UAE Labour Law Working Hours and Overtime Rules

Standard working hours in the UAE private sector are eight hours a day or 48 hours a week, and overtime is paid at the basic wage plus at least 25 per cent. That rises to at least 50 per cent for hours worked between 10pm and 4am, except for staff on shift patterns.

The rules sit in Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Employment Relations, which took effect on 2 February 2022, and in Cabinet Resolution No. 1 of 2022, its implementing regulation. Together they replaced the old 1980 labour law. Both instruments have been amended since, so anyone relying on a specific article should check the consolidated text rather than an early commentary.

Two points frame everything below. First, the federal law applies to the onshore private sector and to most free zones, but the Dubai International Financial Centre and Abu Dhabi Global Market run their own employment regimes and are outside it. Second, the federal public sector and individual emirate governments set their own hours, which is why government offices and private employers often keep different weeks.

What are the standard working hours under UAE labour law?

The statutory ceiling is eight hours in a day or 48 hours in a week. It is a maximum, not a template. An employer can contract for fewer hours, and many do, but it cannot contract for more except where the implementing regulation allows it.

The regulation permits longer hours for certain categories and sectors, subject to a weekly ceiling of its own. Hospitality, retail, security and similar sectors are the usual examples. If a business is relying on one of those carve-outs, the safest course is to identify the exact provision in Cabinet Resolution No. 1 of 2022 that covers the activity rather than assuming an industry practice is lawful.

Time spent travelling between home and the workplace is generally not counted as working time. There are exceptions for particular roles where travel is genuinely part of the job. Time spent on standby at the employer’s premises is a different question and tends to be treated as working time.

Do working hours change during Ramadan?

Yes. Normal working hours are reduced by two hours a day during Ramadan for private sector employees. The reduction comes from the implementing regulation, not from custom, and it does not depend on the employee fasting.

Employers sometimes apply the reduction only to Muslim staff. The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation has treated the reduction as applying to private sector employees generally, and an employer taking a narrower view should be ready to defend it. Pay is not reduced. If an employee works beyond the reduced Ramadan hours at the employer’s request, those extra hours are overtime and are paid as such.

What breaks and rest periods must an employer give?

An employee cannot be required to work more than five consecutive hours without a break. The break, or breaks taken together, must total at least one hour and are for rest, meals and prayer.

Break time does not count towards working hours. That matters for shift design: a nine-hour presence with a one-hour unpaid break is eight working hours, not nine. There are separate limits for young workers and separate protections around night work for some categories, and the midday break rule for outdoor work in the hot months is a distinct obligation announced annually by MOHRE.

Which day is the weekly rest day now?

There is no longer a fixed national rest day for the private sector. The law requires at least one paid rest day a week, and the employer sets which day in the contract or in its workplace rules. An employer may give more than one.

The federal government moved to a Monday to Friday week with a shortened Friday from January 2022, and the Sharjah government adopted a four-day week for its own employees. Neither change binds private employers. A private company in Dubai can run a Monday to Friday week, a six-day week with Friday off, or anything else that gives the statutory minimum rest.

If an employee is asked to work on the designated rest day, the employer must either give a substitute rest day or pay the wage for that day plus an uplift of at least 50 per cent of basic wage. The employer chooses, not the employee. Certain roles cannot be required to work the rest day more than twice consecutively without agreement.

How is overtime calculated, and what are the limits?

Overtime is calculated on basic wage, not on total salary including allowances. That single point accounts for a large share of the disputes that reach MOHRE.

• Hours worked beyond normal hours: basic wage for those hours plus at least 25 per cent.
• Hours worked between 10pm and 4am: basic wage for those hours plus at least 50 per cent. Employees working in shifts are outside this higher rate.
• Rest day work: a substitute rest day, or the day’s wage plus at least 50 per cent of basic wage.
• Daily cap: overtime should not exceed two hours a day, unless the work is necessary to prevent substantial loss or a serious accident, or to relieve its effects.

Overtime must be requested or authorised by the employer. An employee who simply stays late will struggle to recover for it. Equally, an employer that permits a pattern of extra hours and pays nothing cannot rely on the absence of a written instruction. Attendance records, access logs and rota documents tend to decide these cases.

Who is excluded from the working hours and overtime rules?

Some categories fall outside the maximum hours and overtime provisions altogether. Broadly they are:

• Chairmen and members of boards of directors.
• Employees in supervisory positions who exercise the powers of the employer over other staff.
• Crews of sea vessels and seafarers who enjoy special conditions because of the nature of the work.
• Preparatory and supplementary work that by its nature has to be carried out outside normal hours.

The supervisory exclusion is narrower than employers assume. A job title containing the word manager does not make someone excluded. The test looks at whether the person actually exercises employer-type authority over other employees, including on hiring, discipline and work allocation. A team leader who reports upward on every decision is unlikely to qualify. Domestic workers sit under a separate law, Federal Decree-Law No. 9 of 2022, with its own hours and rest provisions.

Where do employers and employees get caught out?

The recurring problems are practical rather than doctrinal. Employers calculate overtime on total salary and then discover they have overpaid, or calculate it on a figure that is not the contractual basic wage and underpay. Contracts set a basic wage that is a small fraction of the package, which keeps overtime cheap but creates exposure on end of service gratuity, which is also basic wage driven. Records are kept for attendance but not retained long enough to answer a claim.

On the employee side, the common error is delay. Claims are made to MOHRE first, and the file is far stronger when contemporaneous records still exist. Employees in DIFC or ADGM companies sometimes file with MOHRE before realising their employer sits under a different regime with different procedures and time limits.

If in doubt, start from the contract, the basic wage figure, the actual hours worked and the written record of who authorised them. Most working hours disputes are resolved on those four things.

This article is general information about UAE law as at September 2026 and is not legal advice. The position varies by emirate and by free zone, and it changes often. Take advice on your own facts before acting.

Legal Desire has published legal industry news and analysis since 2012. This article is part of our UAE desk, which tracks the laws, courts and regulators of the Emirates for lawyers and in-house teams.