UAE Gratuity Calculator
Enter your basic salary and your dates. This works out the end-of-service gratuity you have earned under Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, on the same 21-day and 30-day bands MOHRE applies, with the two-year cap included. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Your service
Gratuity is paid on basic salary alone. Housing, transport and schooling allowances earn nothing.
Since 2 February 2022 every mainland private-sector contract is fixed-term, and one formula applies to all of them. There is no longer a limited-versus-unlimited choice to make.
Service is counted in exact calendar years from your start date to your leaving date, in your own calendar. Edit the dates to model any length of service.
⚖️ Educational estimate under Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021. Final pay depends on your registered contract and your employer.
How is UAE end-of-service gratuity calculated in 2026?
On basic salary only: 21 days of basic pay for each of your first five years and 30 days for each year after that, capped at two years’ wage. One full year of service is the minimum.
Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, Article 51. The daily rate is monthly basic salary ÷ 30 and fractions of a year are pro-rated.
The formula has three moving parts and nothing else: your monthly basic salary, your length of service in exact years, and the band each year falls in. Divide the basic by 30 to get a daily rate. Multiply the daily rate by 21 for each of the first five years and by 30 for each year after that. Stop at 720 days, which is the two-year ceiling. That is the whole calculation, and it is why two calculators applied honestly should agree to the dirham.
Worked through on a real case. Someone starts on 15 June 2020 and leaves on 27 August 2026. That is 6.2 years of service. On a basic of AED 12,000, the daily rate is AED 400. The first five years earn 105 days; the remaining 1.2 years earn 36. The total is 141 days, and 141 × AED 400 is AED 56,400. Every figure in that sentence came from running this page’s own function, not from rounding.
Two things trip people up. The first is that allowances count for nothing: a package that is 40% basic builds 40% of the gratuity that the same package would build at 100% basic. The second is the one-year floor. Below twelve months of continuous service the entitlement is AED 0, with no pro-rata, so the difference between month eleven and month twelve is the whole payout.
What does gratuity pay at every year of service from 1 to 30?
From AED 3,500 at one year on AED 5,000 basic to the AED 1,200,000 ceiling on AED 50,000 basic. The ledger below runs the statutory function for all thirty years against six basic salaries.
Generated by running this page’s own gratuity function on 27 August 2026. Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, Article 51. Rows marked cap are held at 24 months of basic pay.
The table is here because most gratuity pages give you a formula and leave the arithmetic to you. Read a row across to see what the same length of service is worth on different basic salaries. Read a column down to see what another year with the same employer actually adds. The months column converts the day count into months of basic pay, which is the quickest way to sense-check any figure an employer gives you: at ten years you have earned eight and a half months of basic salary, whatever that salary is.
