UAE notice periods: 30 to 90 days by contract, no service ladder, and the allowance you get even where no damage was caused

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 the UAE, Saudi Arabia or Egypt. This page describes the law of the United Arab Emirates in general terms as it stood on 21 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 licensed in the United Arab Emirates.

Your notice period is whatever your employment contract says, and it must be not less than 30 days and not more than 90 days. Either party may terminate for any legitimate reason on written notice, the contract stays alive throughout the notice period, and you are paid your full wage for it. That is Article 43 of Federal Decree-Law No. (33) of 2021.

And notice does not grow with length of service. There is no ladder in this law: no one month at two years, no two months at five. A worker with fifteen years and a worker with fifteen months have the notice period their contracts give them, inside the same 30 to 90 day band. This is worth saying flatly because it is the single provision that most UAE employment pages state wrongly, including thirteen of the fourteen guides this business withdrew.

Three things on this page come off the face of the article and are usually missing:

1. The allowance is payable even where the other side suffered no damage. Article 43(3) says so in terms, so you do not have to prove loss. Section 3.
2. It is calculated on the last wage, not the basic wage. Article 43(4). That is a different base from the gratuity, and mixing them is the most common arithmetic error in this area. Section 3.
3. Notice served while you are on leave does not start running until the day after you were due back. Article 35. Section 4.

Scope, stated once. UAE federal onshore private sector. Not the DIFC. Not the ADGM. Both have their own employment legislation and their own courts, and nothing here applies in either. Article 3(2) also places federal and local government employees, the armed forces, police and security, and domestic workers outside this Decree-Law entirely.

1. The rule, quoted

Article 43(1), verbatim from MOHRE's own English:

1. Either party to the employment contract may terminate the contract for any legitimate reason, provided that the other party is notified in writing and work shall be performed during the notice period agreed upon in the contract, provided that such period is not less than (30) thirty days and not more than (90) ninety days.

Four things are in that one clause. Either party, so it binds you and your employer alike. For any legitimate reason, which is a lower threshold than some other systems impose. Notified in writing. And a period agreed upon in the contract, bounded by not less than 30 and not more than 90 days.

So the answer to "what is my notice period in the UAE" is: look at your contract. The Decree-Law does not set a single figure, it sets a band and leaves the number to the contract. A contract silent on notice, or naming a period outside the band, is the case to take to a lawyer, because the Decree-Law states the limits and not the default.

Article 43(2) then makes the notice period real rather than nominal:

2. The employment contract continues to be valid throughout the notice period referred to in this Article and is terminated upon expiry of such period. The worker shall be entitled to his full wage for that period according to the last wage he was obtaining and he shall work during that period if the employer requests the same from him. It may be agreed upon exemption from the notice period condition or reducing its period while preserving all the rights of the worker for the notice period agreed upon in the employment contract, provided that the notice period is the same for both parties unless it serves the interests of the worker.

Three consequences worth separating out. The contract continues to be valid, so everything that accrues on service keeps accruing. You are entitled to your full wage for the period according to the last wage you were getting. And exemption or reduction may be agreed, while preserving all the rights of the worker for the notice period agreed upon in the contract, which is to say a waiver of the working of the notice is not a waiver of the pay for it.

And the symmetry requirement is a genuine protection: the notice period must be the same for both parties unless it serves the interests of the worker. So a contract giving the employer 30 days and requiring 90 from you does not sit comfortably with the second half of Article 43(2).

2. What ends a contract, and where notice fits

Article 42 lists the cases in which the contract terminates, and notice is only one of them:

The employment contract is terminated in any of the following cases: 1. The written agreement of both parties upon its termination; 2. Expiry of the term specified in the contract, unless it is extended or renewed as per the provisions hereof. 3. Based on the wish of either party, provided that the provisions hereof regarding termination of the employment contract and the notice period agreed upon in the contract are observed. 4. The employer's death if the subject of the contract is related to its entity. 5. The worker's death or full permanent inability to work, as proven by a certificate issued by the medical entity. 6. A final judgment issued against the worker by a freedom-restricting penalty for a period of not less than (3) three months. 7. Closing the establishment permanently, in accordance with the legislation in force in the State. 8. The bankruptcy or insolvency of the employer, or any economic or exceptional reasons that prevent the continuation of the project, in accordance with the conditions, rules and procedures specified by the Implementing Regulation and the legislation in force in the State. 9. The worker's failure to fulfil the conditions for renewing the work permit for any reason beyond the control of the employer.

Read item 4 carefully, because it is misquoted often. The employer's death terminates the contract only if the subject of the contract is related to its entity. So an employer's death does not, by default, end your employment.

