Notice periods under Egypt's Labour Law 14/2025: three months, un-shortenable, and the two rules that stop the clock

Legal information, not legal advice. Mohamy.ai is not a law firm and is not licensed to practise law or to provide legal consultancy in Egypt, the UAE or Saudi Arabia. This page describes the law of the Arab Republic of Egypt in general terms as it stood on 20 August 2026. It is not advice about your situation, and reading it does not create a lawyer and client relationship. Before you act, and especially if a deadline may be running, consult a lawyer admitted to the Egyptian Bar Association.

Notice on an indefinite-term contract in Egypt is three months, in writing, and it binds both sides. That is Article 156 of the Labour Law annexed to Law No. 14 of 2025. Any agreement to waive it or to shorten it is void under Article 161, and only an agreement to lengthen it is valid. So the clause in your contract that makes notice one month has no effect in that respect, even though you signed it.

Three things on this page are absent from almost everything published on this question, and all three come off the face of the articles:

1. The notice clock stops. Notice may not be served on you during your leave at all, and sick leave taken during the notice period suspends it. Article 159. Section 3.
2. Notice alone does not end the contract. Article 157 requires a legitimate and sufficient justification, and it addresses employers and workers alike. Section 2.
3. Pay in lieu is not only money. The notice period, or the remainder of it, counts as service, and the employer keeps bearing the associated obligations. Article 164. Section 4.

Scope. Egypt, private sector, and primarily the indefinite-term contract. Fixed-term contracts are section 6. Employees of the organs of the State including local administration units and public bodies, and domestic workers and those in their position, are excluded by the first promulgating article and nothing here applies to them.

One note on language, and it matters more here than on most pages. Egypt publishes no official English text of this law. Every quotation below is given in the Arabic of the Official Gazette, which is the text of record, with our own English rendering beside it. Our English is ours. Where the two differ, the Arabic is the law.

1. The rule, and who it binds

Article 156, verbatim from the Official Gazette:

مع عدم الإخلال بأحكام المادة (١٦٥) من هذا القانون إذا كان عقد العمل غير محدد المدة ، جاز لأى من طرفيه إنهاؤه بشرط أن يخطر الطرف الآخر كتابة قبل الإنهاء بثلاثة أشهر .

Our English: without prejudice to Article 165, where the employment contract is of indefinite term, either of its parties may terminate it provided that it notifies the other party in writing three months before the termination.

Three phrases carry the whole rule. "Either of its parties": the right and the obligation run both ways, so a worker who walks out without notice has breached the same article the employer would. "In writing": the form is required. "Three months": one flat period. There is no notice ladder in this law. Notice does not grow with length of service, and any page that gives you a table of one month at two years and two months at five years is describing some other legal system.

Article 161 is what makes that three months a floor rather than a suggestion:

لا يجوز الاتفاق على الإعفاء من شرط الإخطار أو تخفيض مدته ، ويجوز الاتفاق على زيادة هذه المدة . ويجوز لصاحب العمل إعفاء العامل من مراعاة مهلة الإخطار كلها ، أو بعضها فى حالة إنهاء العقد من جانب العامل .

Our English: it is not permissible to agree on exemption from the notice requirement or on reducing its period, and it is permissible to agree on increasing that period. The employer may exempt the worker from observing the notice period, in whole or in part, where the contract is terminated by the worker.

The first paragraph cuts both ways and the second cuts one way. The prohibition covers any agreement to waive or reduce, so your contract cannot make your notice one month and cannot remove it. Lengthening is permitted, so a contract setting six months is valid in that respect and binds you as well as the employer. The second paragraph then lets the employer release you from serving out notice where you are the one terminating, which is to say when you resign. On the face of the text that power is given for that case, and we have not generalised it to employer termination.

Article 6 supports the same reading from a different direction. It voids any condition or agreement conflicting with the Law, even one predating it, where it detracts from the worker's rights under the Law. So the invalidity of a shortened-notice clause is not an interpretation, it is how the statute is built.

2. Notice alone is not enough: Article 157

This is the part most pages drop, and dropping it inverts the answer. Waiting three months does not turn a groundless termination into a valid one.