| Years | Days | Months | Basic 5,000 | Basic 10,000 | Basic 15,000 | Basic 20,000 | Basic 30,000 | Basic 50,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 21 | 0.7 | AED 3,500 | AED 7,000 | AED 10,500 | AED 14,000 | AED 21,000 | AED 35,000 |
| 2 | 42 | 1.4 | AED 7,000 | AED 14,000 | AED 21,000 | AED 28,000 | AED 42,000 | AED 70,000 |
| 3 | 63 | 2.1 | AED 10,500 | AED 21,000 | AED 31,500 | AED 42,000 | AED 63,000 | AED 105,000 |
| 4 | 84 | 2.8 | AED 14,000 | AED 28,000 | AED 42,000 | AED 56,000 | AED 84,000 | AED 140,000 |
| 5 | 105 | 3.5 | AED 17,500 | AED 35,000 | AED 52,500 | AED 70,000 | AED 105,000 | AED 175,000 |
| 6 | 135 | 4.5 | AED 22,500 | AED 45,000 | AED 67,500 | AED 90,000 | AED 135,000 | AED 225,000 |
| 7 | 165 | 5.5 | AED 27,500 | AED 55,000 | AED 82,500 | AED 110,000 | AED 165,000 | AED 275,000 |
| 8 | 195 | 6.5 | AED 32,500 | AED 65,000 | AED 97,500 | AED 130,000 | AED 195,000 | AED 325,000 |
| 9 | 225 | 7.5 | AED 37,500 | AED 75,000 | AED 112,500 | AED 150,000 | AED 225,000 | AED 375,000 |
| 10 | 255 | 8.5 | AED 42,500 | AED 85,000 | AED 127,500 | AED 170,000 | AED 255,000 | AED 425,000 |
| 11 | 285 | 9.5 | AED 47,500 | AED 95,000 | AED 142,500 | AED 190,000 | AED 285,000 | AED 475,000 |
| 12 | 315 | 10.5 | AED 52,500 | AED 105,000 | AED 157,500 | AED 210,000 | AED 315,000 | AED 525,000 |
| 13 | 345 | 11.5 | AED 57,500 | AED 115,000 | AED 172,500 | AED 230,000 | AED 345,000 | AED 575,000 |
| 14 | 375 | 12.5 | AED 62,500 | AED 125,000 | AED 187,500 | AED 250,000 | AED 375,000 | AED 625,000 |
| 15 | 405 | 13.5 | AED 67,500 | AED 135,000 | AED 202,500 | AED 270,000 | AED 405,000 | AED 675,000 |
| 16 | 435 | 14.5 | AED 72,500 | AED 145,000 | AED 217,500 | AED 290,000 | AED 435,000 | AED 725,000 |
| 17 | 465 | 15.5 | AED 77,500 | AED 155,000 | AED 232,500 | AED 310,000 | AED 465,000 | AED 775,000 |
| 18 | 495 | 16.5 | AED 82,500 | AED 165,000 | AED 247,500 | AED 330,000 | AED 495,000 | AED 825,000 |
| 19 | 525 | 17.5 | AED 87,500 | AED 175,000 | AED 262,500 | AED 350,000 | AED 525,000 | AED 875,000 |
| 20 | 555 | 18.5 | AED 92,500 | AED 185,000 | AED 277,500 | AED 370,000 | AED 555,000 | AED 925,000 |
| 21 | 585 | 19.5 | AED 97,500 | AED 195,000 | AED 292,500 | AED 390,000 | AED 585,000 | AED 975,000 |
| 22 | 615 | 20.5 | AED 102,500 | AED 205,000 | AED 307,500 | AED 410,000 | AED 615,000 | AED 1,025,000 |
| 23 | 645 | 21.5 | AED 107,500 | AED 215,000 | AED 322,500 | AED 430,000 | AED 645,000 | AED 1,075,000 |
| 24 | 675 | 22.5 | AED 112,500 | AED 225,000 | AED 337,500 | AED 450,000 | AED 675,000 | AED 1,125,000 |
| 25 | 705 | 23.5 | AED 117,500 | AED 235,000 | AED 352,500 | AED 470,000 | AED 705,000 | AED 1,175,000 |
| 26 | 735 | 24.5 | AED 120,000 cap | AED 240,000 cap | AED 360,000 cap | AED 480,000 cap | AED 720,000 cap | AED 1,200,000 cap |
| 27 | 765 | 25.5 | AED 120,000 cap | AED 240,000 cap | AED 360,000 cap | AED 480,000 cap | AED 720,000 cap | AED 1,200,000 cap |
| 28 | 795 | 26.5 | AED 120,000 cap | AED 240,000 cap | AED 360,000 cap | AED 480,000 cap | AED 720,000 cap | AED 1,200,000 cap |
| 29 | 825 | 27.5 | AED 120,000 cap | AED 240,000 cap | AED 360,000 cap | AED 480,000 cap | AED 720,000 cap | AED 1,200,000 cap |
| 30 | 855 | 28.5 | AED 120,000 cap | AED 240,000 cap | AED 360,000 cap | AED 480,000 cap | AED 720,000 cap | AED 1,200,000 cap |
Gratuity alone, at a fixed basic salary. Pay rises, unpaid absence and lawful deductions are not modelled. For the same figure alongside your take-home pay and your basic-versus-allowance split, use the take-home and gratuity calculator.
