The six buckets of money you're owed
When employment ends in the UAE private sector, an employee can be owed money from up to six separate legal buckets — five paid by the employer under Federal Decree-Law 33/2021, plus one paid by the national job loss insurance scheme. Missing any one of these is a common employer error and a common employee grievance:
- End-of-service gratuity — Article 51.
- Notice period pay or pay-in-lieu — Article 43.
- Cash for unused annual leave — Article 29(9).
- Any unpaid wages, overtime, or allowances earned before the end.
- Arbitrary-dismissal compensation — Article 47, only when the termination retaliates against a lawful complaint or lawsuit by the worker (up to three months' gross wage).
- ILOE job loss insurance — Federal Decree-Law 13/2022, not paid by the employer but claimed by you, and only if you file within 30 days of the end date.
1. End-of-service gratuity (Article 51)
The gratuity formula under Federal Decree-Law 33/2021:
- 21 days of basic pay for each of the first five years of service.
- 30 days of basic pay for each additional year beyond five.
- Total is capped at two years of basic wage.
- Only basic salary is used — housing, transport, and other allowances are excluded.
- Fractions of a year after the first year are pro-rated.
No gratuity is owed for service under one year, and none is owed if the termination falls under Article 44 (misconduct-for-cause). See the full EOSB guide or use the free calculator.
2. Notice period or pay-in-lieu (Article 43)
Article 43 sets a notice range of 30 to 90 days (contractual; the default in most templates is 30 days). Either party can substitute payment in lieu — the leaving party (or the employer, if the worker is asked to leave immediately) pays a compensation equal to the wage for the un-served notice period. See the notice period guide for the mechanics, including garden leave and how notice interacts with the other buckets.
3. Unused annual leave, cashed out (Article 29(9))
Any annual leave the employee earned but did not take must be paid in cash at the end of the relationship, calculated on the basic wage. If the employer insisted on leave being taken during the notice period, that generally does not replace the cash-out entitlement for leave earned before notice.
4. Unpaid wages, overtime and allowances
Anything earned but unpaid by the last day is due. This includes overtime (Article 19), sales commissions, and contractual allowances. Complaints about missing wages should be raised with MOHRE quickly — under the Wage Protection System the ministry can freeze new work permits for employers with unpaid salaries.
5. Arbitrary-dismissal compensation (Article 47)
This is the least-understood entitlement. It applies only when the employer terminated the worker as retaliation — for filing a valid complaint or winning a lawsuit against them. The labor court may award up to three months' gross wage (basic + allowances), on top of gratuity and notice pay. This is not a general "unfair dismissal" — the retaliation link must be proven. Poor performance dismissals do not qualify.
6. Job loss insurance — ILOE (Federal Decree-Law 13/2022)
The five buckets above are all owed by the employer. The sixth is different: it is paid by the national job loss insurance scheme (ILOE) under Federal Decree-Law 13/2022 and Ministerial Resolution 604/2022, and nobody files it for you. This is the bucket most people miss, because the employer has no reason to mention it.
- 60% of your average basic salary over the six months before termination (Ministerial Resolution 604/2022, Article 7(3)).
- Capped at AED 20,000 per month (Federal Decree-Law 13/2022, Article 6(1)). This is a single ceiling for everyone — it is not banded by salary. The AED 5 / AED 10 split at an AED 16,000 basic salary is the monthly premium you pay in, not a limit on what you can be paid out.
- Paid for up to 3 months per claim, and no more than 12 months of benefit in total across your time in the UAE labour market (Article 6(2)).
- You need at least 12 consecutive months of ILOE contributions (Article 5(1)). If an earlier claim used up the full 3-month maximum, you must complete another 12 consecutive months of subscription before you can claim again; if you drew less than the maximum, that condition does not apply (Ministerial Resolution 604/2022, Article 7(7)).
- You must have lost the job involuntarily — the scheme defines unemployment as termination by your employer, so resignation is excluded. Further eligibility conditions apply under Article 5.
You have 30 days from your employment end date to file the ILOE claim(Ministerial Resolution 604/2022, Article 7(1)) — through the insurer’s website (iloe.ae), its app, or its call centre. Late claims are typically rejected. Do not wait for the employer to settle buckets 1–5, and do not wait for a MOHRE case to conclude: the 30-day clock runs independently of any dispute.
ILOE is additive, not a substitute.Claiming it does not reduce your gratuity, notice pay, accrued-leave cash-out, or unpaid wages by a single dirham — those employer obligations remain fully due alongside the ILOE benefit. An employer who tells you the insurance “covers” your end-of-service entitlement is wrong.
The 14-day payment deadline (Article 53)
The employer has 14 days from the end of the relationship to pay everything owed. Late payment can trigger MOHRE penalties and interest under the general labor-law procedural rules. This deadline covers buckets 1–5 only — ILOE is claimed from the insurance scheme, not the employer.
How to actually collect if the employer stalls
- Send a written demand listing every bucket with the calculation.
- File a MOHRE complaint (free) within one year of the end date.
- If mediation fails, MOHRE refers the case to the labor court. Claims up to AED 100,000 are fee-exempt for the worker.
- Keep all pay slips, WPS confirmations, and the termination letter — they are the evidence base.