The details the FTA returns at step 2 depend on how your business is registered.
All three cases below onboard successfully — but two of them show something that
looks wrong at first glance and isn’t.
VAT-registered business
The straightforward case. The FTA returns your legal names, your VAT TRN, and
the effective date of registration. Nothing needs explaining.
Corporate Tax only — no VAT TRN
If you’re registered for Corporate Tax but not for VAT, the FTA returns your legal
type and legal names, and leaves VAT TRN and Effective Date of Registration
empty.
This is correct — don’t be alarmed by the blank fields. You have no VAT
registration, so there is no TRN to show. The form accepts it, and onboarding
completes normally. Your e-invoicing identity does not depend on having a TRN.
Member of a VAT group — the TRN won’t be yours
If you’re a member of a VAT group, the FTA returns the group’s TRN, not the one
on your own registration. The two are different numbers, and the effective date is
the group’s too.
The TRN shown here can differ from the one on your own EmaraTax registration
overview. We display exactly what the FTA’s verification returns — the field is
non-editable and we do not alter it.
Why your TIN is what matters
Whichever of the three you are, your identity on the e-invoicing network is minted
from your TIN:
Never from the TRN. That is what makes the two cases above harmless — a missing TRN
or a group TRN changes nothing about how invoices are addressed to you. Your
counterparties route to your TIN-based identifier, and so does everyone’s lookup of
your business on the network.
If you’re checking your own registration on the network and it doesn’t resolve, look
it up as 0235: followed by your TIN. Looking it up by TRN will not find you —
that identifier was never created.
