What Is ICV? In-Country Value Scoring, Explained for Manufacturers
ICV scores how much of your spend stays in the UAE. What the certificate covers, who issues it, what feeds the score, and why Oman and Qatar are different.
What Is ICV? In-Country Value Scoring, Explained for Manufacturers
ICV (In-Country Value) is a UAE score measuring how much of a supplier's spending stays in the national economy. Under the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology's National ICV Programme, an authorised certifying body reviews your audited financial statements and issues an ICV certificate. Participating government entities and national companies use that score when awarding tenders.
What ICV actually is
ICV is a percentage calculated from your last audited financial statements. It expresses the share of your cost base that lands inside the UAE: local manufacturing cost, Emirati payroll, a discounted share of expatriate payroll, and the net book value of assets you hold in the country.
The scheme is the National In-Country Value Programme, run by the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MOIAT). MOIAT does not audit you itself. It authorises independent accounting and audit firms, called certifying bodies, to check a supplier's ICV template against the underlying financial statements and issue the certificate. Twenty-one firms currently appear on MOIAT's certifying body register.
The structural point for a plant manager: ICV is a backward-looking financial measure, not a plant audit. Nobody walks your shop floor. The score comes from cost data finance has already booked and an auditor has already signed.
Who it applies to
Certification is voluntary. MOIAT's FAQ states that "ICV certification is optional for those seeking to participate in federal government tenders", and that suppliers without a certificate score zero. For anyone selling into ADNOC, EDGE, Mubadala, Etisalat or the federal and emirate entities in the programme, zero is not a competitive position.
Two supplier categories are scored differently. Goods manufacturers hold a valid industrial licence and manufacture finished products in the UAE; local manufacturing cost feeds their largest component. Service providers are entities without an industrial licence; their equivalent component is third-party spend, weighted by each vendor's own ICV score.
There is no minimum turnover or headcount. MOIAT confirms certification "is not restricted by company size". Companies registered under the Ministry of Economy's National Programme for SMEs were granted a reduced fee of AED 500 in June 2023. [NEEDS SOURCE: the standard non-SME fee range, which MOIAT states is set by the certifying bodies.]
What the score is built from
MOIAT's published supplier awareness material sets out the goods manufacturer formula as weighted components:
| Component | Weighting | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing cost | 50% | (UAE manufacturing cost + Emirati cost + 60% of expatriate cost) / total cost |
| Investment | 25% | UAE asset net book value / total asset NBV, with a progressive uplift between AED 5m and AED 150m of NBV |
| Emiratisation | 15% | Emirati salary, training and benefits, progressive from about AED 200,000 of annual Emirati payroll to AED 20m |
| Expatriate contribution | 10% | Banded on expatriate headcount: 1 to 5, 6 to 50, 51 to 200, above 200 |
| ICV bonus | up to 5% | Export revenue from outside the UAE, Emirati headcount, growth in asset NBV |
| Advanced technology and sustainability bonus | up to 6% | Up to 5% for the Industrial Technology Transformation Index, plus 1% for ISO 14001, ISO 14046, ISO 50001 or the Green Industries Label |
Service providers replace manufacturing cost with third-party spend at the same 50% weighting; their sustainability bonus is capped at 3%.
Two mechanics matter more than the weightings. Expatriate cost enters the numerator at 60%, not 100%, so shifting roles toward Emirati staff moves the score twice. And a UAE mainland vendor without a valid ICV certificate is "automatically granted 10% ICV score" in your calculation, while every other uncertified vendor counts as zero. Your suppliers' paperwork sits inside your score.
[NEEDS SOURCE: whether the June 2021 MOIAT ICV Supplier Certification Guidelines remain the operative document, given MOIAT announced a formula update incorporating the Industrial Technology Transformation Index in March 2023 and a further programme update in February 2024. Confirm current band tables with the certifying body.]
