The UAE Federal Tax Authority (FTA) has published an updated version of its VAT Refund for Business Visitors Guide dated 19 April 2021. The guide is meant to help foreign businesses and business visitors check if they are eligible to claim a VAT refund and to successfully complete the 'Business Visitor (VAT Refund Scheme for Foreign Businesses) VAT Refund Form'. Updates to the guide include:

• Added detail to Section 2.1 regarding the effective date from which a Foreign Business can claim VAT refunds when a country is added to the List of Countries with Reciprocal Agreements for the Business Visitors VAT Refunds.
• Updated Section 3 with regards to the documents required when completing the VAT refund form. Certificate of Incorporation is no longer required whereas a self-declaration is required where a business is not entitled to full input tax recovery in its own country, unless an official letter stating the extent of input tax recovery (%) is obtained from the Tax Authority in the business' country.
• Section 5 was updated to reflect more recent dates on when applications can be submitted (i.e., for the period 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020, applications are accepted from 1 March 2021).
• Section 7 was updated to clarify that tax invoices will also be accepted as 'hard copy' tax invoices or sent by email for purposes of submitting a VAT refund claim. Furthermore, hard-copy documents will only be retained by the FTA for 6 months, after which the documents will be disposed, unless prepaid envelopes were provided with the application.
• Appendix A: List of Countries with Reciprocal Agreements for the Business Visitors VAT Refunds was removed from the Guide as the list will be published separately and updated as and when required.

With respect to the last point, click the following link for the approved list of countries as of April 2021.