R&D Tax Credit Resources
Everything you need to understand and classify your R&D activities under UAE regulations.
Official R&D Documents
Access official guidance documents and resources for UAE R&D tax incentives.
Cabinet Decision No. 215 of 2025
The foundational legislative framework establishing the UAE R&D Tax Credit, issued by the Cabinet.
Ministerial Decision No. 24 of 2026
Implementation provisions for the R&D Tax Credit, detailing qualifying activities, expenditure tiers, and claim procedures.
UAE R&D Guidance Paper
Official guidance from the UAE Ministry of Finance on R&D activity classification and foundations.
Frascati Manual
OECD’s internationally recognized standard for R&D statistics and definitions.
R&D Tax Incentives Guide
Comprehensive guide to R&D tax credits and incentives available in the UAE.
Browse by Industry
See how UAE R&D tax credits apply to your sector, with examples of qualifying activities and typical claim ranges.
01 
AI & Agentic AI Machine learning, NLP and autonomous agents built for real-world constraints.
Machine learning, NLP and autonomous agents built for real-world constraints.
- Training a domain-specific model where existing architectures fail on Arabic-language or region-specific data.
- Building an agentic system that plans and executes multi-step tasks reliably under uncertainty.
- Novel techniques to reduce inference cost or latency below what off-the-shelf methods allow.
Not in calling an existing API or fine-tuning with standard tooling but in the experimental work to overcome a technical uncertainty: an architecture, training method or evaluation approach where the team genuinely does not know if it will work.
02 
Deeptech & Frontier Technology Quantum, robotics, semiconductors, advanced materials and photonics.
Quantum, robotics, semiconductors, advanced materials and photonics.
- Building qubits, control electronics or sensors where coherence and error rates are genuinely uncertain.
- Autonomous manipulation, perception or navigation that resists established robotics methods.
- Novel semiconductor architectures, photonics or advanced materials with unproven performance.
Not in assembling proven components to a known spec – but in the experimental work at the frontier: a device, material or architecture where the team genuinely does not know if it can be made to work.
03 
Fintech, Crypto & Digital Assets Payments, settlement, blockchain and digital-asset infrastructure.
Payments, settlement, blockchain and digital-asset infrastructure.
- A settlement engine achieving throughput or finality that available databases cannot support.
- Novel cryptographic or consensus mechanisms for a regulated digital-asset platform.
- Real-time fraud detection where accuracy demands new modelling, not rule tuning.
Not in wiring up a payment gateway or building standard CRUD screens but where you push a system beyond its known limits: latency, scale, security or a consensus problem with no established solution.
04 
Cloud & SaaS Software Scalable platforms and enterprise software solving hard engineering problems.
Scalable platforms and enterprise software solving hard engineering problems.
- A multi-tenant architecture that must guarantee isolation and performance at a scale with no proven pattern.
- A data-sync or offline-first engine resolving conflicts that existing frameworks cannot.
- Re-engineering a core system to meet a performance target thought to be unreachable.
Not in routine configuration, integration or feature build but in the appreciable improvement to underlying technology, where a competent professional could not readily deduce how to achieve the result.
05 
Life Sciences, Biotech & HealthTech Medical devices, diagnostics, digital health and therapeutics.
Medical devices, diagnostics, digital health and therapeutics.
- A diagnostic device improving sensitivity or specificity beyond current instruments.
- A digital-health algorithm validated to clinical-grade performance on new data.
- Formulation or bioprocess work to make a therapy stable, scalable or deliverable.
Not in routine clinical admin or standard trials management but in the scientific uncertainty: whether a mechanism, device or method actually works, and the systematic experimentation to resolve it.