The entry and exit report is the one document the tax authority accepts in place of a passport full of stamps — and in Dubai, a sponsored employee cannot order it alone.

What the report is, and who issues it

Two bodies hold immigration files in the UAE. The Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security (ICP) holds the files of six emirates; the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) holds Dubai's. Each can print a statement of the movements recorded against a person's file.

GDRFA Dubai publishes the service on a page of its own, under the heading Violator Follow up → Issuance of statements → Entry/Exit of Passenger Statement, described in one sentence: "This service allows the issuance of a statement of entry and exit movements." Its requirements are one line — "A copy of the person's ID / valid passport" — and its fee, completion time and conditions are printed, which is why this guide quotes the Dubai page for the figures.

ICP offers the equivalent inside ICP Smart Services, the federal portal reached with UAE Pass, where it sits among the services available to an individual's own file. Our observation, from the date of verification: ICP's public service catalogue on icp.gov.ae does not carry a card for the movement statement with a printed fee. The nearest card by name, Residence details report, is a different document — "a report containing the residence details and file information", priced at AED 100 application plus AED 100 smart-service fee — and it reports the residence file, not border crossings. Secondary sites quote a range of AED 50 to AED 200 for the federal travel report; because no ICP page we could read prints a figure, we do not repeat one. The fee is displayed at checkout inside Smart Services before payment.

Why the tax authority asks for it by name

The FTA's Tax Procedures Guide on tax residency (TPGTR1, October 2024) lists the documents it will "typically" require for a Tax Residency Certificate. For a natural person claiming residency on the days-count tests, the list is short and the report is in it:

The guide's wording is "or": a resident with an Emirates ID and visa is not, on the face of the table, required to attach the report. Our reading: the report is what makes a days-count claim checkable, and the guide reserves the FTA's right to "request supporting evidence and any documentation which it deems necessary". A resident whose Emirates ID shows a residence that began mid-year, or who spent part of the period abroad, should expect to be asked for it; a visitor with no residence permit — the 183-day test does not require one — has nothing else to offer.

How the FTA counts a day, and why your own count is usually wrong

The report lists movements: a date of entry, a date of exit, a port. The tax test counts days present. Ministerial Decision No. 27 of 2023, issued by the Ministry of Finance to implement the Cabinet Decision, states how the conversion is done, and the FTA guide follows it.

• A day is a calendar day. Article 3(1): "The term 'day' means calendar day and the term 'month' means calendar month."
• Any part of a day counts as a day. Article 3(2): "All days or parts of a day on which a natural person is physically present in the State count towards the total number of days he is present in the State during a relevant consecutive (12) twelve-month period." The FTA guide puts it more plainly: "any day or any part of a day, however brief, that a natural person was present in the UAE will be counted as a full day." So the day you land at 23:50 and the day you leave at 00:30 are both days present.
• Days need not be consecutive. Article 3(3). A hundred and eighty-three days spread across a year of commuting qualify in the same way as six months in one block.
• The twelve months are "consecutive", not a calendar year. Article 4(2) and (3) of the Cabinet Decision say "within the relevant (12) twelve consecutive months". The FTA guide adds that a certificate "cannot be obtained for a period longer than 12 months" and "cannot be obtained for a future period", and that a natural person may apply "as soon as the criteria to be Tax Resident are met" — including part-way through a current period.
• Exceptional circumstances are disregarded. Article 4(1) of the Ministerial Decision lets the FTA leave out "any day that the natural person's presence in the State was due to exceptional circumstances", defined in 4(2) as "an event or situation beyond the natural person's control, occurring while he is already in the State, which he could not reasonably have predicted or prevented and which prevents him from leaving the State as originally planned." The FTA guide's examples are "local or national emergencies, for example, natural disasters, closing of borders, war or civil unrest" and "personal emergencies, for example, a sudden or critical illness or injury". Its contrasting example is a visitor who stayed on for an elective procedure: those days count, because the choice was his.