At what length of service does the two-year gratuity cap first bind?
At 25 years and 6 months of continuous service. Below that the accrued day count is worth less than 24 months of basic salary, so the ceiling never applies.
Arithmetic on this page’s own gratuity function, run for every year from 1 to 30 on 27 August 2026. Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, Article 51.
The two-year gratuity cap first binds at 25 years and 6 months of continuous service. Solve 105 + 30 × (y − 5) = 720 and you get y = 25.5. The threshold is the same on AED 5,000 basic and on AED 50,000 basic, because both sides of the comparison scale with pay.
Article 51 ends with a ceiling: the total gratuity shall not exceed the wage of two years. Because the whole calculation runs on basic pay, this site applies the ceiling as 24 months of basic salary, which is 720 days at the ÷ 30 daily rate. That is the cautious reading, and it is used consistently with the daily rate so the two never disagree.
| Service | Days accrued | Accrued value | Two-year ceiling | Cap applies? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 years | 705 | AED 470,000 | AED 480,000 | No |
| 25 years 6 months | 720 | AED 480,000 | AED 480,000 | Exactly at the ceiling |
| 26 years | 735 | AED 490,000 | AED 480,000 | Yes, held at AED 480,000 |
| 30 years | 855 | AED 570,000 | AED 480,000 | Yes, held at AED 480,000 |
This matters if you are planning a long career with one employer. Past 25 years and 6 months, another full year of service adds 30 days of accrual and AED 0 of payout. At thirty years on AED 20,000 basic you have accrued 855 days, worth AED 570,000, and you will be paid AED 480,000. A pay rise still increases the payout, because the ceiling is 24 months of whatever your basic is at the end. More time does not.
Is the UAE gratuity daily rate basic salary ÷ 30 or ÷ 365?
Divide the monthly basic by 30. On AED 15,000 of basic that is AED 500 a day, where annualising and dividing by 365 gives AED 493.15 and quietly shrinks every figure below it.
Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, Article 51 sets the entitlement in days of wage without naming a divisor. On three years of service the two bases differ by AED 432, or 1.37%.
This is the single most common reason two UAE gratuity calculators disagree on identical inputs, and it is worth knowing which side your employer is on before you argue about a number. The law expresses the entitlement in days of wage. It does not spell out how many days a month contains for this purpose. Some tools take the monthly basic straight to a daily figure by dividing by 30. Others annualise the basic to twelve months and divide by 365. The second is smaller by a factor of 360/365, and that 1.37% runs through every row of every table they show you.
| Basis | Daily rate | Gratuity on 63 days | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly basic ÷ 30 | AED 500.00 | AED 31,500 | — |
| Annual basic ÷ 365 | AED 493.15 | AED 31,068 | −AED 432 (1.37%) |
This calculator divides by 30. That treats one month of basic salary as buying 30 days of gratuity, and it keeps the arithmetic internally consistent with the two-year cap being applied as 24 months of basic pay. If your employer works to the 365-day basis, expect a figure roughly 1.4% below the one shown here. Check which basis your MOHRE-registered contract uses before you raise it.
Do I keep my full gratuity if I resign?
Yes, once you have completed one full year. Article 51 ties the entitlement to completed service, not to who ended the contract, so resignation and termination produce the same figure.
The tiers that cut a resigning worker to a third or two thirds of the payout were in Federal Law No. 8 of 1980, repealed on 2 February 2022.
If you have read anywhere that resigning before five years costs you two thirds of your gratuity, you have read the 1980 law. It was repealed more than four years ago and it still circulates freely, which is why people hand in their notice expecting to lose money they are owed. Under the current law the payout is the same either way.
