FTA Decision No. 13 of 2026 is tiered by design. Every in-scope supplier gets the core Article 3 verification. But where the value of supplies received from a supplier exceeds AED 375,000 over the previous twelve months — or is expected to over the next twelve — Article 3(4) adds two enhanced measures. For most UAE enterprises, this tier will capture the suppliers that carry most of the spend, and most of the input tax.
Enhanced Measure One: The Bank Confirmation
The Taxable Person must obtain from the supplier a written confirmation issued by an authorised bank in the State, confirming that the supplier holds a bank account, and free of relevant reservations or conditions.
Two features of the text deserve careful reading, because both make compliance easier than a first skim suggests.
First, the confirmation is not required to be issued to the recipient of the supply — the Decision says so expressly. A supplier's existing general-purpose bank letter can satisfy the requirement. You do not need your bank, or the supplier's bank, to produce a bespoke letter addressed to you for every customer relationship the supplier has.
Second, the confirmation concerns the account's existence at an authorised bank in the State, with no relevant reservations or conditions attached. The banked-supplier test connects naturally to the payment discipline running through Article 4(2): a supplier with a confirmed UAE account, paid electronically to that account, in its own name, presents the payment profile the Decision contemplates throughout.
The practical friction will be supplier cooperation. Requesting a bank letter is an unfamiliar ask in many trades, and larger suppliers may be slow to see why a customer needs it. Building the request into contractual onboarding terms — rather than leaving individual buyers to improvise the conversation — is the difference between a document that arrives and a request that stalls.
Enhanced Measure Two: Reviews and Media Coverage
At the same threshold, and reviewing clients' recommendations where available, the Taxable Person must review and assess publicly available reviews and media coverage from reliable sources, checking two things: that they are consistent with the nature and size of the supplier's business, and that there are no indicators of suspected Tax Evasion.
Read the boundary accurately. This is not a sanctions screen, not a politically-exposed-person check, and not continuous adverse-media monitoring — the Decision requires none of those. It is a documented, dated review of what the public record says about the supplier, assessed against what the supplier claims to be. A trading company whose public footprint is inconsistent with the volumes it invoices is the pattern the test addresses.
The evidencing question matters more than the searching. "We looked" is not a record. A dated note of what sources were reviewed, what was found, and what was concluded — linked to the supplier record — is what will demonstrate the measure was performed when a reviewer asks in 2030.
The Forward-Looking Trigger
As with the AED 100,000 aggregation rule, the AED 375,000 threshold is tested on the previous twelve months and on the expected next twelve. A supplier newly contracted at material annual value is in the enhanced tier from the start of the relationship — which is convenient, because onboarding is precisely when documents are easiest to ask for. The harder population is existing suppliers drifting upward across the line mid-year, which only a rolling aggregation calculation will surface.
Reading the Tiers as Risk Design
It is worth pausing on the architecture. The Decision reserves its most demanding measures for the relationships where the revenue at stake is greatest, leaves one-off small purchases out entirely, and prescribes checks that a genuine, established supplier can satisfy with little friction. The measures are calibrated to be hard for an entity without substance and easy for a real business — which is exactly the discrimination a well-designed integrity test should perform. The burden on the compliant buyer is real, but it is a burden of organisation rather than of impossibility: knowing which suppliers sit in which tier, and having the ask built into the relationship from the start.
How Contiqa Can Help
Contiqa Systems helps UAE businesses tier their vendor base against the Decision 13 thresholds, design the enhanced-measure workflow into supplier onboarding and refresh cycles, and build the evidence records that prove each measure was performed. If you want to know how many of your suppliers sit above AED 375,000 — and what that means for the next twelve months — contact Contiqa Systems.
Track how UAE businesses are responding to this Decision as it takes effect — visit the Decision 13 Tracker on this site.
This article is general commentary on published legislation (working from the unofficial English translation) and does not constitute tax or legal advice. Obtain advice on your specific circumstances before acting.