End-of-service benefits compared: the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar

Three statutes, three answers. The UAE pays 21 days of basic wage for each of the first five years and 30 days for each year after that. Qatar pays three weeks of basic wage for every year, with no step-up at all. Saudi Arabia pays half a month for each of the first five years and a full month thereafter, but calculates it on total wage rather than basic, which changes the arithmetic more than the formula does.

What follows is what each statute actually says, with article numbers, and a worked comparison at three service lengths. One provision changed in February 2025 and its effect is genuinely contested, so that section says so rather than picking a side.

The UAE: 21 and 30 days, on basic wage

Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, Article 51(2), sets the entitlement for a foreign full-time worker with one or more years of continuous service, calculated on the basic wage: 21 days' wage for each of the first five years, 30 days for each year beyond. Article 51(5) confirms the calculation uses the last basic wage received. Article 51(3) gives a pro-rata entitlement for part years once the first full year is complete, and 51(4) excludes unpaid absence from the service count.

Two points that consistently get stated wrongly.

The resignation penalty is gone. The old sliding scale, a third of the gratuity between one and three years, two thirds between three and five, the full amount only after five — lived in Article 137 of Federal Law No. 8 of 1980. That law was repealed in its entirety when the 2021 decree-law came into force on 2 February 2022. Article 51 contains no reduction for resignation. Someone who resigns and someone who is terminated accrue identically.

Basic wage means basic wage. Article 1 defines it as the wage specified in the employment contract, expressly excluding allowances and benefits in kind. On a typical Gulf package where basic is 50–60% of total, that is the single biggest determinant of what the entitlement is worth, and it is set the day the contract is signed.

There is a drafting quirk here: Article 51(6) caps the total at "two years' wage", using the defined term for total wage, while the accrual runs on basic. In practice it never binds, at 30 days of basic per year you would need roughly 24 years to reach two years' basic wage, and considerably longer to reach two years' total.

Saudi Arabia: a smaller formula on a larger base

Article 84 of the Saudi Labour Law gives half a month's wage for each of the first five years and one month's wage for each year thereafter, based on the last wage, with pro-rata for parts of a year. Unlike the UAE and Qatar, there is no one-year minimum service threshold — on employer termination, accrual runs from day one.

The formula looks less generous than the UAE's. It is not, because of what it applies to.

Saudi uses "wage", not basic wage, and Saudi wage is broad: basic plus allowances. The parties may agree to exclude commissions, percentages and similar components that fluctuate, but the default base is substantially larger than a UAE basic salary. On a package where basic is 55% of total, a "half month" of Saudi wage and a "21 days" of UAE basic are much closer than the headline suggests, and after year five, a full month of total wage pulls clearly ahead of 30 days of basic.

The Saudi resignation rule, and why we are not calling it

Article 85 sets a sliding scale on resignation: nothing under two years, one third from two to five, two thirds from five to ten, and the full award at ten years or more. The text of Article 85 has not changed.

What changed is Article 2. The amendments effective 19 February 2025 inserted a statutory definition of resignation: an employee's written disclosure of a desire, without coercion, to terminate a fixed-term employment contract, plus employer acceptance.

That definition raises a question the amendments did not answer. If resignation is defined by reference to fixed-term contracts, what is an employee on an indefinite-term contract doing when they terminate under Article 75 by giving notice? On the face of the drafting it is termination with notice rather than resignation, which would put them outside Article 85 altogether. Paul Hastings sets out the fixed-term limitation and caveats the area as "subject to any subsequent Labour Court judgments". A Saudi firm, AT Law, makes the same observation about unilateral termination, and stops there.

Qatar: three weeks, flat, with no ceiling

Article 54 of Qatar's Labour Law No. 14 of 2004 requires the employer to pay end-of-service gratuity to a worker who has completed one year or more, at an amount agreed between the parties "provided that it is not less than a three-week wage for every year of employment", calculated on the last basic wage, with pro-rata for fractions of a year.

Three features distinguish it. There is no step-up after five years — three weeks per year applies throughout. There is no statutory cap. And there is no resignation penalty, subject to Article 61, which removes the entitlement where an employee is summarily dismissed on listed grounds such as false identity or causing gross financial loss.

The three weeks is a floor, not a rate. Employers may agree more, and a 30-day contractual entitlement is common in practice, but that is a matter of contract, and it should be read in the offer rather than assumed.

Three service lengths, side by side

Expressed in units of the applicable monthly base, so the comparison holds at any salary. Note carefully that the base is not the same across the three columns, that is the whole point.

Two structural things fall out of this. The UAE and Qatar are identical for the first five years and then diverge permanently, because Qatar never steps up — by year twelve the UAE entitlement is 25% larger in days. And Saudi's 9.5 months of total wage at twelve years is, on a package where basic is 55% of total, worth roughly 17 months of basic — comfortably ahead of the UAE's 315 days, which is about 10.5 months of basic.

One caveat on the day-count conversions: the UAE statute says "21 days' wage" without specifying whether to divide monthly basic by 30 or annual basic by 365. ADGM's regulations say 365 explicitly; the MoHRE calculator conventionally uses 30. The two differ by about 1.4%. The statute does not resolve it, so neither do we.

Funded or unfunded, which matters more than the formula

All three of the above are unfunded accruals: a book liability the employer settles on exit, recomputed at the final salary. That has one useful property — salary growth revalues the entire accrual, so a promotion in year eleven lifts what you earned in year two.

It also carries the obvious risk, which is that the money is not anywhere until it is paid.

