Dubai Company Formation Tourist VAT refunds now take one business day
The UAE's VAT refund for tourists has been rebuilt. On 20 October 2026 the Federal Tax Authority and Planet, the company that runs the scheme with it, launched an AI-powered digital platform that cuts the time for a refund to reach a tourist from about nine business days to one. It is live at Dubai International, Zayed International in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah airports.
The numbers
About 16,700 retail outlets are connected to the scheme: 1,326 joined in 2025 and 769 in the first nine months of 2026. There are 98 self-service kiosks, which already handle 22.4% of refund transactions.
Since 2018 the scheme has refunded AED 4.2 billion over 25 million transactions. The authority expects about 4 million transactions and AED 692 million in refunds between November 2026 and October 2027, and puts tourist satisfaction at 93%.
What it changes for a shop
The release describes a faster process, not new rules. A shop still issues the refund at the till and the tourist still validates it on departure; what has changed is how quickly the money comes back. A refund in one business day is a better reason for a visitor to buy from a shop that offers it, which matters most for fashion, electronics, perfume and jewellery retailers with a tourist trade.
For a company being set up
The scheme only works for a business registered for VAT. A company planning to sell to visitors from a mall or souk in Dubai should treat VAT registration and joining the tourist refund scheme as one step, rather than discovering the second after opening.
Count the scheme into the plan for any retail licence aimed at visitors. The 769 outlets that joined in nine months are the competition a new shop opens against, and a faster refund raises what a tourist expects at the till. The authority's figures also say where tourists claim: almost a quarter of refunds already go through a kiosk, so the paperwork a shop hands over has to work without a person to explain it.
Source: Federal Tax Authority checked against the source
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