You can increase your ICV score by buying from ICV-certified UAE suppliers, keeping assets and payroll inside the UAE, employing and training Emiratis, and making sure every eligible cost shows up in your audited accounts. Most of the gain in your ICV score comes from a few habits repeated across a financial year, not from a rushed fix before a tender deadline.
This guide follows the MoIAT supplier certification guidelines (September 2025), the version published on the ministry’s website when this article was written. At Elysian Consulting Group, a Dubai tax, VAT, corporate tax, accounting and audit consultancy, we see the same pattern in supplier files every year, so this guide shows what each component of the ICV score is worth, which levers move it, and the mistakes that quietly cost points. You can also read the MoIAT overview of the National ICV Program for the wider background.
By Sivaprasad R, Business Development Manager at Elysian Consulting Group, Dubai. Last verified: September 2026. This article is general information, not legal or financial advice.
How the ICV Score Is Built
The In-Country Value (ICV) score is a percentage calculated from your audited financial statements using the MoIAT formula. An authorised certifying body reviews the figures, and the certificate is issued through the official ICV Platform. Your licence decides which version of the formula applies: a company with an industrial licence is a goods manufacturer, and every other licensed company is a service provider.
The table shows the maximum weight of each component on the MoIAT ICV formula page.
| Component | Service provider | Goods manufacturer |
| Third-party spend / manufacturing cost | 50% | 50% |
| Investment in UAE assets | 25% | 25% |
| Emiratisation | 15% | 15% |
| Expatriate contribution | 10% | 10% |
| ICV bonus (exports, Emirati headcount, investment growth) | up to 5% | up to 5% |
| Sustainability or technology bonus | up to 3% | up to 6% |
Two details shape every decision about your ICV score. First, your own payroll sits inside the biggest component. The spend formula adds Emirati pay in full and expatriate pay at 60 per cent to the value of your purchases, then divides by total cost. Second, the certificate only reflects what your audited statements and supporting records can prove, so a genuine contribution that is badly documented adds nothing to the ICV score.
Seven Ways to Increase Your ICV Score
1. Move Spend to ICV-Certified UAE Vendors
For a service provider, third-party spend carries the heaviest weight in the ICV score. Each purchase is credited at the vendor’s own ICV score, and that percentage must be backed by a certificate from an authorised certifying body. The guidelines add three default rules:
- A vendor based on the UAE mainland is credited at 10% for calculation purposes if it holds no valid certificate.
- Every other vendor without a valid certificate is credited at zero.
- A free zone service provider is treated as outside the UAE, while a free zone goods manufacturer counts as inside it.
Some costs carry fixed credit. Water, electricity and rent count at 80%, UAE government charges and payments to governmental free zone authorities at 100%, and depreciation of your own assets at 100%. Telecom and fuel take the ICV of the provider.
Worked example (illustrative figures). Say your total cost is AED 5,000,000 and you move AED 500,000 of annual purchases from a vendor with no valid certificate that is not mainland-based to a certified mainland vendor scoring 60%. The numerator rises by AED 300,000. Divide by total cost and apply the 50% weight: 300,000 ÷ 5,000,000 × 0.5 = 3.0 points on the ICV score. Moving the same spend to an uncertified mainland vendor adds only 0.5 points, so asking your existing suppliers for certificates is often the cheapest gain available.
2. Get Your Payroll Fully Counted
Payroll feeds the spend component, the Emiratisation component and the expatriate component, so errors here cost your ICV score three times. Only salaries of staff registered in the Wage Protection System (WPS) count. Benefits or bonuses paid outside WPS are limited to 10% of total salaries. A free zone company that is not on WPS must supply an official employee list from its free zone authority.
Ask your accountant to code Emirati pay, expatriate pay and training in separate trial balance accounts. The guidelines recommend this explicitly because it makes the next certification faster and cleaner.
3. Hire, Train and Retain Emiratis
The Emiratisation component of the ICV score is worth up to 15%. It starts at 2% for the first AED 200,000 of Emirati salaries, benefits and training, and rises progressively to the maximum at AED 20 million. Rules that matter in practice:
- External training for Emirati staff counts, including training abroad. Internal training does not.
- Emirati owners can include WPS-paid salary, capped at AED 200,000 per owner per month, with no bonuses.
- Monetary donations of at least AED 120,000 to Sondoq Al Watan, Ma’an, the National Academy for Childhood Development or the listed government universities can count. In-kind gifts do not.
- Private companies must register as partners on the NAFIS platform before certification.
Timing matters for your ICV score because the average number of Emiratis on payroll during the year is used. A hire made in the last quarter adds far less than one made in the first.
One separate rule deserves attention. The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) raised the minimum wage for Emiratis in the private sector to AED 6,000 a month from 1 January 2026. The MoIAT guidelines do not state a salary floor for ICV, so check your Emirati salaries against the MoHRE rule and ask your certifying body how lower-paid staff are treated.
4. Keep and Grow Assets Inside the UAE
Investment is worth up to 25% of the ICV score. The first 10% comes from the share of your net book value held in the UAE. The remaining 15% is a progressive top-up for larger asset bases, in three bands of 5% each between AED 5 million and AED 150 million. A small company with under AED 5 million of assets therefore competes mainly on the 10% ratio.
Eligible assets are property, plant and equipment, capital work in progress, investment property and capitalised software. Other intangibles, revalued amounts above cost and assets registered in an owner’s or related party’s name are excluded. Only what sits on your audited balance sheet counts, so agree capitalisation with your auditor before year-end rather than after.