مع عدم الإخلال بحكم المادة (٢٣٥) من هذا القانون ، ومع مراعاة أحكام المواد من (١٥٨ إلى ١٧٥) من هذا القانون ، لا يجوز لأصحاب الأعمال والعمال إنهاء عقد العمل غير محدد المدة ، إلا بمبرر مشروع وكاف . ويراعى فى جميع الأحوال ، أن يتم الإنهاء فى وقت مناسب لظروف العمل .

Our English: without prejudice to Article 235, and having regard to Articles 158 to 175, employers and workers may not terminate an indefinite-term employment contract except for a legitimate and sufficient justification. In all cases, regard shall be had to the termination taking place at a time suitable to the circumstances of the work.

"Legitimate and sufficient" is two tests, not one: lawful, and weighty enough to carry the termination. And the article addresses "employers and workers", so it is not a one-sided protection.

Article 165 then works as the mirror image and is useful precisely for that. It lists six reasons that are not legitimate, so a termination for one of them fails Article 157 by force of the text, and it gives compensation of not less than two months' wage for each year of service. Those six: union membership or union activity; acting as the workers' delegate, having acted as one, or seeking to; filing a complaint or a claim against the employer, or taking part in one, complaining of its breach of the laws, the regulations or the employment contracts; attachment of the worker's entitlements in the employer's hands; the worker's use of the right to the leave the Law grants; and colour, sex, marital status, family responsibilities, pregnancy, religion or political opinion.

The fifth is the lightest-looking and the most useful. A worker dismissed for having taken leave the Law gives them has been dismissed for an unlawful reason by express provision.

One refusal, stated plainly. Article 157 opens "without prejudice to Article 235", which sits in a different Book of the Law. We have not quoted Article 235 on this page, so we do not describe what it contains. If your termination is part of a collective or economically-driven exercise, that is a different provision and section 7 says so.

3. Counting the notice period, and the two rules that stop it

Five articles work together, and their practical effect is that your notice period can be longer than three calendar months.

Article 158, on the point that decides dates:

ويبدأ سريان مهلة الإخطار من تاريخ تسلمه .

Our English: the notice period begins to run from the date of its receipt.

From receipt, not from posting, and not from the date typed at the top of the letter. A letter sent on 25 March and received by you on 1 April starts running on 1 April. Keep whatever proves the date of receipt: the courier record, the signed acknowledgement, the email timestamp.

Article 159 in full:

لا يجوز توجيه الإخطار للعامل خلال إجازاته ، ولا تحتسب مهلة الإخطار إلا من اليوم التالى لانتهاء الإجازة ، وإذا حصل العامل على إجازة مرضية خلال مهلة الإخطار يوقف سريان هذه المهلة ولا يبدأ سريانها من جديد إلا من اليوم التالى لانتهاء تلك الإجازة .

Our English: notice may not be directed to the worker during their leave, and the notice period is not counted except from the day following the end of the leave; and if the worker obtains sick leave during the notice period, the running of that period is suspended and does not begin to run again except from the day following the end of that leave.

Worked example. You receive notice on 1 April, so three months would expire around 1 July. You then take 10 days of sick leave from 1 May.

• The period runs 1 April to 30 April: 30 days elapsed.
• It is suspended for the 10 days of sick leave.
• It resumes the day after the leave ends, so the contract ends around 11 July rather than 1 July.

The text does not say whether the day of resumption is itself counted, so treat the last day as approximate. If the exact last day matters to you, and it does whenever a month's wage or another deadline turns on it, ask a lawyer rather than relying on a page's arithmetic.

Article 162 is a right that gets forgotten:

إذا كان الإخطار بالإنهاء من جانب صاحب العمل ، يحق للعامل أن يتغيب يومًا كاملاً فى الأسبوع أو ثمانى ساعات أثناء الأسبوع ، وذلك للبحث عن عمل آخر مع استحقاقه لأجره عن يوم أو ساعات الغياب .

Our English: where the notice of termination is given by the employer, the worker is entitled to be absent for one full day in the week, or eight hours during the week, to look for other work, while remaining entitled to their wage for the day or the hours of absence.

Paid, and you choose the day, provided you notify the employer at least on the day before. Using Article 2, which fixes the month at thirty days, three months is 90 days, which is 12 weeks and 6 days. So that is 12 or 13 paid days, depending on how the part week is treated, and the statute does not resolve the part week. As hours, 96 to 104. This right exists only where the employer gave the notice, so it does not arise on a resignation.