Notice is the part that does differ. Either side can end a fixed-term contract by giving written notice of not less than 30 days and not more than 90 days, as set out in the contract, and you are paid your full wage through that period. Gratuity keeps accruing while you work your notice, because notice is service. That is worth knowing if your anniversary falls inside the notice window.
Do limited and unlimited contracts still change my gratuity?
No. Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 moved the entire private sector onto fixed-term contracts on 2 February 2022, and one formula now applies to everyone.
Employers had until 31 December 2023 to convert existing unlimited contracts. Federal Decree-Law No. 14 of 2022 later removed the three-year ceiling on the term.
The limited-versus-unlimited distinction is the clearest tell of a stale gratuity page. If a calculator asks you to choose between them before it will give you a number, it is applying the repealed law and its answer will be wrong for anyone who left after February 2022. The selector on this page asks about mainland versus DIFC instead. That distinction does change your entitlement in law: inside the DIFC the entitlement is your employer’s DEWS contributions rather than an Article 51 lump sum. Selecting DIFC here flags that; it does not recalculate anything. The payout, day count, daily rate and cap above are the mainland Article 51 figures either way, and on a DIFC contract they are a comparison rather than your entitlement.
Does unpaid leave reduce my gratuity?
Yes. Days of absence from work without pay are excluded from the length of service the formula is applied to. Paid annual leave counts in full and changes nothing.
Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 and its Executive Regulations. The calculator above cannot see unpaid days, so subtract them from your dates yourself.
The practical effect is small for a week here and there and large for a long sabbatical. Three months of unpaid leave in a six-year career removes a quarter of a year of service, which on AED 12,000 basic is 7.5 days of basic pay, or AED 3,000. It matters more when it moves you across a boundary: an unpaid break that pushes your leaving date back past your first anniversary takes the entitlement from something to nothing.
How is gratuity calculated for a part-time contract?
By proportion. Divide the working hours in your contract per year by the working hours in a full-time contract per year, multiply by 100, and apply that percentage to the full-time entitlement.
Article 30 of Cabinet Resolution No. 1 of 2022, the Executive Regulations of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021. Part-time workers still need more than one year of service to qualify.
Worked through: a 20-hour week against a 48-hour full-time week is 41.67%. Three years on a basic of AED 10,000 earns 63 days of basic pay, which at AED 333.33 a day is AED 21,000 full-time. Apply the percentage and the part-time entitlement is AED 8,750. The bands, the one-year floor and the two-year cap are unchanged; only the multiplier is new. The calculator at the top of this page returns the full-time figure, so take your percentage of it.
Does dismissal forfeit my end-of-service gratuity?
No. Article 39 lists dismissal from service among the disciplinary penalties while expressly preserving the worker’s right to end-of-service gratuity. Dismissal costs you your notice pay, not your gratuity.
Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, Articles 39 and 44. The forfeiture rule was Articles 120(e) and 139(1) of Federal Law No. 8 of 1980, repealed on 2 February 2022.
This is the most damaging piece of stale advice in the subject, and it is still printed on live UAE gratuity pages today. Article 44 lets an employer dismiss you without notice on a defined list of grounds after a written investigation. What that costs you is the notice period and the pay attached to it. It does not touch the gratuity you have already accrued. We set the old rule beside the new one, quote the statute, and name the pages that still get it wrong, in gratuity after dismissal in the UAE.
When must my employer pay my gratuity?
Within 14 days of the end of the contract. Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 requires the employer to pay wages and all other entitlements inside that window.
Late or short payment is a labour complaint to MOHRE, toll-free on 80084. A claim is not heard once two years have passed since the employment relationship ended.
Fourteen days is short, and it runs from the end of the contract rather than from your last working day or from the cancellation of your visa. Keep three documents before you leave: your MOHRE-registered contract showing the basic salary the gratuity is built on, your final payslips, and your start and end dates in writing. Almost every gratuity dispute is about one of those three and not about the formula.