And note item 2. Every UAE employment contract is now for a specified term, subject to renewal: Article 8(3) provides that the contract "shall be concluded for a specified period of time, subject to renewal, in accordance with the agreement of both parties". The unlimited contract no longer exists in this law, and any page that offers you a comparison between limited and unlimited contracts under the current UAE regime is describing the repealed Federal Law No. (8) of 1980. Article 8(4) then provides that a renewal or extension counts as an extension of the original term and is added to it in calculating continuous service, which protects your service length across renewals.

3. Pay in lieu of notice, with the arithmetic

Article 43(3) and (4):

3. The party who did not abide by the notice period shall pay to the other party compensation, which is called notice period allowance, even if the absence of notification does not cause damage to the other party and the compensation shall be equal to the worker's wage for the full notice period or the remaining part thereof. 4. The notice period allowance is calculated according to the last wage received by the worker for those who obtain their wages on a monthly, weekly, daily or hourly basis, and according to the average daily wage referred to herein for those who obtain their wages on a piecework basis.

Two things in clause 3 that decide cases. First, "even if the absence of notification does not cause damage to the other party". No proof of loss is needed, and an employer arguing that you found another job the next week so you lost nothing is arguing against the express words. Second, the measure is the wage for the full notice period or the remaining part thereof, so a short notice is topped up rather than voided.

And clause 4 fixes the base: the last wage. Not the basic wage. Under Article 1, Wage is the basic wage plus the cash allowances and benefits in kind allocated under the contract, while Basic Wage is the contractual wage excluding any other allowances or benefits in kind. So the notice allowance is on the bigger number and the gratuity under Article 51(2) is on the smaller one. Mixing those two bases is the commonest arithmetic mistake in UAE end-of-service disputes.

Worked example. Your contract specifies 60 days' notice. The employer gives 20 days and terminates. Last monthly total wage AED 20,000, of which the contract states AED 10,000 is basic.

• Article 43(1) check: 60 is within the band of not less than 30 and not more than 90. Valid.
• Remaining part of the notice period: 60 minus 20 = 40 days.
• Article 43(3): compensation equals the wage for the remaining part.
• Article 43(4): calculated on the last wage, which here is AED 20,000, not AED 10,000.
• Daily wage: 20,000 / 30 = AED 666.666...
• 40 x 666.666... = AED 26,666.67.
• The same 40 days computed wrongly on the basic wage would give 40 x (10,000 / 30) = AED 13,333.33. An error of AED 13,333.34, which is exactly half, because basic was exactly half of total.

The divisor, and a correction to our own earlier position. Converting a monthly wage into a daily one needs a divisor. Article 67 of the Decree-Law supplies a thirty-day month, verbatim:

The calculation of the periods and dates stipulated herein shall be based on the Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian year in applying the provisions hereof shall include (365) three hundred and sixty-five days, while the month represents (30) thirty days.

FACT: Article 67 fixes the month at thirty days for the purposes of this Decree-Law. OUR READING, labelled as ours and not as certainty: that a provision headed "Calculation of Periods and Dates" also governs the conversion of a monthly wage into a daily rate. That step is a reading, not a quotation, and it is the reason every dirham figure on this page is shown with its inputs and its divisor visible rather than as a single confident number. An earlier note of ours recorded that no instrument states a divisor; Article 67 is the answer to that, and we have corrected the position rather than leaving it.

And a separate figure that is often confused with this one. Article 47 caps compensation for an unlawful termination at three months' wage. That is a different remedy under a much narrower provision, and Article 47(3) preserves the notice allowance and the end of service benefit on top of it rather than in place of them.

4. The two rules that move the dates

Notice during leave does not start running. Article 35, operative sentence:

If either party to the employment contract wishes to terminate the contract in accordance with the provisions of this Decree-Law and its Implementing Regulation, while the worker is on the leave, the validity of the notice period agreed upon in the employment contract shall not begin, except from the day following the day scheduled for the worker's return from the leave, unless both parties agree otherwise.

So notice handed to you on annual leave does not begin until the day after you were due back, unless both parties agree otherwise. Note the exit: "unless both parties agree otherwise", so this one can be contracted around by agreement, unlike the 30 to 90 day band.

A note on our own source. The corpus chunk for Article 35 begins with the fragment "of the Contract during the Leave", which is part of the article's own printed heading and not operative law. We have since read the Arabic heading of Article 35, which is سريان مدة الإنذار في حال إنهاء العقد خلال فترة الإجازة, and it confirms that the printed English heading is "Validity of Notice Period in case of Termination of the Contract during the Leave" and that our extraction split it across two fields. We quote only the operative sentence, and the correction to our corpus is now fully specified rather than merely flagged.