4. Terminated without notice: the pay-in-lieu arithmetic

Article 164:

إذا أنهى صاحب العمل عقد العمل غير محدد المدة دون إخطار أو قبل انقضاء مهلة الإخطار ، يلتزم بأن يؤدى للعامل مبلغًا يعادل أجره عن مدة المهلة ، أو الجزء الباقى منها . وفى هذه الحالة تحسب مدة المهلة ، أو الجزء الباقى منها ضمن مدة خدمة العامل ، ويستمر صاحب العمل فى تحمل الأعباء ، والالتزامات المترتبة على ذلك ، أما إذا كان الإنهاء صادرًا من جانب العامل فإن العقد ينتهى من وقت تركه العمل .

Our English: if the employer terminates the indefinite-term contract without notice, or before the notice period expires, it is bound to pay the worker an amount equal to their wage for the period of the notice, or for the remaining part of it. In that case the period of the notice, or the remaining part of it, is counted within the worker's period of service, and the employer continues to bear the burdens and obligations arising from that; whereas if the termination is by the worker, the contract ends from the time they left the work.

Case A: no notice at all. Monthly wage EGP 8,000.

• Notice due, Article 156: three months.
• Payable, Article 164: an amount equal to the wage for the period. 3 x 8,000 = EGP 24,000.
• And on top of the money: those three months count within your period of service, and the employer keeps bearing the associated obligations. So a worker at 4 years 10 months on the day of termination is treated as having 5 years 1 month. That moves every entitlement measured in years of service.

Case B: short notice. You are notified on 1 April and terminated on 1 May, so one month of three was served.

• Remaining part: 3 minus 1 = 2 months.
• Payable: 2 x 8,000 = EGP 16,000.
• Daily wage on the Article 2 basis of a thirty-day month: 8,000 / 30 = EGP 266.666... So if the remainder were 50 days rather than two whole months: 50 x 266.666... = EGP 13,333.33.

And the divisor here is in the statute, which is worth pausing on. Article 2:

فى تطبيق أحكام هذا القانون تعتبر السنة ( ٣٦٥) يومًا ، والشهر ثلاثون يومًا ما لم يتم الاتفاق على خلاف ذلك .

Our English: in applying the provisions of this Law, the year is considered to be 365 days and the month thirty days, unless otherwise agreed.

So converting a monthly wage into a daily one under this Law rests on a provision, not on a convention. That is a real difference from other laws in the region, where the same conversion rests on an assumption the drafter never made, and where a computed figure is therefore only as good as somebody's choice of divisor. Note the qualification though: "unless otherwise agreed". If your contract or the establishment's approved regulation sets a different basis for the daily wage, that is the one that applies.

If the termination is yours, Article 164 is explicit: the contract ends from the time you left the work. Leaving without notice does end the contract from that moment, which is not the same as leaving without consequence, because Article 156 still obliged you to give notice and Article 166 attaches its own consequence to absence.

5. What notice does not do, and what ends a contract without it

Notice is not a route to a disciplinary dismissal, and a disciplinary dismissal is not a route around notice. They are separate mechanisms. Article 148 gives jurisdiction to impose the penalty of dismissal to the competent Labour Court, not to the employer, and permits it only where the worker committed a grave fault falling within the seven cases the article enumerates. An employer that wants to end your contract for a disciplinary reason goes to the court, not to the notice provisions.

Absence can be treated as a resignation, Article 166. More than twenty non-consecutive days of unjustified absence in one year, or more than ten consecutive days, provided it is preceded by a warning sent by registered post with acknowledgement of receipt from the employer or its representative, after ten days of absence in the first case and five days in the second. The warning is a condition precedent, not a formality afterwards. Without a registered letter with acknowledgement, sent at that point, the article's requirement is not met.

Resignation has its own article, Article 167. In writing, signed, and certified by the competent administrative authority. Service does not end except by the decision accepting the resignation. Ten days for the employer to decide, failing which it is deemed accepted. Ten days to retract from the date you are notified of its acceptance. If you resigned and changed your mind, the deadline is in the text and it is short.

