UAE tax authority rolls out digital VAT-refund scheme for tourists

UAE tax authority rolls out digital VAT-refund scheme for tourists

DUBAI: The Federal Tax Authority (FTA), in partnership with Planet Tax Free, today launched a 100 percent digital VAT-refund scheme for tourists.

The announcement was made at a joint press conference in presence of Khalid Ali Al Bustani, FTA Director-General, and Eyad Al Kourdi, General Manager of Planet Tax Free, the operator of the tax refund system for tourists in the UAE.

The new solution is integrated electronically between retail outlets and the tax refund scheme, ensuring a seamless digital process of issuing, sending, modifying and saving invoices for tourists.

"The system achieves high satisfaction rates by users for its simple, effective and smooth tax-refund process for eligible tourists," Al Bustani said.

Tourist VAT Refund transactions increased by 104.15 percent during the current year, he added, as the number of transactions doubled to 2.31 million transactions during the first eight months of this year. In 2021, 1.13 million transactions were registered during the same period. The total value of Tourist VAT Refunds increased by 113.48 percent from the beginning of January to the end of August 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, which is attributed to the easing of global travel restrictions.

For his part, Al Kourdi said, "In a matter of moments,