Your final settlement when a job ends in the UAE

Your employer must pay your wages and all other entitlements within 14 days of the date the contract ends.¹ That covers what the Labour Law, your contract and your employer’s own rules give you.¹

What does a final settlement include?

The sources for each row are in the sections below. Your contract can give you more than the law, never less.

How is your gratuity worked out?

On your last basic wage: 21 days’ pay for each of the first five years and 30 days’ for each year after, with part years paid in proportion once you pass one year. Unpaid absence does not count as service, and the total cannot pass two years’ pay.¹ Allowances such as housing and transport are not included.²

The full method, with worked examples, is in end of service gratuity. The gratuity calculator does the sum for your dates.

If your employer paid into the end of service savings scheme for some of your years, the fund pays your balance for those years within 14 days of the job ending. Your employer still owes gratuity for the years before you joined the scheme, calculated on your basic wage at the time you joined.³

How is unused leave paid?

In cash, on your basic salary. The Executive Regulations say that when your service ends you are entitled to “a cash equivalent of the balance of his annual leaves due by law in accordance with his basic salary”.⁴

You earn 30 days a year after one year of service, and two days a month if you have served more than six months but less than a year. You also get leave for the part of your last year that you worked.¹

The law treats a month as 30 days, so one day of leave is your monthly basic salary divided by 30.¹ For example, 12 unused days on AED 9,000 basic salary is 12 × AED 300 = AED 3,600.

Ask your employer for its record of your leave balance before your last day, so you can correct it in time.

What about your notice period?

Your contract sets a notice period of at least 30 and at most 90 days. You are paid your full wage for it, at your last wage.¹

If your employer ends the contract and does not let you work the notice, it owes you a notice allowance equal to your wage for the notice period or the part not worked. The same applies the other way if you leave without working your notice.¹

If your employer gave you notice, you may take one unpaid working day a week during the notice to look for work, if you tell your employer three days ahead.¹

What can your employer deduct?

Only amounts due by law or under a court judgment. The Executive Regulations list loans, overpayments, your share of pension or insurance contributions, fines under the penalty list approved by MOHRE, court debts and damage you caused by your mistake.¹⁴

Ask for each deduction in writing with the reason and the amount.

Do you get a ticket home?

Your employer pays the cost of returning you to the place you were recruited from, or another place you both agreed. It does not if you join another employer, or if the contract ended because of you, in which case you pay.¹

What if your settlement is late or wrong?

Raise it with your employer in writing first, with your own figures. If it is not fixed, file a labour complaint with the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE). A claim for rights under the Labour Law is not heard more than two years after the work relationship ends.¹ The steps are in how to complain to MOHRE.

If you lost your job for a reason other than resignation or a disciplinary dismissal, you have 30 days to claim unemployment insurance. The end of service dates tool works out each deadline from your last day.

Work through the checklist on this page before you sign anything.

The small print

• Articles. Payment within 14 days is Article 53 of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021. Annual leave is Article 29. Notice is Article 43. The ticket home and experience certificate are Article 13(11) and (12). Gratuity is Article 51. The 30-day month is Article 67. The claim time limit is Article 54(9).¹
• Leave pay. Cash for unused leave on termination is Article 19(2) of Cabinet Resolution No. 1 of 2022. Deductions from gratuity are Article 29.⁴
• Savings scheme. Gratuity before joining and payment of the fund balance are Articles 5(3) and 9(1) of Cabinet Resolution No. 96 of 2023.³
• Language. The English texts are translations. The Arabic texts are the official ones.