Two funded alternatives exist in the UAE. In the DIFC, the DEWS scheme has been mandatory since 1 February 2020 under Article 66 of DIFC Employment Law No. 2 of 2019: 5.83% of monthly basic wage for the first five years of service and 8.33% thereafter, paid monthly into a Qualifying Scheme and invested. Article 66(8)(b) sets an anti-avoidance floor requiring basic wage to be at least 50% of the employee's monthly wage, a protection mainland law does not have.

On the mainland, Cabinet Resolution No. 96 of 2023 created a voluntary equivalent at identical rates. Article 10(1) confirms it is voluntary for employers, though binding once they subscribe. Article 9(2) gives the beneficiary a statutory right to notify the fund manager in writing to keep the money invested after employment ends, and to withdraw "at any time without any restriction". Article 8(1) requires three option types, one of which is a Capital Guarantee Portfolio — compulsory for unskilled workers, available to others.

That capital-guarantee provision is specific to the mainland scheme. We found no capital-guaranteed option described anywhere in DEWS material, and no source stating that DEWS lacks one either, so the honest position is that we did not identify one rather than that none exists.

ADGM is a third regime again. Its Employment Regulations 2024, section 61, mirror the mainland 21-and-30-day formula, with a basic-wage floor of 50% of annual wages like the DIFC's, a 365-day divisor stated explicitly, and payment within 21 calendar days of termination. ADGM's own guidance states flatly that Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 does not apply in ADGM.

One ADGM point needs stating carefully, because the position reversed and a good deal of published guidance still carries the old rule. Under the superseded 2019 Regulations, an employee dismissed for cause forfeited the gratuity. The 2024 Regulations removed that. ADGM's own guidance now says an employee is entitled to a gratuity payment on termination regardless of the reason for termination, and the consultation paper behind the change describes that as its deliberate effect. If you are reading a summary that says ADGM forfeits gratuity on dismissal for cause, it is describing law that no longer applies.

What is being consulted on, and what has not happened

MoHRE completed a policy evaluation and invited stakeholder proposals on reforming the UAE gratuity system through February 2026, including the possibility of replacing statutory gratuity. As at today, nothing has been enacted and no transition timeline has been confirmed. Cabinet Resolution 96 remains voluntary.

Qatar is at a similar stage. Prime Minister's Decision No. 34 of 2025 established a national committee under the Ministry of Finance to design an investment-based savings scheme for end-of-service funds. Commentary from February 2026 describes it as still at design stage with secondary legislation outstanding. It does not currently change how end-of-service is calculated or paid.

Both are worth watching. Neither is worth planning around yet.

The part none of the three provides

In all three countries, a non-national accrues no state retirement pension. Saudi's GOSI states on its own site that the Annuities Branch — the pension arm — applies compulsorily to Saudi workers, while non-Saudis are covered only by the Occupational Hazards Branch at 2% of wage, employer-paid, which pays lump sums for injury rather than a pension. The UAE and Qatar are the same in substance for expatriates.

So the end-of-service entitlement is not a supplement to a pension. In all three jurisdictions it is the entire statutory exit provision, and whatever it comes to is the whole of what the state and the employer between them have set aside.

EW+ View

The comparison that matters when you have an offer in hand is not which country's formula is most generous. It is what your specific contract sets as basic wage, because in two of the three jurisdictions that single number does more to determine the outcome than the statute does.

A UAE mainland offer with basic at 40% of total and a Saudi offer at the same headline salary are not comparable on the statutory formula alone, and the Saudi one will usually be worth more on a long tenure. A DIFC offer converts the whole thing into a funded, invested, portable balance that is indifferent to how you leave, at the cost of losing the final-salary revaluation that makes mainland accrual worth more to someone whose salary climbs steeply.

The one thing worth doing before signing anything is reading the basic-wage line and, in the DIFC, checking that it clears the 50% floor. That takes a minute and it is worth more than any amount of comparison after the fact.

Common questions

Next steps

1. Find the basic-wage line in your contract and work out what percentage of total it is, in the UAE and Qatar that number determines most of the outcome.
2. If the offer is DIFC, check the basic wage clears the 50% floor in Article 66(8)(b).
3. If the offer is Saudi and fixed-term, price the Article 85 reduction into any plan to leave before ten years, and take advice rather than relying on either published reading.
4. If your employer offers the mainland savings scheme, ask which of the three option types your contributions go into and whether the Capital Guarantee Portfolio is available to you.
5. Remember that none of these regimes builds a pension for an expatriate — the exit payment is the whole of it.

Further reading on ExpatWealthPlus

• The UAE gratuity guide
• DIFC or mainland: does the regime change what a job is worth?
• Changing jobs: cash the gratuity or leave it invested?
• The MoHRE end-of-service savings scheme
• Gratuity on resignation against termination

Official sources

Every figure in this article is checked against the primary source. These are the places to verify the current position for yourself, since rates, rules and product terms change.

• UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 →Article 51, the end-of-service formula and the basic wage definition
• UAE Cabinet Resolution No. 96 of 2023 →Articles 6, 8, 9 and 10 — the voluntary savings scheme
• Saudi MHRSD — End-of-Service Award Regulations →Articles 84 and 85 as the Ministry presents them
• ILO NATLEX — Qatar Labour Law No. 14 of 2004 →Article 54, the three-week minimum, official English text
• ADGM — Employment Regulations 2024 guidance →Section 61 and the statement that federal labour law does not apply
• GOSI — contributor FAQ →Occupational hazards covers all workers; annuities is Saudi nationals only