How the UAE gratuity is worked out
The gratuity is the daily wage times the days of wage owed. The daily wage is the monthly basic wage divided by 30; the law states no divisor, so this is the usual convention and the page says so. A worker with at least one year of continuous service is owed 21 days of wage for each of the first five years and 30 days for each year after the fifth, in proportion for part of a year, and never more than two years of wage (Article 51).
Service runs from the first day up to the last day, and the last day is not counted. Whole months are counted from the anniversary of the first day, and the days left over after the last whole month count as that many 365ths of a year. The law pays part years "in proportion" and gives no divisor, so this is a stated reading, not a quoted rule: an employer who uses another divisor can arrive at a figure a little different. If your service began before 2 February 2022, the page applies the same formula to the whole period on your last basic wage, which is the common reading and not a quoted rule.
The two-year cap
Article 51(2) limits the total to two years of wage. On a basic wage of AED 5,000.00 a month, 44 years of service would come to more than that, so the calculator stops at AED 120,000.00 (24 × AED 5,000.00) and says the cap applied. At AED 10,000.00 a month the cap is AED 240,000.00, which the example above does not reach.
Frequently asked questions
Is the UAE gratuity worked out on my basic wage or my full salary?
On the basic wage. Article 51(1) names the basic wage, so use the basic wage line of your contract, not the whole package, and do not add allowances. On a package of AED 15,000.00 a month with a basic wage of AED 10,000.00, a worker who started on 1 March 2020 and left on 1 September 2026 gets AED 50,000.00; entering the whole package by mistake would show AED 75,000.00.
Does resigning reduce my gratuity?
No. Our reading of Article 51 is that the amount does not depend on why the job ended, so resignation and dismissal give the same figure: AED 50,000.00 for a basic wage of AED 10,000.00 from 1 March 2020 to 1 September 2026. Immediate dismissal for serious misconduct under Article 44 does not forfeit it either, unlike the old 1980 law. This is our summary of the article, not a quotation.
Do I get a gratuity if I worked less than one year?
No. Article 51(1) gives the gratuity to a worker with a year or more of continuous service. A basic wage of AED 6,000.00 and 6 months of service gives AED 0.00. The minimum is 365 days of counted service, so unpaid days can bring a worker under it.
Does a fixed-term or an open-ended contract change the amount?
Not in the rules this page reads. The amount depends on the length of continuous service and the last basic wage, not on the contract type, and the article is written for a full-time worker with a year or more of service. The calculator does not handle part-time or other arrangements. Check your own contract, and ask the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation if you are unsure.
Are unpaid days counted as service?
No. Article 51(4) says days of absence without pay are not counted in the term of service. For a basic wage of AED 10,000.00 from 1 March 2020 to 1 September 2026, 60 unpaid days leave 6 years, 4 months, 2 days of service and a gratuity of AED 48,388.13. Leave the box empty if you had none.
Why is my employer's figure a few dirhams different?
The law does not fix the daily-wage divisor or how a part year is counted. This calculator divides the monthly basic wage by 30, counts whole months exactly and the leftover days over 365, and rounds once at the end, half up, to the fils. An employer who counts a month as the actual days in it, or a year as 360 or 365.25 days, can differ by a small amount.
Is what I type sent anywhere?
No. The calculation runs in your browser. The link button copies an address that holds your numbers after the # sign, which a browser never sends to a server, and nothing is stored on this device.
The rules this calculator applies
These lines come from the rules file the calculator itself reads, so the page and the answer cannot disagree. They are our summaries of the articles, checked on 12 October 2026; they are not quotations of the law.
| Where | What it says (our summary, not a quotation) | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Article 51(1)(a) | 21 days of basic wage for each year of the first five years of service | AE-B1 |
| Article 51(1)(b) | 30 days of basic wage for each year after the first five | AE-B2 |
| Article 51(2) | The total end-of-service gratuity does not exceed two years of wage | AE-CAP |
| Article 51(3) | The worker is entitled to a gratuity for parts of a year in proportion to the time spent on the job | AE-PART |
| Article 51(4) | Days of absence from work without pay are not counted within the term of service | AE-UNPAID |
| Article 51(1) | A full-time foreign worker who has completed one year or more of continuous service is entitled to the end-of-service gratuity | AE-R1 |
| Articles 51 and 44 | Immediate dismissal for serious misconduct under Article 44 does not forfeit the gratuity | AE-R2 |
Who this calculator does not cover
It gives no figure for these cases. Use the rules that apply to you.
- Workers in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC): own employment law (DIFC Law No. 2 of 2019 and its Employee Workplace Savings Plan, DEWS) replaces the federal regime.
- Workers in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM): own employment regulations.
- Federal and local government employees (own pension and gratuity rules).
- Domestic workers (Federal Decree-Law No. 9 of 2022 on Domestic Workers governs them).
- A worker enrolled by the employer in the voluntary alternative end-of-service savings scheme (Cabinet Resolution 96 of 2023, in force 1 November 2023): for the enrolled period the savings replace the Article 51 gratuity.
Sources
- UAE Legislation portal, Federal Decree-Law No. (33) of 2021 Regarding the Regulation of Employment Relationship and its amendments (in force from 2 February 2022; address checked 12 October 2026): Articles 44 and 51. The portal refused our automated request on 12 October 2026, so the article text was read through search results that quote the same page. Every line on this page is a summary in our own words.
- UAE Legislation portal, Cabinet Decision No. (1) of 2022 on the Implementing Regulation of Federal Decree-Law No. (33) of 2021 (in force from 2 February 2022; address checked 12 October 2026).
The calculations on this page are done by this page's own code, which is checked against an independent implementation in the site's test suite. Where the law is silent (the daily-wage divisor, part years) the page states the reading it uses.