The core rule — 30 days after year one
Federal Decree-Law 33/2021, Article 29 sets the UAE private-sector annual-leave entitlement:
- 30 days of paid annual leave per year for employees who have completed one continuous year of service.
- 2 days per month for those with more than six months but less than a year of service — pro-rated.
- Under six months of service: no legal annual-leave entitlement.
- Employees on part-time or flexible contracts get leave pro-rated to actual working days, per the Executive Regulations.
Carry-over — what the law actually says
Article 29 does not hard-cap a number of days you can carry over. It instead lays out two guarantees:
- The right to leave itself cannot be extinguished. An employer cannot say "use it or lose it, forever" — if the leave is not taken, it must be either carried over or cashed out at the end of the relationship.
- Internal policy can cap the carry-over period. Most UAE employers cap it at one year — the year after the leave was earned. Anything beyond that year is typically converted to cash or forfeit-eligible under the contract.
The practical outcome for most private-sector employees: you can carry over unused days into the following year (subject to your company's HR policy), but relying on a rolling multi-year balance is risky unless your contract says so explicitly.
Can the employer force you to take leave?
Article 29(5) gives the employer the right to schedule annual leave based on business needs, with at least 30 days' written notice. In practice this shows up as year-end forced leave in industries with a Q4 slow season, or as mandated staggered leave in shift-based operations.
What the employer cannot do is keep deferring the leave every year with no plan to let it be taken. If two consecutive years pass without the employee being able to use their accrued leave or cash it out, that becomes a valid MOHRE complaint.
Public holidays, sick leave, and other overlaps
If a public holiday or approved sick leave falls inside your annual leave, those days are added back — they don't consume the leave. This is explicit in Article 29(6).
Note also: unpaid leave (leave without pay) is excluded from the annual-leave accrual calculation. Article 29 only counts service-time during which wages were paid.
Cashing out at termination
This is where carry-over debates settle. Under Article 29(9), when the employment ends — whether by resignation, dismissal, or contract expiry — the employer must pay cash for every unused day of annual leave that had accrued. The pay rate is the basic wage, not the total including allowances.
This is separate from — and paid in addition to — end-of-service gratuity (Article 51). See the termination compensation guide for the full list of buckets owed on exit.
Quick worked example
An employee with 3 years of service and a basic salary of AED 6,000 leaves with 12 unused leave days. Cash-out calculation:
(6,000 / 30) × 12 = AED 2,400
Paid on the last day of employment (subject to the 14-day settlement window under Article 53).