What is the difference between DIFC DEWS and mainland gratuity?
Mainland employees accrue the 21-and-30-day lump sum. Inside the DIFC your employer instead pays monthly contributions into the DEWS funded savings plan, so your entitlement is the contributions themselves.
DIFC Employee Workplace Savings scheme. Selecting DIFC in the calculator above flags this; the mainland figure is then a comparison, not your entitlement.
Two offers from the same tower can sit on different sides of this line. A Dubai mainland employer registered with MOHRE follows the Article 51 formula. A DIFC-registered employer pays into DEWS. There is also a voluntary alternative on the mainland: under Cabinet Resolution No. 96 of 2023, an employer may join a regulated savings scheme and pay 5.83% of basic salary a month for the first five years of service and 8.33% after that, instead of accruing the lump sum. Check which regime your contract names before you rely on any single figure.
What can I do if my employer underpays my gratuity?
File a labour complaint with MOHRE, on its toll-free line 80084 or through its online service. MOHRE can decide claims of AED 50,000 or less itself.
If MOHRE cannot settle the dispute amicably within 14 days of your application it refers it to the competent court with its own recommendation. A claim is not heard once two years have passed since the employment ended.
Mainland private-sector employment across the Emirates, Dubai included, is regulated by MOHRE, the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation. Your contract is registered with MOHRE, and the basic salary on that registered contract is the figure your gratuity is built on. If the basic on your payslip and the basic on your registered contract disagree, settle that long before you hand in your notice, because the registered figure is the one that will be applied.
The route itself is free. Call 80084 or use the MOHRE register a labour complaint service. MOHRE tries to settle the matter amicably first; if it cannot within 14 days it refers the dispute to the competent court. One deadline outranks the rest: a claim for entitlements under the labour law is not heard once two years have passed since the employment relationship ended.
How do I use this calculator?
Enter the monthly basic salary written in your contract, set your start and leaving dates, and pick mainland or DIFC so the page can flag which regime you are under. Every figure updates as you type.
Nothing is sent anywhere. The calculation runs in your browser, no cookies are set and no account is required. Treat the result as an educational estimate, not regulated advice.
Use the basic salary from your contract, not your total package: entering the package is the single most common way to get a gratuity figure that is twice what you are owed. Set the dates to your real start date and your expected leaving date; service is counted in exact calendar years, so a leap year does not distort it. If you have taken unpaid leave, shorten the range by those days yourself.
Once you have the figure, the next questions are usually about the rest of the package. Put your basic beside your allowances in the take-home and gratuity calculator, score a new offer in the offer decoder, and compare the whole package with a UK salary in the relocation cost calculator. If you are already here, the already working in the UAE guide covers free-zone rules and UK exposure. You can also read how we work, or message us on WhatsApp.
UAE gratuity FAQs
How is UAE end-of-service gratuity calculated in 2026?
What gratuity does six years and two months of service on AED 12,000 basic pay?
Does the gratuity calculation use my basic salary or my total package?
At what length of service does the two-year gratuity cap first bind?
Is the UAE gratuity daily rate basic salary ÷ 30 or ÷ 365?
Do I keep my full gratuity if I resign?
Do limited and unlimited contracts still change my gratuity?
Does unpaid leave reduce my gratuity?
How is gratuity calculated for a part-time contract?
Can my employer refuse to pay my gratuity because it dismissed me?
When must my employer pay my gratuity?
What happens to my gratuity if I leave before one year?
Does gratuity work differently in the DIFC?
What can I do if my employer underpays my gratuity?
Is this gratuity calculator regulated financial advice?
Dismissed, and told you have lost your gratuity?
You almost certainly have not. Read the statute, the repealed rule it replaced, and the live pages that still get it wrong.
Gratuity after dismissal in the UAE →