5. Understand the Expatriate Tiers
The expatriate component is worth up to 10% of the ICV score and depends on headcount: 1 to 3% for 1 to 5 employees, 4 to 6% for 6 to 50, 7 to 9% for 51 to 200, and 10% above 200. Hiring people purely to move up a tier is rarely sensible. The practical task is to make sure every salary, allowance and external training cost for staff on WPS is captured in your records.
6. Claim the Bonuses You Qualify For
The ICV bonus has three parts, and together they add at most 5% to the ICV score:
- Revenue from outside the UAE: qualifying export revenue as a share of total revenue, multiplied by 5%. Re-exports, related-party settlements and agency commissions do not qualify, goods need a certificate of origin, and payment must arrive in a UAE bank account from outside the UAE.
- Emirati headcount: number of Emiratis on WPS divided by 100, multiplied by 5%. Eight Emiratis earn 0.4%.
- Investment growth: the year-on-year rise in UAE net book value, multiplied by 5%. Growth from AED 2 million to AED 2.5 million is 25%, worth 1.25%.
Service providers can lift the ICV score by up to 3% through sustainability. Each of four documented policies, covering strategy and governance, material circularity, water and wastewater, and emissions, is worth 0.5%, and an ISO 14001, 14046 or 50001 certificate adds 1%. The policies must be developed, communicated, implemented and monitored during the financial year being certified. Goods manufacturers can earn up to 6% through the Industrial Technology Transformation Index and environmental labels.
The export bonus applies only to UAE-based entities, and the guidelines classify free zone service providers as outside the UAE. A free zone service company should confirm with its certifying body how that affects the bonus.
7. Prepare Records Before Year-End
Since 1 January 2025, certificates for financial years ending after 31 December 2024 need stand-alone audited financial statements for the entity being certified. Bifurcated management accounts drawn from consolidated statements are no longer accepted. The audited statements must not be older than two years from the certification year.
Keep a supplier certificate file with expiry dates, bank and WPS records, a fixed asset register and invoices that show where each purchase was made. Strong bookkeeping supports every lever that raises an ICV score. Elysian Consulting Group’s note on accounting services for startups in Dubai covers the basics, and our team can also review how your VAT records and corporate tax compliance line up with the same audited figures.
Mistakes That Quietly Cost ICV Points
- Expired or missing vendor certificates. Spend that cannot be tied to a valid certificate falls back to 10% for mainland vendors and zero for the rest.
- Leaving costs out of the template. The guidelines say all operating costs, including rent, salaries, purchases, government expenses and depreciation, must be included.
- Counting excluded items. Board fees, sponsorship fees, government fines and taxes, charity, and losses on disposals or foreign exchange sit outside total cost.
- Payroll outside WPS. Salaries that never passed through the system do not count.
- Figures that do not tie to the audited statements. Every template entry must reconcile to the financial statements or their supporting records.
- Assuming a mainland licence lifts your own score. The 10% default applies to vendors you buy from, not to your own ICV score.
A 12-Month Plan to Increase Your ICV Score
| When | Action |
| Month 1 | Rank suppliers by annual spend. Mark each as certified, mainland uncertified, free zone service provider or foreign. |
| Months 2 to 3 | Request certificates from key mainland suppliers. Shift purchases where price and quality are comparable. |
| Months 3 to 6 | Register on NAFIS, review Emirati hiring and external training, and set up separate payroll and training accounts. |
| Months 6 to 9 | Document sustainability policies. Plan asset purchases and confirm how they will be capitalised. |
| Months 10 to 12 | Reconcile records, close the year with an audit that fits the MoIAT template, and apply through the ICV Platform. |
When Your Improvements Appear on the Certificate
An ICV certificate stays valid for 14 months, counted from the day the audited financial statements were issued. You can re-certify during that period using the same statements, but the 14 months still run from the original issue date. Because the ICV score is built from a completed audited year, actions taken this year show up only on the certificate based on that year’s statements. That is why the best time to start is the first month of your financial year.
FAQs
Is there a minimum ICV score? No. Any eligible company can get an ICV certificate whatever its result. A weak ICV score hurts in the bid evaluation, where participating entities rank suppliers against each other.
Does a mainland licence raise my ICV score? Not directly. The 10% default is credited to mainland vendors that hold no certificate when you purchase from them. Your own ICV score still depends on the components above.
Can I re-certify mid-year to get a higher score? Only if you have new audited statements. Re-certifying on the same statements does not extend validity or change the underlying figures behind the ICV score.
Is ICV certification a legal requirement? No single law compels an ICV certificate. Participating government and semi-government entities require it in their tender rules, so you need a certificate to bid.
Who issues the certificate? Only MoIAT-authorised certifying bodies review your data, and MoIAT lists the steps on its ICV certification service page. The official ICV certificate is the system-generated one from the ICV Platform, not the Excel template.
Conclusion
To raise your ICV score, treat it as an annual operating cycle. Map your suppliers, ask for certificates, count your payroll correctly, plan Emirati hiring and asset purchases early, and close the year with statements that support every figure. Small changes in vendor mix and record keeping often add more to an ICV score than large one-off projects.
Elysian Consulting Group helps UAE businesses keep accounting, tax and audit records in order, which is the foundation of any ICV submission. To learn more about our team, browse the Elysian blog, or contact Elysian Consulting Group to discuss audit-ready financial statements and organised payroll, procurement and asset records.
Written by Sivaprasad R, Business Development Manager at Elysian Consulting Group | +971 56 8929561
Elysian Consulting Group (Elysian Tax Consultants LLC), Dubai, UAE. elysianuae.com | info@elysianuae.com | +971 54 243 9656
