Annual leaves are granted in accordance with the Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations in the Private Sector, the ‘UAE Labour Law’.

Entitlement

• Employees are entitled to a fully paid annual leave of:

30 days, if they have completed one year of service and

2 days per month, if they have completed six months of service, but not one year.

Note that if the employee’s service is ended before he used his annual leave balance, he will get leave for the fraction of the last year of service.

• Part-time employees are entitled to annual leave according to the actual working hours they spent at work, as specified in the employment contract, and in accordance with the ‘Executive Regulations of the Labour Law’ - available in Arabic only (PDF, 10.9 MB).

Rules regarding using annual leaves

• Employees must use their leaves in the year of entitlement. The employer may, in agreement with the employee set the dates of leave according to the work requirements. Employer must notify the employee of the date of the leave at least one month in advance.
• The employee may, with the consent of the employer, and in accordance with company’s regulations, carry over his annual leave balance to the next year. In this case, the employee will be entitled to be paid for the days he/she worked during the annual leave. The payment is calculated according to the basic salary.
• The employer may not prevent the employee from using his accrued annual leave for more than two years. On termination of employment, any accrued leaves will be calculated on basic salary only.
• The calculation of the duration of annual leave will include official holidays specified by law or by agreement, and any other leaves caused by sickness if they fall within the annual leave unless the employment contract or the company’s regulations have other provisions.