The paid day to look for work. Article 43(5):

5. If the employment contract is terminated by the employer, the worker shall have the right to be absent during the notice period for one working day without pay per week, in order to search for another job. The worker may specify the day of absence, provided that he notifies the employer of the same (3) three days at least before the absence day.

We checked this against the authoritative Arabic, which says بدون أجر, without pay. The day is unpaid. What is worth using is the rest of the clause: the right arises only where the employer terminated, you choose the day, and you must give at least three days' notice of it. We say that plainly rather than hedging it, because inviting doubt where the Arabic is clear costs us the credibility we need for the places where the doubt is real.

5. Notice during probation is a different set of numbers

Article 9 has its own periods, and they do not match Article 43.

1. The employer may appoint the worker under a probationary period not exceeding (6) six months from the date of commencement of work. The employer may terminate the service of the worker during this period after notifying the latter of the same in writing fourteen (14) days at least before the date specified for the termination of service. 3. If the worker wishes to move during the probationary period, to work for another employer in the State, he shall notify the original employer of the same in writing within not less than one month from the date of his wish to terminate the contract. ... 4. If the foreign worker wishes to terminate the employment contract during the probationary period, to leave the State, he shall notify the employer of the same in writing not less than fourteen (14) days from the date specified for the termination of the contract. ... 5. If either party terminates the employment contract without taking into consideration the provisions of this Article, it shall pay to the other party compensation equal to the worker's wages for the notice period or the remaining period of the notice period.

[Reviewer's note on clause 4, added on legal review. The direction of the fourteen days is ambiguous in the English and is not ambiguous in the Arabic. The Arabic reads قبل, before. Fourteen days before the termination date, not after it.]

So a resigning worker on probation who is staying in the country owes more notice than an employer terminating them. That asymmetry is on the face of the article and it surprises people.

Worked example. A worker on probation, monthly wage AED 8,000, resigns to join another UAE employer and gives 10 days' written notice.

• Required notice, Article 9(3): not less than one month.
• Shortfall: 30 minus 10 = 20 days.
• Article 9(5): compensation equal to the worker's wages for the remaining period of the notice period.
• Daily wage on the Article 67 thirty-day month: 8,000 / 30 = AED 266.666...
• 20 x 266.666... = AED 5,333.33.

And two further consequences on the face of Article 9. Under 9(3), where the worker moves to another UAE employer during probation, the new employer compensates the original employer for the costs of recruitment or contracting, unless otherwise agreed. Under 9(6), a foreign worker who leaves the State without abiding by the article shall not be granted a work permit for one year from the date of leaving.

6. What this page does not tell you

• Whether your particular notice clause is enforceable. We can tell you the band is 30 to 90 days and that the period must be the same both ways unless it favours the worker. Whether your clause is valid on its facts is an opinion on your case.
• The limitation period for bringing a claim. We withhold this deliberately. Rather than restate a period from a text we have suspended, we say plainly that we are not stating it. Separately, a ministerial resolution imposes a much shorter window for lodging a labour complaint with the Ministry than the period for bringing a claim, and the two numbers are orders of magnitude apart. Ask a licensed lawyer, or the Ministry, and do it now rather than later.
• Any ministerial resolution not named and pinned on this page, and any case law, of which we hold none.
• DIFC and ADGM notice periods. Different jurisdictions, different statutes. Nothing here transfers.

Article 54 is withheld from our corpus, and here is exactly why. The Arabic of Article 54 of the Decree-Law directs a challenge to the Ministry's decision to the competent Court of First Instance, and clause 8 of the same article agrees. MOHRE's English of clause 3 says Court of Appeal and contradicts its own clause 8. And the Arabic of Ministerial Resolution No. (782) of 2023 also says Court of Appeal. So this is not simply a translation error: two instruments in force, read in Arabic, point at different courts, and the window to act is counted in working days. We will not choose a court for you, because filing in the wrong one can cost you the claim. Take this to a lawyer licensed in the UAE, or ask the Ministry directly, and do it now.

