United Arab Emirates annual leave entitlement

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What the law actually says

Every private-sector employee who has completed a year of service is entitled to 30 calendar days of paid annual leave — about 22 working days on a five-day week — and to two days of leave for each month of service between six months and a year. Leave pay is based on the basic salary plus housing allowance where one is paid. Public holidays and sick days that fall within a period of annual leave count as part of it unless the contract or company policy is more generous, and part-time employees receive a pro-rated entitlement under the Executive Regulations.

What happens to unused leave in United Arab Emirates

UAE law expects annual leave to be taken in the year it accrues. With the employer’s agreement the employee may carry part of the balance into the following year or, under the Executive Regulations, receive a cash allowance for it; the employer may not prevent accrued leave from being used for more than two years. Whatever remains when the employment ends must be paid, on the basic salary, under Article 29(9).

When employment ends, the untaken balance must be paid. This is the rule across the European Union and Australia, and it is the sharpest contrast with the United States, where whether unused time is paid out depends entirely on which state the employee works in.

If you run a team in United Arab Emirates

• Write the entitlement into every contract. At least 22 days; more is fine, less is void. Collective agreements may add to it.
• Track accrual and carryover to the day, with a record of every approval. When someone leaves, the untaken balance is money you owe, and you will need to show how you got to the number.
• Budget for the payout. Every unused day on the books is a liability at that person's current pay rate — it does not disappear at year end.

If you work in United Arab Emirates

• Check your contract gives at least 22 days. Anything less is unenforceable.
• Keep your own record of approved leave. Payroll systems get changed; your notes don't.
• When you leave, untaken statutory leave must be paid out. It cannot be forfeited.

Countries with the same 22-day minimum

Compare all 46 countries →

Calculating an employee's balance

Entitlement is the starting point; the working number is what an individual has actually accrued at a given date. Our accrual calculator converts an annual entitlement into a per-pay-period figure and a current balance.

Tracking United Arab Emirates leave correctly

Because untaken leave is money the employer owes, the balance has to be provable. Spreadsheets fail at exactly the moment they matter — when someone disputes what they were owed on their last day and nobody can reconstruct the record.

For a single-country team, Leavo handles United Arab Emirates accrual rules, carryover and approvals with a full audit trail. If you employ people in more than one country, statutory entitlements, carryover rules and payout obligations differ in every one — that is the case for a platform like Deel that handles multi-country employment rather than leave alone. We compare the options in our leave management software guide.

Source

Primary source: Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 (Labour Law), Article 29. Statutory minimums change, and collective agreements frequently exceed them — confirm against the current text before acting. See our methodology.