The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has set a clearer path for companies that take digital assets in the course of trade. The Federal Tax Authority has published Directive on Tax Transactions No. 3 of 2026, which tells taxable persons exactly how to turn cryptocurrency consideration into UAE dirhams when they complete a VAT return.
The rule covers two situations. It applies when a registered business supplies a digital currency itself. It also applies when the business sells goods or services and is paid in a digital currency.
In both cases the dirham figure that appears on the return must be calculated in a prescribed way rather than taken from a single market quote or an internal book rate.
The method is built around three consistent sources.
First, the business chooses three platforms from the Authority’s published list of centralised public digital currency exchanges.
The current list names Binance FZE, Bybit Fintech FZE, Deribit FZE, Bitget and Payward FZCO.
Once the three names are selected they must stay the same for every relevant transaction throughout that calendar year.
Switching mid-year is not permitted.
Second, at the precise date and time of the supply—or the date and time the consideration is received, whichever the VAT rules require—the business records the exchange rate shown by each of the three chosen platforms.
Third, those three rates are added together and divided by three.
The resulting arithmetic average is the rate used to convert the digital-currency amount into dirhams.
That dirham value is what must be disclosed on the VAT return.
Record-keeping is equally specific.
Every rate taken from every platform for every transaction must be stored, together with the timestamps that show when the rates were observed.
Those files sit alongside the ordinary invoices and contracts that businesses already keep.
The Authority can ask to see the source quotes if it reviews the return.
The directive does not change the underlying VAT treatment of the transaction.
The transfer or conversion of a digital currency itself remains exempt.
Goods or services paid for with that currency stay taxable at the standard 5 per cent rate if they would have been taxable when paid in dirhams.
The new text only standardises the conversion so that the reported consideration is consistent and auditable.
For tokens that do not appear on three of the listed platforms the Authority has said it will issue a further public clarification.
Until then, businesses should confirm the latest published list before they file.
The framework gives companies that already accept crypto a single, year-long method instead of leaving valuation to individual judgement. It also gives the tax authority a paper trail that matches the volatility of the assets themselves.