The certificate is dated from your accounts, not from the day it is signed: "The ICV certificate shall be valid for a period of 14 months from the date of issuance of Audited Financial Statements." Statements must follow IFRS and must not be older than two years. Companies under ten months old may use management accounts covering up to nine months; anything longer must be audited. Two suppliers who sign their audit reports three months apart hold certificates that expire three months apart, whatever date they applied.
What happens if you do not comply
No fine, no licence consequence. ICV is not a compliance obligation in the way VAT or wage protection are. The consequence is commercial: a zero ICV score in any tender run by a participating entity, against competitors carrying scores well above 50%.
[NEEDS SOURCE: the exact weighting each participating entity applies to ICV within its commercial bid evaluation. MOIAT states certified suppliers "gain advantages during the award of tenders and contracts based on their ICV score" but publishes no uniform preference percentage.]
ICV is not one scheme across the Gulf
Three GCC countries run programmes called In-Country Value, and they are not interchangeable. Oman runs a separate national ICV effort centred on energy and minerals, with its own definitions of local spend and its own Omanisation weighting (see the companion piece on ICV in Oman). Qatar runs the Tawteen ICV programme through QatarEnergy, scoring goods and services, workforce training, supplier development and fixed asset investment over revenue in Qatar excluding exports, certified at least annually. Shared vocabulary, different formulas, different certifier registers, different validity rules.
[NEEDS SOURCE: current Omani ICV governance body, certificate format and scoring components, from an Omani government primary source.]
Related terms
- MOIAT: the UAE Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology, owner of the programme and the authority that appoints certifying bodies.
- Make it in the Emirates: MOIAT's industrial localisation platform and annual forum, the demand-side counterpart to ICV scoring.
- ICV certifying body: an accounting or audit firm authorised by MOIAT to verify a supplier's ICV template and issue the certificate.
- Emiratisation: UAE national employment in the private sector. Inside ICV, a 15% component.
- Supplier ICV score: the certified ICV percentage of a company you buy from, which flows into your own calculation.
- ITTI: the Industrial Technology Transformation Index, MOIAT's factory digital maturity and sustainability assessment, which feeds the ICV bonus.
FAQ
Is ICV certification mandatory in the UAE? No. MOIAT describes it as optional. The practical effect of not holding one is a zero on the ICV element of a participating entity's tender evaluation, which in competitive bids is close to disqualifying.
How long does certification take? Once all required documents are submitted, MOIAT states the application is processed within one month. That clock starts after your audited statements exist and the ICV template is complete, which is the longer part of the exercise.
Does recertification need new audited accounts? Not always. MOIAT's FAQ notes recertification is permitted using the same financial statements. That helps if the first certificate was issued late or needs correction, but it does not extend the 14-month clock.
Where a system helps
The score is assembled from records you already keep: cost of goods by origin, the fixed asset register split by location, payroll by nationality, and purchase ledgers matched to supplier ICV certificates. When those sit in one manufacturing system rather than four spreadsheets, the template becomes an extract rather than a reconstruction. See OptiForge for manufacturing.
Related reading: "ICV Certification for UAE Manufacturers: How the Score Is Built and Where Software Helps" (KB-012) and "What Is ICV in Oman? How In-Country Value Scoring Treats Maintenance Spend" (KB-019).
Sources
- MOIAT, National In-Country Value Program (ICV)
- MOIAT, ICV Supplier Certification Guidelines (PDF, version dated June 2021)
- MOIAT, National ICV Programme FAQs
- MOIAT, authorised ICV certifying bodies
- MOIAT, Advanced Technology and Sustainability Bonus (ITTI in ICV)
- MOIAT, ICV supplier awareness session formula breakdown (PDF)
- MOIAT, reduced ICV certification fee for National SME Programme members
- The Official Portal of the UAE Government, The National In-Country Value (ICV) Program
- QatarEnergy Tawteen, ICV overview (Qatar scheme, for contrast)