ADGM Approved Auditors List: How to Verify One (2026)

An ADGM Registered Auditor is a firm the ADGM Registration Authority has approved to sign statutory audits for companies incorporated in ADGM. No other credential substitutes for it.

The RA keeps this as a live public register, not a fixed document. Firms are added, removed, and have permits attached or withdrawn as their circumstances change. A PDF list, a blog post, or a directory that was accurate six months ago can be wrong today.

• Firms move on and off the register as registrations lapse, get suspended, or are newly approved.
• Additional Permits change independently of base registration, so a firm’s scope of eligible work can shift without its base status changing.
• Regulatory action can affect status mid-year, which a static source has no way to reflect.

Under ADGM’s Companies Regulations 2020, any company subject to a statutory audit must engage an ADGM Registered Auditor, regardless of the purpose the audit serves. That applies whether the audit is triggered by the small companies regime falling away, a lender’s requirement, or a UAE Corporate Tax obligation.

ADGM’s current auditor framework traces back to a single reform, then two further rewrites in four years.

The ADGM Board approved the Auditors’ Framework on 25 August 2021. It came into force on 1 December 2021, replacing the earlier Recognised Auditors regime with Registered Auditors and giving the RA stronger oversight powers. The Companies Regulations (Auditors) Rules 2023 followed, then the Companies Regulations (Auditors) Rules 2025 on 7 January 2025. On 28 October 2025, ADGM introduced the Companies Regulations (Auditors) Rules 2025(A), which repealed the January 2025 Rules and is the operative framework today.

Each rewrite tightened registration criteria for firms and individual Audit Principals. Each also extended the RA’s electronic register to show Additional Permits held, and aligned ADGM’s audit oversight more closely with international standards. If you engaged your auditor several years ago and never revisited the appointment, the framework that governed that engagement is not the one governing it now.

From the Practice: Your ADGM Audit and Your Corporate Tax Return Are One Exercise, Not Two

I work with a number of Corporate Tax clients who are also ADGM-registered. The single most useful thing I tell them in my practice is this: they cannot produce two separate sets of financial statements for two separate audiences. IFRS, which both the ADGM RA and the FTA require for IFRS-compliant accounts, does not permit multiple sets of general purpose financial statements for the same entity.

That means the audited financial statements filed to the ADGM portal are the exact same statements the Corporate Tax return is built on. If a Qualifying Free Zone Person’s income isn’t clearly segregated between qualifying and non-qualifying in the accounts themselves, not just in the CT workings, both filings inherit the same problem.

In practice, I still see this treated as two parallel exercises: one person preparing the ADGM accounts, another preparing the CT return, with nobody checking the two are entirely consistent. That gap is where FTA cross-referencing catches inconsistencies the client didn’t know existed.

Base registration and Additional Permits are two different questions, and confusing them is the most common auditor-appointment mistake I see.

Base registration: what it covers

An ADGM RA Registered Auditor has met the eligibility criteria under the Companies Regulations (Auditors) Rules and appointed at least one Registered Audit Principal with a recognised professional qualification. That base registration is sufficient to audit standard, non-regulated ADGM entities: SPVs, holding companies, and most operating QFZPs.

Additional Permits: when they’re required

The RA’s Additional Permits sit on top of base registration and apply to public interest entities and Financial Institutions specifically. A Registered Auditor auditing one of these entity types must also hold the corresponding permit under the Rules.

I’ve seen the gap this creates play out directly. An entity engaged a reputable audit firm, went through a full audit, and received a signed report. The firm was ADGM Registered, but it did not hold the permit its client’s classification required. The RA rejected the submission, and the entire audit had to be redone with a properly permitted firm, costing time, cost, and a late filing risk that was entirely avoidable.

The pattern I see most often involves financial services entities specifically: asset managers, investment firms, payment service providers, and wealth management entities. These businesses often reappoint an auditor they’ve used for mainland work or another group entity, without checking whether that firm holds the specific permit their ADGM classification requires. From the client’s side, there is no visible signal anything is wrong. The audit report looks identical either way.

Before engaging an auditor, ask directly which permits they hold and confirm it against your entity’s classification, not just against the base Registered Auditor list.

Verification takes minutes and should happen before you sign an engagement letter, not after.

1. Open the RA’s live public register at adgm.com under “Find an Auditor,” not a search result or a firm’s own website claim.
2. Search the firm name and confirm its registration status shows as active, not lapsed or suspended.
3. Check the Additional Permits field against your entity’s classification if you hold any financial services activity or public interest status.
4. Confirm at least one Registered Audit Principal is listed against the firm, since a firm cannot practise without one.
5. Re-verify before every renewal, since registrations and permits change and a firm approved for last year’s audit may not hold the same status this year.

An honest note here: my own firm is not on the ADGM Registration Authority’s Registered Auditor list, and I don’t sign ADGM statutory audits. Where I add value for ADGM clients is coordinating their UAE Corporate Tax and VAT position in Abu Dhabi. I work alongside whichever ADGM-registered firm handles the statutory audit, not as a substitute for it.

For a Qualifying Free Zone Person, the ADGM audit is not a separate compliance box. It is the foundation the entire Corporate Tax position rests on.

The small company exemption no longer applies to QFZPs

ADGM’s Companies Regulations 2020 let small companies, those with turnover under USD 13.5 million and fewer than 35 employees, file an unaudited balance sheet instead of full audited accounts. Many ADGM entities relied on that for years to avoid audit costs.

Under Ministerial Decision No. 84 of 2025, any entity claiming QFZP status must maintain audited financial statements regardless of revenue, size, or what the small company regime would otherwise allow. The RA confirmed this directly: the Corporate Tax obligation overrides the small company exemption for QFZPs. A narrow no-action position applied only to the first CT period where the audit obligation arose solely from CT law, and that transitional window has closed for most entities now.

The dual deadline that catches businesses off guard

The ADGM RA filing deadline and the FTA Corporate Tax return deadline are both nine months from the relevant period end. For a December year-end, both land on 30 September. I treat the audit, the RA filing, and the CT return as a single integrated timeline for every ADGM QFZP client. Engaging an auditor in June or July for a December year-end leaves almost no margin if the fieldwork runs into complexity.

The businesses that manage this well start early and use one advisor who understands both frameworks. The ones that struggle treat the two filings as unrelated tasks that happen to share a deadline, and discover the conflict in August.