UAE businesses with revenue below AED 50 million must appoint an ASP by 31 March 2027 (see UAE E-Invoicing 2027: Deadlines by Phase and What SMEs Must Do Before 31 March). Below are the ten questions to put to every provider, a scorecard to compare them, and the selection mistakes we see most often.
What does an ASP do, and what does the Ministry require?
An ASP is a Ministry-accredited company that validates your invoices, exchanges them with your customers' ASPs over the Peppol network, and reports the tax data to the Federal Tax Authority (FTA). You cannot send e-invoices to the FTA yourself.
Five rules shape the choice:
- One ASP per business. The Ministry's guidelines say you appoint one ASP for both sending and receiving. Members of a VAT group may use different ASPs.
- Only accredited providers count. The Ministry publishes the accredited list on its website and adds providers as they are approved.
- Partnerships are allowed. Since May 2026, an ASP may deliver its service together with partners, including international providers.
- Responsibility stays with you. You can let the ASP store your e-invoices, but the duty to keep them and produce them for the FTA remains yours.
- You start onboarding. The business, not the ASP, begins onboarding through the FTA's EmaraTax portal.
The Ministry's own guide, Considerations for Selecting an Accredited Service Provider (23 February 2026), groups its advice under experience, product ownership, integration, data, security, support, pricing and scalability. The ten questions below turn that guidance into what to actually ask in a demo.
Which questions test whether an ASP fits your systems?
The first five questions decide whether the ASP will work with your invoices on day one. Ask them before you discuss price.
1. Are you on the Ministry's accredited list, and since when? Check the list on the Ministry of Finance website yourself, not a brochure. Ask for the accreditation date and how long the company has run a Peppol service.
2. Do you already connect to our ERP or POS? Ask for a live customer on the same system and version. Find out whether the connector is an API, a file transfer or a plug-in, and who builds and maintains it.
3. What happens when an invoice is rejected? Ask to see one. Check the wording of the error, whether it appears inside your ERP or only on the ASP's portal, and how you correct and resend it.
4. Can you handle our special cases? Bring your own list: credit notes linked to the original invoice, advance payments, construction retentions, exports, several branches, and invoices raised from POS. Ask for a sample of each in PINT AE format.
5. Is the product yours, and who supports it? The Ministry's guide asks whether the system is the ASP's own or a third party's, and whether support is direct or subcontracted. That answer matters when an invoice fails at month-end.
Which questions protect you on cost, data and contract?
The last five questions cover what the relationship costs and what happens to your data. They are where most surprises appear after signing.
6. How do supplier invoices reach our accounts payable? The same ASP receives your incoming e-invoices. Ask whether they arrive in your ERP as draft purchase invoices or as files someone has to re-key.
7. Where is our data stored, and for how long? Since 1 October 2026 e-invoices no longer have to be stored in the UAE, but you must keep them for the period in the Tax Procedures Law. Ask about retention, export format, access after the contract ends, encryption and certifications such as ISO/IEC 27001.
8. What support and uptime do you commit to? Ask for response times in writing, an uptime figure in the service-level agreement, support in English and Arabic, and cover at month-end and VAT return dates.
9. How is it priced? Ask whether you pay per subscription or per invoice, and about set-up, connector, receiving and storage fees. Under Ministerial Decision No. 64 of 2025, accredited providers commit to provide “per annum (100) hundred free eInvoice exchange and reporting services”. Ask how that allowance appears in your contract, and for a quote based on your actual annual volume.
10. How do we leave? Ask about the notice period, export of your invoice history, and how your Peppol registration is handed to a new ASP.
How do you compare two or three shortlisted ASPs?
Score each provider from 1 to 5 on every question, then weight the scores so that integration counts most. Accreditation is pass or fail: a provider that is not on the Ministry's list is out.
| Question | Weight | Provider A | Provider B | Provider C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Accredited by the Ministry | Pass / fail | |||
| 2. Connects to our ERP or POS | 25 | |||
| 3. Rejected-invoice handling | 15 | |||
| 4. Our special cases | 10 | |||
| 5. Own product and direct support | 5 | |||
| 6. Receiving into accounts payable | 10 | |||
| 7. Data storage and security | 10 | |||
| 8. Support and uptime | 10 | |||
| 9. Total price at our volume | 10 | |||
| 10. Exit terms | 5 | |||
| Total | 100 |
Worked example. Provider A scores 4 on ERP integration, so it earns 4 ÷ 5 × 25 = 20 points for that row. Provider B is cheaper and scores 5 on price, which earns 10 points. If B scores 2 on integration (10 points) and A scores 3 on price (6 points), A still leads 26 to 20 after those two rows.
The weights are our suggestion. Raise the weight for receiving if most of your invoices come from suppliers, or for special cases if you are a contractor billing advances and retentions.
What mistakes do businesses make when choosing an ASP?
The most common mistake we see at HYP ERP customers is choosing on price per invoice before testing a single real invoice. The cheapest ASP becomes expensive if your team re-keys rejected invoices every week.
| Mistake | What it costs | Avoid it by |
|---|---|---|
| Signing before a test with real invoices | Integration problems surface after the deadline | Send 10 to 20 real invoices, including credit notes, through a trial |
| Ignoring the receiving side | Supplier e-invoices pile up on a portal | Ask question 6 in every demo |
| Assuming the ERP vendor builds the connector | Nobody owns the integration | Get the connector owner named in the contract |
| Counting only head-office invoices | Branch and POS volumes break the price model | Quote on total invoices across all branches |
| Leaving the choice to February | Ramadan and the deadline overlap | Decide by the end of January 2027 |
A disclosure: HYP ERP works with Infinite IT Solutions as its UAE accredited service provider. If you are considering it, ask us the same ten questions and score the answers the same way.
Sources
- Ministry of Finance: Considerations for Selecting an Accredited Service Provider, V1.0, 23 February 2026
- WAM: Ministry of Finance announces amendments to e-invoicing decisions, 10 May 2026
- Ministry of Finance: amendments to the e-invoicing regulations, 19 October 2026
- UAE Electronic Invoicing Guidelines, version 1.1, 1 June 2026
- Grant Thornton UAE: key guides issued by the Ministry of Finance, 3 March 2026
- PwC: Ministerial Decision No. 64 of 2025 on accreditation of e-invoicing service providers