 120 | 10 | 25,000 |
| Elite | AED 349 | AED 280 | 10 | 100,000 |
| Ultimate | AED 799 | AED 660 | 15 | 100,000 |
Annual billing saves 13% on Standard and 30% on Professional, the largest discount in the list. If you already know Zoho Books is the right tool, pay annually. There is a 14-day free trial on paid plans, so you can test with real data before committing.
The UAE edition on zoho.com/ae is what carries the VAT and FTA filing features, so sign up there rather than on the global Zoho site, or you land on a different edition and price list.
Extra users cost AED 10 per user per month on monthly billing, or AED 8 on annual billing. Document autoscanning, extra warehouse locations and BillPay are separate add-ons, priced on the official Zoho Books UAE pricing page.
What each plan adds
Ignore the marketing labels and look at the jump points. There are only four that matter.
Free to Standard. Standard is where VAT appears. You get VAT tracking, VAT return and audit reports, and direct filing to EmaraTax. You also go from 1 user to 3, and from 1,000 invoices a year to 5,000. The Free plan is limited to businesses with revenue at or below AED 200,000 for the financial year.
Standard to Professional. This is the operational jump. You get sales orders and purchase orders, inventory tracking, multi-currency transactions, project profitability, retainer invoices, custom roles, custom reports and custom fields. Corporate tax features also start here. Most trading and services companies we set up in Dubai land on Professional.
Professional to Premium. Premium adds finance-team features: budgets, cash flow forecasting, revenue recognition, fixed asset management, a vendor portal, custom domain, custom modules, custom buttons, validation rules and custom functions. It also doubles your users from 5 to 10.
Premium to Elite and Ultimate. Elite is an inventory product. Advanced inventory control, warehouse management, batch and serial number tracking, shipping labels, Shopify integration. Ultimate is Elite plus embedded analytics with 50+ prebuilt visualisations. If you need warehousing, compare the Elite price against Zoho Books Premium plus a separate Zoho Inventory subscription before you decide. Our Zoho Inventory pricing in the UAE breakdown covers that comparison.
Which plan you need, by situation
| Your situation | Plan | Annual cost |
|---|---|---|
| Freelancer or new company, not VAT registered, under AED 200,000 revenue | Free | AED 0 |
| VAT registered, services only, no stock, small team | Standard | AED 720/year |
| Trading company, stock, POs, multi-currency, corporate tax filing | Professional | AED 1,080/year |
| Finance team wants budgets, forecasting and fixed assets | Premium | AED 1,440/year |
| Multiple warehouses, batch or serial tracking, ecommerce | Elite | AED 3,360/year |
Annual cost is the annual-billing rate multiplied by 12, before 5% VAT.
The most common mistake is buying Standard to save AED 30 a month and then discovering you cannot raise a purchase order or hold stock. If you buy or resell anything physical, start at Professional.
The VAT and FTA part
Zoho lists Zoho Books as FTA accredited on its UAE site, and the product files VAT returns directly to EmaraTax rather than making you retype figures into the portal. Two thresholds decide whether that matters to you. Per the Federal Tax Authority, mandatory VAT registration kicks in at AED 375,000 of taxable supplies, and voluntary registration is available from AED 187,500. The standard rate is 5%.
If you are registered, you need Standard or above. Full stop. The Free plan will produce invoices, but it will not track output and input VAT or generate a return, and a VAT-registered business running on it will be reconstructing returns in a spreadsheet every quarter.
What accreditation does not do is make your returns correct. Most FTA problems we see come from setup, not software: the wrong tax rate on a chart of accounts line, zero-rated exports coded as exempt, reverse charge on imported services left off, designated zone transactions treated as normal domestic sales. Zoho Books will file whatever you tell it. Spend the setup time on the tax configuration.
Corporate tax
UAE corporate tax is 0% on taxable income up to and including AED 375,000, and 9% above that. Zoho Books has a corporate tax module where you enter your tax registration number and return period, map CT accounts and generate returns. It sits in Professional and above.
Zoho states on its UAE corporate tax page that it is still building out region-specific CT reporting. Treat the module as a strong head start on the numbers rather than a replacement for your tax agent's review.
