No technical services article. That absence is the whole point.

There is no separate fees-for-technical-services article in the India-UAE treaty, which is unusual and consequential. Where a treaty has no such article, a payment for services is generally considered under the business profits article — and business profits of a UAE enterprise are taxable in India only where that enterprise has a permanent establishment here and the profits are attributable to it. So a genuine service fee paid to a UAE company with no Indian presence may not be taxable in India at all, where the same fee paid to a Singapore company would be taxable at the treaty rate. This is the single most important feature of the treaty and it is why service structures are routed through the UAE.

Dividends are capped at 10%. Interest is capped at 5% in the specified banking cases and 12.5% otherwise. Royalties are capped at 10%. There is no rate for technical services because there is no article for them. As always these are ceilings available on a properly supported claim, not automatic rates — without a residency certificate and Form 41 the Indian payer must apply the domestic rate.

No, and this is where the treaty gets people into trouble rather than out of it. The characterisation follows what is actually provided, not the wording on the invoice. If a payment is for the use of a copyright, a patent, a trademark, a design, know-how or industrial equipment, it is a royalty and taxable at the treaty rate, whatever the contract calls it. Mixed arrangements — software with implementation, a licence with support — are the most commonly challenged, and the answer usually depends on whether the agreement separates and prices the components sensibly. Draft it before the first invoice, not after the first notice.

This was argued for many years on the basis that a person not liable to tax anywhere could not be a treaty resident. The position was addressed by protocol and the treaty sets out its own residency definition, with an individual's position turning on days present in the UAE. And the ground has shifted again now that the UAE has introduced its own corporate tax, which makes the "not liable to tax" objection considerably weaker for companies than it once was. If your structure and its supporting opinion date from before that change, it is worth revisiting — the reasoning it relies on may have been overtaken.

This is the most contested part of the treaty and it would be misleading to give you a flat answer. Article 13 was amended by the 2007 protocol and the allocation of taxing rights over gains on shares — as against gains on shares deriving their value principally from Indian immovable property — has been the subject of sustained dispute and of changing revenue practice. The outcome for a particular holding can depend on when the shares were acquired, what the company's assets consist of, and whether the UAE entity satisfies the anti-abuse conditions. Anyone giving you a one-line answer on this without seeing the facts is guessing. It is worth a written position before a sale, not after.

Mainly by reducing the Indian withholding on your Indian income and by settling which country taxes what. Indian rent, interest and capital gains remain taxable in India as Indian-source income — the treaty does not remove that. What it does is cap the rate on certain categories and give you the framework to avoid the same income being taxed twice. Practically, obtain a tax residency certificate from the Federal Tax Authority each year, file Form 41, and give them to your Indian payers before they deduct. Where tax has been over-deducted the route is an Indian return and a refund claim.

On the ordinary tests: a fixed place of business in India through which its business is carried on, a building site or installation project lasting beyond the specified period, or a dependent agent here who habitually concludes contracts in its name. Because the treaty has no technical services article, the permanent establishment question does more work here than in most treaties — it is the only route by which India taxes service income at all. That cuts both ways: a UAE company sending people to India repeatedly to deliver a service should check the position carefully, because a PE converts a non-taxable fee into taxable Indian profits.

It can be, and it is widely used, but not as a nameplate. The 2007 protocol added a main-purpose limitation of benefits, India's domestic anti-avoidance rules apply, and the capital gains position is contested. A UAE entity with real management, real people and a genuine commercial reason to exist is in a strong position. One incorporated to hold a single Indian shareholding, with no staff and a corporate service provider's address, is the fact pattern the anti-abuse rules were written for — and the introduction of UAE corporate tax has not changed that.

A tax residency certificate from the UAE Federal Tax Authority for the relevant period, the declaration in Form 41, and then Form 145 for the remittance with an accountant's certificate in Form 146 where required. Where you are relying on the absence of a technical services article to argue that nothing is taxable at all, expect the Indian payer to want more than a certificate — a written position on the characterisation, and comfort that no permanent establishment exists. That is reasonable of them: if they under-withhold, the exposure is theirs, not yours.