12 Ways to Raise Your ICV Score Before Your Next Certification
Your ICV score is set with the last audited financial statements. It has nothing to do with the day you submit for recertification or the day your tender closes. It is locked with the last audit.
That single fact is why most companies plateau at the same score cycle after cycle. They treat the ICV certificate as a paperwork exercise instead of a number built from decisions made throughout the financial year, who got hired, which suppliers got paid, what got capitalized. All of these factors are important and if you miss the window on any of it, then no amount of last-minute effort before submission will matter.
Here are 12 specific actions that will help with ICV certification in the UAE. When they are done at the right time, they can raise your ICV score smoothly.
Key Takeaways
- Get the right financial year audited first – the score is locked to whichever Audited Financial Statements you submit, so this choice has to be made before the financial year closes.
- Fix the file before you touch the score – stand-alone, entity-specific, IFRS-compliant statements and a template that reconciles line by line are due before you approach a certifying body.
- Procurement moves the single largest slice – supplier ICV percentages and category shifts have to be locked in during the financial year being certified, not after.
- Emiratisation and WPS registration have a hard cut-off – new hires only count if they’re on payroll and in the Wage Protection System before the financial year ends.
- Investment, bonuses, and donations are the items most companies leave on the table – each has its own eligibility rule and its own deadline, covered in Ways 10 through 12.
See what these changes are worth before you commit to them. The ADEPTS ICV Score Calculator models your score against the current MoIAT formula before you file anything. Try the ICV Score Calculator →
1. Choose the Financial Year and Audited Statements the Score Will Be Built From
Every figure in the ICV certification process has to trace back to one specific set of Audited Financial Statements. MoIAT’s certification guidelines require that “all figures entered in the ICV Template should align with the Supplier’s latest Audited Financial Statements,” prepared under IFRS and audited under the International Standards on Auditing.
Two hard limits sit around that choice. The Audited Financial Statements cannot be older than two years from the certification year, and the certificate itself cannot be issued more than two years after the financial year end date. If you’re a newly established company under 10 months old with no audited accounts yet, management accounts covering up to 9 months can be used instead, anything longer needs an audit.
Decide which financial year you’re certifying against before that year closes. Every other action on this list only counts if it happened inside that window.
2. Get the Statements Entity-Specific, IFRS-Compliant, and Free of Consolidated Workarounds
This is where a lot of 2026 recertifications are getting rejected. Effective January 1, 2025, MoIAT requires stand-alone audited financial statement specific to the legal entity being certified for any financial year ending after December 31, 2024. Bifurcated management accounts built from a parent company’s consolidated statements are no longer accepted.
If your structure has more than one branch or license under common ownership, each legal entity generally needs its own audited statements unless the branches sit in the same Emirate with identical activities and ownership on the license, in which case MoIAT issues one combined certificate for that Emirate. Confirm which category your structure falls into before your auditor starts work, not after.
3. Reconcile the ICV Template to the Audited Financials Line by Line
The certifying body will check every figure in the ICV Template against your Audited Financial Statements and supporting documents. Costs that MoIAT explicitly excludes like management fees paid to board members, sponsorship fees, government fines and penalties, CSR and charity spend, foreign exchange losses, and depreciation on excluded assets, cannot appear in the total cost base at all.
This is the point where the numbers are in front of you and every remaining action on this list becomes a modeling exercise rather than guesswork.
4. Shift Third-Party Spend to ICV-Certified Suppliers, Not Just Local Ones
For Service Providers, Third-Party Spend carries the single largest weight in the formula at 50%. But “local” and “ICV-certified” are not the same thing. A UAE mainland vendor with no ICV Certificate is automatically granted a flat 10% ICV score for calculation purposes; every other vendor without a valid certificate scores zero. A certified supplier at 60% or 80% ICV moves your number far more than an uncertified local one ever will.
5. Collect and Date-Check Every Supplier Certificate Before You Submit
Vendor ICV percentages used in your template must be backed by that vendor’s own valid ICV Certificate. Certificates run 14 months from issuance, so a supplier certificate that expired mid-year is worth zero for any spend recorded after that date, even though you paid them under the assumption their number still applied.
