How is your pension handled if you are a GCC national working in the UAE?

You stay in your home country’s pension system. Under the GCC programme for extending insurance protection, a GCC citizen working in another GCC country is covered as if working at home, and receives a pension under their own country’s law.¹ GPSSA runs this in the UAE.²

Who pays, and how much?

Your UAE employer must register you and pay contributions under your home country’s social security law. The employer’s share cannot be more than the share it pays for Emirati employees, and you pay any difference.² For Emiratis under the 2023 law the employer’s share is 15%.³

GPSSA’s page also lists earlier rates and the bank accounts the contributions go to.²

Check the deduction on your payslip against your country’s row, and ask HR to show the salary it reports.

Do you get gratuity as well?

Not for the same years. Your employer must pay end of service gratuity under the applicable labour law or civil service rules for service before the extension system applied to you.² Your pension and end of service benefits then follow your home country’s conditions.²

What about DIFC and ADGM?

In DIFC, a GCC national must be registered with GPSSA and does not get a gratuity payment. If the employer’s GPSSA contribution is lower than the core contribution a qualifying scheme such as DEWS would have received for you, the employer pays the difference into a qualifying scheme, where that top-up is at least AED 1,000 a month.⁴

In ADGM, the employer must register a GCC national with the federal pension authority within 30 calendar days of the first day of work. The employee gets no gratuity unless the pension authority has approved in writing that they do not take part.⁵

What about Emiratis working in other GCC countries?

The programme applies to any GCC citizen working in another GCC country, Emiratis included, who keeps the pension rights of their own country.¹ The 2023 UAE law asks GPSSA to set the executive rules for the system, issued by Cabinet resolution.³ Ask GPSSA how your years abroad are recorded before you move.

The small print

• System name. The UAE law calls it the System for Extending Insurance Protection to GCC Nationals Working Outside their Countries in any of the other GCC States. Article 40(2) of Federal Decree-Law No. 57 of 2023 covers it.³
• Rates. GPSSA’s table shows each country’s history, for example Bahrain’s private sector employer share rising each January from 2023 to 2028 and Oman’s rates changing on 1 January 2024.²
• Qatar date. GPSSA writes the start of Qatar’s current rates as 3/1/2023.²