7. What to do now, in order

1. Read the notice clause in your contract. That is where your number is. Check it sits inside 30 to 90 days, and check it is the same in both directions.
2. Fix the date the notice was given in writing. Article 43(1) requires written notice, so an oral warning that you are being let go does not start a notice period.
3. If you were on leave when it was served, say so in writing. Article 35 stops the period running until the day after you were due back, unless both sides agree otherwise.
4. Identify your last total wage and your basic wage separately. The notice allowance uses the last wage, the gratuity uses the basic wage. Write both figures down before you compute anything.
5. If the employer terminated, use Article 43(5). Choose your day, and notify at least three days before.
6. Expect payment within 14 days of the end of the contract. Article 53: the employer shall pay the wages and all other entitlements within 14 days from the end date of the contract term. That is a shorter and more useful deadline than most people know they have.
7. If it is not paid, the route starts at the Ministry. Cabinet Resolution No. (1) of 2022 Article 31(1) provides that a dispute over rights accrued under the Decree-Law is put to the Ministry, which examines the complaint and takes the measures necessary to settle it amicably. And note Article 55(1): labour claims, and requests filed by workers or their heirs, whose amounts do not exceed AED 100,000 are exempt from judicial fees at all stages of litigation and execution.

8. When to get a licensed lawyer

• Your contract states a notice period outside the 30 to 90 day band, or none at all, or a different period for each side.
• You have been dismissed without notice and the employer is relying on Article 44. That is a separate provision with ten enumerated grounds and its own procedural conditions, and it is not a notice question.
• You resigned because of something your employer did. Article 45 lets a worker quit without notice while keeping their end of service entitlements in four defined situations, but two of them carry short procedural deadlines running to the Ministry, and one of those must be done before you leave, not after.
• Any deadline may be running. This is the one item on the list where waiting is itself the risk, and it is the one where we are declining to give you a number.
• You are in the DIFC or the ADGM. Different law entirely.

9. Before you compute anything: get your own contract read against Article 43

Every figure on this page starts from two things in your contract: the notice period and the split between your basic wage and your allowances. Both are in the document you already have.

Mohamy.ai document analysis reads your UAE employment contract and shows you, clause by clause, your notice period beside the 30 to 90 day band in Article 43(1) and the symmetry requirement in Article 43(2), and how your contract splits basic wage from allowances beside the two definitions in Article 1, which is what determines whether a later calculation uses the bigger number or the smaller one.

It does not tell you what to do about a gap, it does not compute your entitlement as an entitlement, and it is not a substitute for a licensed lawyer if you are in a dispute or a deadline may be running. Bring the contract, get the comparison, then go to the right channel with the right documents.

About this guide

What we are. Mohamy.ai publishes general legal information. We are not a law firm. 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. We are not members of the Egyptian Bar Association under Law No. 17 of 1983. 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 the English we quote is the Ministry's own. Article 66(1) of the Decree-Law makes Arabic the approved language, and Article 66(2) provides that where the Arabic text and another language differ, the Arabic text prevails. Every English quotation on this page is taken verbatim from MOHRE's own bilingual publication, which the Ministry disclaims: its standalone Cabinet Resolution PDF carries the footer "THIS is Not an official translation". So where an English word matters to your case, the Arabic is the law and the Ministry's English is not. That is not a formality, and the note on Article 54 earlier on this page sets out exactly why.

What this page does not cover. The UAE federal onshore private sector only. It does not cover the DIFC or the ADGM, which are separate common law jurisdictions with their own employment legislation, their own limitation periods and their own courts. It does not cover federal or local government employees, members of the armed forces, police and security, or domestic workers, all of whom Article 3(2) places outside the Decree-Law, domestic workers being governed by a separate instrument we do not hold. It does not cover any ministerial resolution except where one is named and pinned on the page, and it holds no case law of any kind.

How current this is. Every legal statement here was checked on 21 August 2026 against the pinned MOHRE publication, which is the consolidation including Federal Decree-Law No. 9 of 2024. The UAE Legislation portal records Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 as Active with three amendments, being Federal Decree-Law No. 14 of 2022, No. 20 of 2023 and No. 9 of 2024, and a last update of 29 July 2024.

Deadlines. Limitation periods and filing deadlines can extinguish an otherwise valid claim permanently. Do not rely on any period stated here. Confirm it with a licensed lawyer without delay. Note in particular that the deadline to lodge a labour complaint with the Ministry and the period for bringing a claim are different numbers of a different order of magnitude, and that the shorter one sits in a ministerial resolution.

Sources. Federal Decree-Law No. (33) of 2021 Regarding the Regulation of Employment Relationships and its amendments, and Cabinet Resolution No. (1) of 2022 on its Implementing Regulation, official MOHRE bilingual publication, pinned SHA-256 db64033d...1d833b6, from which 113 articles were extracted mechanically into an internal corpus. No character of the legal text was typed by a person or produced by a language model. Where the governing Arabic is quoted, it is from the UAE Legislation portal records for Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 and Cabinet Resolution No. 1 of 2022, read by our primary-source researcher.

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.

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