6. Replace Imported Categories That Now Have a Credible UAE Alternative
Certain categories score favorably regardless of ICV certification status: government charges paid directly or through licensed entities, and payments to government free zone authorities, are both treated at 100% ICV; water, electricity, and rent from individuals or companies sit at 80%; telecom follows the provider’s own ICV percentage.
Mapping your existing third-party spend against this table before the financial year closes often reveals categories worth reclassifying or resourcing.
7. Recruit Emiratis Against the Financial Year, Not Against the Submission Date
Emiratisation carries up to 15% of the score on a progressive scale, from 2% at AED 200,000 in combined annual salary, benefits, and training up to 15% at AED 20 million. Because every figure has to trace back to the audited financial statements for the year being certified, an Emirati hired in the final quarter contributes a fraction of what a full-year hire would. Recruit against your financial year end, not against your certification submission date.
8. Confirm Every Emirati and Expatriate Is Registered in the Wage Protection System
Only salary and benefits paid through the WPS count toward Emiratization or Expat Contribution. Any benefits or bonuses paid outside the WPS are capped at a maximum of 10% of total salary for calculation purposes. Free zone companies not registered in WPS need an official employee list from their free zone authority instead. Owners drawing a WPS salary can include it too, capped at AED 200,000 per owner per month, with bonuses excluded.
9. Capture Emiratisation Benefits That Sit Outside Standard Payroll
Three items get missed constantly. Benefits paid to Emiratis working abroad still count as an Emiratization benefit. External training spend on direct Emirati staff counts too, including training delivered overseas, as long as it’s captured in the audited financials. And monetary donations of at least AED 120,000 to Sondoq Al Watan, the Authority of Social Contribution (Ma’an), the National Academy for Childhood Development, or a listed government university count toward the same bucket, in-kind donations and amounts under the AED 120,000 threshold do not.1
10. Record UAE Investment in Plant, Equipment, R&D and Warehousing Correctly
Investment carries 25% of the score: 10% from the ratio of UAE asset net book value to total asset net book value, plus a progressive component of up to 15% as asset net book value rises from AED 5 million to AED 150 million. Only property, plant and equipment, capital work in progress, investment property, and capitalized software qualify, other intangibles are excluded, and assets held in the name of an owner or related party don’t count.
11. Handle Revalued Property, Plant and Equipment the Way the Guidelines Require
If you’ve revalued your property, plant, or equipment, MoIAT requires that value to be reduced by the balance sitting in the revaluation reserve at the balance sheet date before it enters the ICV calculation.1 Skip this adjustment and a revaluation that looks like it strengthens your investment score can actually overstate it, and get flagged during verification.
12. Claim the ITTI Technology Bonus, the Sustainability Bonus, and the ICV Bonus Components
There are three separate bonus categories, and they don’t share a percentage. For Goods Manufacturers, the Advanced Technology and Sustainability Bonus caps at 6%: up to 5% from an Industrial Technology Transformation Index (ITTI) assessment score, scoring 60% or above on the ITTI earns the full 5%, 40–59.99% earns 4%, 30–39.99% earns 3%, and below 30% earns nothing, plus a flat 1% for holding ISO 14001, ISO 14046, ISO 50001, or an Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi Green Industries Label.
For Service Providers, the equivalent Sustainability Bonus caps at 3%: 0.5% each for documented policies covering sustainability strategy and governance, material circularity, water and wastewater management, and emissions management, plus the same 1% for an ISO certification.
Separately, an ICV Bonus of up to 5% applies to all suppliers, combining revenue earned from outside the UAE, Emirati headcount as a share of 100, and year-on-year growth in UAE asset net book value. None of these three bonus categories is automatic, each needs its own supporting document before certification.
Timing the Submission Against Your Tender Calendar
A ICV certificate runs 14 months from the date the Audited Financial Statements were issued – not from the date the certificate itself was issued.1 Recertifying inside that 14-month window using the same Audited Financial Statements doesn’t reset the clock; the validity still counts from the original issuance date. That’s a different rule from what several competing UAE guides currently publish, and it’s worth checking your own certificate’s dates against it directly.