Our observation on the arithmetic: the report is a list of movements, so the number of days present between an entry on day A and an exit on day B is B − A + 1, not B − A. People who count nights, or who exclude travel days, undercount by one per trip — and a frequent traveller with thirty trips a year is thirty days out. Count both ends. A transit through a UAE airport without clearing immigration does not generate a movement on the file and, on the guide's definition of presence as "being within the state borders of the UAE", is not a day present either; we have not seen the FTA address airside transit expressly, and we do not claim it has.

Ordering it from GDRFA Dubai

The Dubai page prints what it needs, what it costs and who may ask. The last of these is the part that trips people up.

The sponsor rule is the practical obstacle. A Dubai-sponsored employee's file belongs to the establishment that sponsors it, so the statement is requested through the employer's channel — in practice the PRO or an Amer centre acting for the company — not from the employee's own login. A spouse or child on a family residence is sponsored by the family head, who files. Only a visitor applies "by the same person"; and a self-sponsored resident (a property owner, a Golden or Green residence holder) is their own sponsor and files in their own name. If you are leaving a job and will need the report for a tax certificate, order it while the sponsorship still stands.

Ordering it from ICP

For a file held in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah or Fujairah, the report comes from ICP Smart Services. The portal requires a UAE Pass login, and the service is run against the logged-in person's own file; the request asks for the period the report should cover, the fee is shown before payment, and the statement is delivered as a PDF to the account. ICP's catalogue cards for its residence services carry a smart-service fee of AED 100 per transaction alongside the service fee, and secondary sources describe the travel report the same way; we print neither figure as the price of this report, for the reason given above.

Our observation: the question people ask — "which authority do I order from?" — has a plain answer on the Dubai side (a Dubai-issued residence or visit permit means a GDRFA file) and a less plain one for people who have held permits from both systems, or who entered through Dubai on a federal visa. The FTA table accepts either authority's document, so order from the one that holds your current file; if that statement does not cover an earlier period under the other system, order the second one for that period. We have not verified whether either system's statement reproduces crossings recorded by the other.

What the certificate then costs, and how long it takes

Once the report is in hand, the certificate itself is an FTA transaction on EmaraTax. The guide's section 7.7 quotes the fees from Cabinet Decision No. 65 of 2020; the FTA service page prints the same figures.

Most employees on a salary do not hold a Corporate Tax TRN, so the relevant line for them is AED 1,000 plus the AED 50 submission fee; the AED 500 line is for registrants. The certificate "is only applicable to the period selected by the applicant", and the FTA "has the authority to withdraw" it "if they become aware of incorrect information or a change in facts" — which is the reason to let the report, not your diary, supply the dates.

Other places the report turns up

The tax certificate is the use the law names. Two others are immigration matters on this site. A residence permit lapses after 180 consecutive days outside the country, and the statement is the authoritative record of whether an absence was broken by an actual entry. And when a fine is disputed, the dates on the statement are the dates the fine was computed from. Beyond the UAE, foreign tax offices, banks and consulates sometimes ask for the same document to test a claim of non-residence elsewhere; what they require is their rule, not the UAE's, and we do not describe it.

If you need the report

1. Work out which authority holds your current file: a Dubai-issued permit means GDRFA; the other six emirates mean ICP. Visitors: the authority that issued the entry permit.
2. If you are a Dubai-sponsored resident, ask the sponsor — the employer's PRO or the family head — to request it; the page does not allow you to file for yourself. Do it before a cancellation, not after.
3. State the period you need. For a tax certificate, that is the consecutive 12-month window you are claiming, which need not be a calendar year.
4. Budget AED 141 at GDRFA (48 hours). At ICP, read the fee on the Smart Services checkout screen; do not rely on a figure from a blog, including this one.
5. Count days from the statement inclusively — the day of entry and the day of exit both count — and then subtract any days you can evidence as exceptional circumstances. Keep that evidence; the FTA, not you, decides whether the days are disregarded.
6. Apply for the certificate on EmaraTax once the threshold is met, not before. For a current period the FTA accepts a natural person's application "as soon as the criteria … are met".
7. Check the other document the test needs: for the 90-day route, a salary certificate or trade licence, or a certified tenancy contract or title deed with a utility bill in your name.