E-invoicing is the 2027 deadline to plan for
The UAE Ministry of Finance has published the electronic invoicing timeline, and it is based on the OpenPeppol standard. The dates:
- 1 July 2026: pilot programme opens with a selected group of taxpayers.
- 30 October 2026: businesses with annual revenue of AED 50 million or more must have appointed an Accredited Service Provider.
- 1 January 2027: those businesses must be live on the e-invoicing system.
- 31 March 2027: businesses under AED 50 million must have appointed an ASP.
- 1 July 2027: those businesses must be live.
- 1 October 2027: in-scope government entities must be live.
The key point for budgeting: the ASP is a separate appointment and a separate cost from your Zoho Books subscription. Zoho Books generates the invoice data and integrates with providers, but you contract the ASP that validates, signs and transmits over Peppol and reports to the FTA. If your revenue is at or above AED 50 million, your appointment deadline is 30 October 2026. Check the Ministry of Finance pre-approved provider list before you sign anything.
Costs that are not on the pricing page
- 5% VAT on the subscription. Quoted prices are exclusive of local taxes.
- Extra users. Standard includes 3. A five-person finance and sales team on Standard adds AED 16 per month on annual billing.
- Your ASP contract from 2027, as above.
- Setup. Chart of accounts, opening balances, tax rates, VAT codes, bank feeds, invoice templates in English and Arabic, user roles, approval workflows. For a straightforward company this is a few days. For a group with multiple entities, intercompany transactions and free zone operations, it is longer.
- Migration from Tally, QuickBooks or Xero. Historical transactions, open invoices and bills, customer and supplier masters, and a reconciled cutover date.
- Integrations. Zoho Books talks to Zoho CRM, Zoho Inventory and Shopify. Each connection needs field mapping and a decision about which system owns which record. We cover the CRM side in connecting Zoho Books with Zoho CRM.
Zoho Books alone or Zoho One
If you already run Zoho CRM, or you are considering three or more Zoho apps, price Zoho One before buying Zoho Books standalone. Zoho One bundles Books with the rest of the suite on a per-user basis, and past roughly three apps it usually wins on price. Compare the numbers in our Zoho One pricing in the UAE and Zoho CRM pricing in the UAE breakdowns. One check before you switch: confirm which Zoho Books edition the bundle includes, because Elite-level warehouse management may not be part of it.
FAQ
How much does Zoho Books cost in the UAE? As of August 2026, Zoho Books UAE plans run from AED 0 (Free) to AED 799 per organisation per month on monthly billing. Annual billing drops that to AED 60 to AED 660 per month. Prices exclude 5% UAE VAT.
Is the Zoho Books free plan enough for a UAE business? Only if you are not VAT registered. The Free plan covers invoices, quotes, expenses, journals and bank reconciliation, but VAT tracking, VAT return reports and direct filing start on the Standard plan. Free is also capped at revenue of AED 200,000 a year, one user plus an accountant, and 1,000 invoices a year.
Is Zoho Books FTA accredited? Zoho lists Zoho Books as FTA accredited on its UAE site, and the software supports filing VAT returns directly to EmaraTax. Accreditation applies to the software, not to your filings. You are still responsible for accurate data and on-time returns.
Which Zoho Books plan do I need for UAE corporate tax? Corporate tax features sit in Professional and above. Professional costs AED 129 per month billed monthly, or AED 90 per month billed annually, for five users.
Does Zoho Books handle UAE e-invoicing? Not on its own. Under the Ministry of Finance rollout, in-scope businesses must appoint an Accredited Service Provider that transmits invoices over the Peppol network. Zoho Books produces the invoice data and connects to an ASP, but the ASP appointment is a separate contract.
Where Maxwize fits
Maxwize is a certified Zoho Partner and we set up Zoho Books for UAE businesses: tax configuration, chart of accounts, migration from Tally or QuickBooks, and the links to Zoho CRM and Zoho Inventory. Most of the value is in getting the VAT codes and the opening balances right the first time, because fixing them after two filed returns is far more work. If you want a second opinion on which plan fits before you subscribe, get in touch or see how we handle Zoho One implementations.