Two further limits shape when you can act. Audited Financial Statements can’t be older than two years from the certification year, and a certificate can’t be issued more than two years after the financial year end date they’re drawn from. Map these three dates, financial year end, AFS issuance date, and certificate expiry, against your tender calendar before you commit to bidding on anything with an ICV requirement attached. A certificate that expires mid-tender is treated the same as no certificate at all.
How ADEPTS Prepares an ICV Submission
Getting an ICV score right starts with the audited financial statements it’s built from. ADEPTS prepares IFRS-compliant, entity-specific audited financial statements, reconciles the ICV Template against those statements line by line, and maps procurement, payroll, and investment records against MoIAT’s current weightings before a certifying body ever sees the file.
Run your numbers through the calculator before your next engagement conversation. Baseline your score with the ICV Score Calculator →
Start With the File, Not the Submission
A higher ICV score isn’t won in the week before recertification. It’s built across the financial year, inside the audited statements, the supplier contracts, and the payroll records you’re generating right now.
Twelve actions, twelve deadlines and every one of them has already started counting down from your last financial year end. You don’t have to track all twelve manually. ADEPTS reviews where your current file stands, models what each remaining action is worth, and prepares the submission itself.
FAQs
It shows up at your next certification, not before. Every figure in the score is pulled from Audited Financial Statements for a specific financial year, so a change only counts once it’s reflected in the statements for the year you’re certifying against.
MoIAT does not publish a sector-by-sector benchmark. What counts as competitive depends on the tender or the Participating Entity’s own ICV weighting in that specific bid, so the more useful comparison is against your own score from the previous certification cycle.
An expired ICV Certificate is treated the same as having no certificate at all for that submission. Check your certificate’s 14-month validity window against your tender calendar well before the bid deadline, not at submission.
You can recertify using the same Audited Financial Statements within the certificate’s validity window, but the 14-month validity period still runs from the original issuance date of those statements — it does not restart.1
Yes, but only partially. A UAE mainland vendor without a valid ICV Certificate is automatically granted a flat 10% ICV score for that spend, which is far lower than most certified suppliers achieve.
Companies under 10 months old can use management accounts (unaudited) covering up to 9 months instead of audited financial statements. Beyond 9 months, an audit is required.
The formula is the same, but classification changes the calculation: Goods Manufacturers in a free zone are treated as “within UAE,” while Service Providers in a free zone are treated as “outside UAE.” Free zone companies not enrolled in WPS also need to submit an official employee list from their free zone authority instead.
Yes. Common rejection points include consolidated financial statements submitted in place of the now-required stand-alone entity statements, figures that don’t reconcile to the Audited Financial Statements, and vendor ICV percentages claimed without a valid supporting certificate.
No. The MoIAT National ICV Program and ADNOC’s own ICV program are governed separately, with certificates issued through the national MoIAT ICV Platform used across MoIAT’s Participating Entities. Check the specific requirement stated in each tender rather than assuming one certificate satisfies both.
Cost is set by the authorized Certifying Body you select, not by MoIAT, and varies with company size, the number of legal entities being certified, and how complete your financial records are going in. Suppliers request quotations directly from MoIAT’s authorized Certifying Bodies through the ICV Platform.
References
- Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MoIAT). “ICV Formula.” Accessed September 15, 2026. https://moiat.gov.ae/en/programs/icv-formula.
- Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MoIAT). “National In-Country Value (ICV) Certification Guidelines for Suppliers.” September 2025. https://moiat.gov.ae/-/media/site/moiat/programs/icv-formula/icv-supplier-certification-guidelines-sep-2025-v1.ashx.
- Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MoIAT). “National In-Country Value Program (ICV).” Accessed September 15, 2026. https://moiat.gov.ae/en/programs/icv.
- Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MoIAT). “National ICV.” Open Data. Accessed September 15, 2026. https://moiat.gov.ae/en/open-data/national-icv.
- Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MoIAT). “ICV Services.” E-Services Directory. Accessed September 15, 2026. https://moiat.gov.ae/en/services?cat=ICV+Services.
- Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MoIAT). “Industrial Technology Transformation Index (ITTI).” Accessed September 15, 2026. https://itti.moiat.gov.ae.
- Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE). “Wage Protection System.” Accessed September 15, 2026. https://www.mohre.gov.ae.
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