6. Fixed-term contracts: a different rule, and one question we will not answer

Article 154:

مع عدم الإخلال بما نصت عليه المواد (٨٧ ، ٨٨ ، ٩٥) من هذا القانون ، ينتهى عقد العمل محدد المدة بانقضاء مدته . فإذا أبرم العقد أو جدد لمدة تزيد على خمس سنوات ، جاز للعامل إنهاؤه دون تعويض عند انقضاء خمس سنوات ، وذلك بعد إخطار صاحب العمل قبل الإنهاء بثلاثة أشهر . وتسرى أحكام الفقرة الثانية من هذه المادة على حالات إنهاء العامل للعقد بعد انقضاء المدة المذكورة . فإذا كان الإنهاء من جانب صاحب العمل استحق العامل مكافأة تعادل أجر شهر عن كل سنة من سنوات الخدمة .

Our English: without prejudice to Articles 87, 88 and 95, the fixed-term contract ends on the expiry of its term. If the contract was concluded or renewed for a term exceeding five years, the worker may terminate it without compensation on the expiry of five years, after notifying the employer three months before termination. The provisions of the second paragraph apply to cases where the worker terminates the contract after the expiry of that term. And if the termination is by the employer, the worker is entitled to a gratuity equal to one month's wage for each year of service.

Three limbs are clear. A fixed-term contract ends on the expiry of its term, not by notice. A contract concluded or renewed for more than five years may be terminated by the worker without compensation at the five-year point on three months' notice. The same applies to worker termination after that term.

A fourth limb has a structural problem, and we set it out rather than resolve it. The final sentence gives a gratuity of one month's wage per year of service where the employer terminates. But it opens with "فإذا", and it chains from two paragraphs that are about a contract of more than five years. Two readings are available:

• The narrow reading: the gratuity is confined to the more-than-five-years situation just described.
• The wide reading: the gratuity arises on any employer termination of a fixed-term contract.

We do not prefer one. Choosing between them is a question of paragraph structure for a judge or a licensed lawyer, and the difference between the readings is an entitlement and nothing. On the wide reading, six years of service at a monthly wage of EGP 7,000: 6 x 1 x 7,000 = EGP 42,000. On the narrow reading, in a case outside it, the figure is zero. Ask, and do not build on a number.

One refusal. Article 154 opens "without prejudice to Articles 87, 88 and 95". We have not quoted those articles here, so we do not describe them, and they form part of the answer where they apply.

7. What this page does not tell you

• How long you have to bring a claim. We ran mechanical searches of the full text of both instruments for every prescription formula Egyptian drafting uses. Nothing. The rule sits outside what we hold, so we state no number. Article 6 voids a release of rights given during the contract or within three months of its end, and that is not a limitation period and must not be read as one.
• Article 235, which Article 157 opens by preserving, and Articles 87, 88 and 95, which Article 154 opens by preserving. Not quoted, so not described.
• Any court judgment. We hold no Egyptian case law at any level, so we cannot tell you how Article 157 is applied in practice to facts like yours, or which wage base a court uses for Article 165 compensation.
• The implementing ministerial decisions, including the mechanics of certifying a resignation before the competent administrative authority under Article 167. The eleventh promulgating article required the Minister to issue them within ninety days. We hold none of them.

8. What to do now, in order

1. Get your contract out and read the notice clause. Below three months it is void in that respect under Article 161 and the period is three months. Above three months it is valid and it binds you too.
2. Fix the date of receipt, not the date of sending. Article 158. And if you were never handed a written notice, no period is running at all, and Article 164 pay in lieu is the consequence.
3. If you were on leave, record it. Notice may not be served during leave, and sick leave during the period suspends it. Article 159.
4. If the employer gave the notice, use Article 162: one paid day per week, or eight hours, to job hunt, on at least a day's prior notice of the day you choose. Ask in writing.
5. Demand your money in writing and date it. Article 108 item 4 gives the employer seven days to pay the wage and all amounts due, running from the date the worker demands them, not from the termination. The written demand is the step that starts the clock, and almost nobody does it deliberately.
6. Ask for your end-of-service certificate. Article 175 obliges the employer to give it within fifteen days of the request, and to return papers, certificates and tools you deposited, and whatever evidences your clearance, immediately on request.
7. If it becomes a dispute, the competent Labour Court. Claims arising from this Law are exempt from judicial fees and expenses at every stage under Article 7, and no advocate's signature is required on the statement of claim. But if the court dismisses the claim it may order you to pay all or part of the costs, so the exemption is not unconditional.

