This is not legal advice, but my experience:
Better to register if you cross the threshold even if you don't do any business in UAE. I registered late by mistake and had to pay a fine for it.
Filling the VAT every 3 months is very easy if you don't do business in UAE, you just put zeros everywhere except in the field for business with zero VAT. There you put the total money you did in the period in AED. Takes literally 10 minutes to do.
but did you do it on the "EMARATAX" portal by chance? I can't understand how you could do it in 10 mins, I am now trying and it's such a pain in the a*s that I regret having read this conversation and thought it was a good idea to try
for example, what the hell is a "Business Flow Chart" that has to be uploaded?
and how did you fill in the "Declaration letter that the company has no standard Rated Supplies" if your company has no taxable supply?
Above all this part: "We started making taxable supplies on
"Month, Year" and we reached the registration threshold
(Mandatory AED 375,000/Voluntary AED 187,500) on
"Month, Year"."
why can't I simply skip this part if all my activity is VAT exempt?
I will try to give them a call to clarify but if anyone of you has gone through the same experience please let me know