9. When to get a licensed lawyer

• If the employer is relying on a grave fault to end your contract. Jurisdiction over the dismissal penalty is the Labour Court's under Article 148, and this is not a place to work it out alone.
• If you resigned and want to retract: ten days under Article 167.
• If your contract is fixed-term and the Article 154 gratuity is in issue, because that article's paragraph structure supports two readings and the gap between them is a whole payment.
• If you think your termination was for one of the unlawful reasons in Article 165. The compensation there is a floor, it is compensation for damage, and we hold no case law showing how it is assessed.
• If a long time has passed since your service ended. The Law states no limitation period, and the rule that does govern is in an instrument we do not hold.

10. Before you compute anything: have the notice clause in your own contract read

Every number on this page starts from something in your contract: the notice period, the basis for a daily wage if it departs from the thirty-day month Article 2 allows you to contract out of, and how your wage elements are broken down.

Mohamy.ai document analysis reads your Egyptian employment contract, in Arabic or in English, and puts your notice clause beside the text of Article 156 and Article 161, showing you whether your clause falls below the mandatory floor, in which case it is void in that respect, or above it, in which case it binds both sides. It does the same for a probation clause against Article 90, whose limit is three months and once only with the same employer, and for any release-of-rights clause against Article 6.

It does not tell you what to do about a gap, and it is not a substitute for a licensed lawyer if you are in a dispute. Bring the contract, take the comparison, then go with the right document.

About this guide

What we are. Mohamy.ai publishes general legal information. We are not a law firm. We are not members of the Egyptian Bar Association under Law No. 17 of 1983 on Advocacy. We are not entered on the roll of lawyers and legal consultants held by the UAE Ministry of Justice under Federal Decree-Law No. 34 of 2022. We are not registered under the Saudi Code of Law Practice.Nothing on this page is legal advice, an opinion on your case, or a prediction of any outcome. No lawyer and client relationship is created and no duty of care is owed to you.

The Arabic governs, and this page is our translation. There is no official English text of Law No. 14 of 2025 or of the Labour Law annexed to it. Egypt publishes neither. Every quotation on this page is given in the Arabic of the Official Gazette, with our own English rendering beside it, labelled as ours. Where our English and the Arabic differ, the Arabic is the law and our English is not. If the wording matters to your case, work from the Arabic, or from our Arabic page, which is the primary version of this guide and not a translation.

What this page does not cover. It does not cover employees of the organs of the State including local administration units and public bodies, or domestic workers and those in their position: both are excluded by the first promulgating article. It does not cover the Social Insurance and Pensions Law No. 148 of 2019, Law No. 133 of 1961 on the employment of workers in industrial establishments, any implementing ministerial decision, or any court judgment. We hold none of those, and the page says so at each point where the answer turns on one.

How current this is. Every legal statement here was checked against the primary source below on 20 August 2026. No instrument amending Law No. 14 of 2025 was found as at 17 August 2026, and we record that as a negative search result rather than as confirmation from a gazette index.

Deadlines. Limitation periods and filing deadlines can extinguish an otherwise valid claim permanently. Do not rely on any period stated here. The Law states no limitation period for a worker's claim, and the rule that does govern sits in an instrument we do not hold, which is a reason to hurry rather than a reason to relax.

Sources. Law No. 14 of 2025 promulgating the Labour Law, and the Labour Law annexed to it. Official Gazette (الجريدة الرسمية), Issue No. 18 (supplement), 3 May 2025, Arabic, 110 pages, pinned SHA-256 e14a24d8...a0ead3f5, retrieved 17 August 2026 and cross-checked against a second official copy on a different government host. Quotations were extracted mechanically from that file into an internal corpus of 312 chunks. No character of the legal text was typed by a person or produced by a language model.

How this was produced. Drafted with the assistance of AI and checked against the primary legislation cited above before publication. If you believe anything here is wrong or out of date, write to contact@mohamy.ai and we will correct or withdraw it.

Finding a licensed lawyer. Egypt: the Egyptian Bar Association. At court: the labour legal assistance office required by Article 185 of the Labour Law, whose services are optional and free, established at the seat of every Court of First Instance and at every other seat where the Labour Court sits.