Employment contracts in the UAE
The ministry form and the agreement that sits beside it, written as one set: the term, probation and its three notice periods, and a restriction drawn inside the limits the law allows.
Contract term
Срок договора
Up to three years
До трёх лет
Non-compete
Неконкуренция
Two years at most
Максимум два года
Ending probation
Конец испытания
14 days in writing
14 дней письменно
Term simply lapsed
Срок просто вышел
Renews as it stood
Продлён как был
When you need employment contracts drafted
You are writing the first contract
The ministry’s form settles part of it and leaves the rest to you. What you add is where the protection lives, and where the mistakes live too.
The template came from another country
A contract carried over from a head office abroad brings clauses that do nothing here and misses the ones that matter. It reads well and holds badly.
A contract expired and nobody noticed
The term ran out, the person kept working, and both sides kept performing. That situation has an answer in the law, and it may not be the answer you assumed.
Someone is leaving on probation
Ending it early has one notice period, moving to another employer has another, and leaving the country has a third. Using the wrong one is expensive.
You want a non-compete that holds
A restriction can be agreed, but only inside limits the law sets on its length, its area and the work it covers. A wide clause is a weak one.
Old unlimited contracts are still filed
Contracts written under the previous law were to be converted to fixed terms. Papers that were never redone still describe a regime that has moved on.
What you get
- Contracts on the required form
- Terms that survive review
- Probation written out properly
- A restriction that is enforceable
- One set for every role
What is required in an employment contract
An employment contract here is two documents doing one job. The ministry publishes the form the contract has to take, and everything the form does not reach is agreed between you and the person. Neither half works without the other.
The contract runs for a fixed term, and the law caps that term at three years. The parties may extend or renew it for the same length or a shorter one, and every renewal is added in when end-of-service benefits are calculated.
What the contract fixes
- The term, and what happens at the end of it.
- The work model the person is engaged under.
- The wage, and what counts as wage for the purposes that depend on it.
- The probation period, if there is one, and the notice that goes with it.
- Confidentiality, and any restriction that is to apply after the work ends.
If the term simply runs out
Where a contract is neither renewed nor extended at expiry and both sides go on performing it, the law treats it as renewed on the same terms as the original. That is a useful default and a poor plan: it renews the clauses you meant to change along with the ones you did not.
Contracts written as unlimited under the previous law were to be converted into fixed-term contracts within one year of their effective date, with the Cabinet able to extend that in the public interest. Old paper that was never redone is worth finding first.
Probation and its three notices
Six months is the ceiling on probation, and there is no second one; complete it and the time counts towards service. What changes with the reason for leaving is the notice.
| Who is ending it, and why | Written notice |
|---|---|
| The employer ends the probation | 14 days |
| The employee moves to another employer in the country | 1 month |
| The employee resigns and leaves the country | 14 days |
Where the person moves to another employer inside the country, that new employer compensates you for the recruitment cost unless you agreed otherwise with the employee. The same follows the person who leaves and returns on a new work permit within three months.
A restriction that holds
The law permits a non-compete, and it sets the shape of one: no wider than the legitimate interest it protects, and defined in time, in place and in the nature of the work. The outer limit is two years from the day the contract expires.
Sources: employment contracts, duration and models (UAE Government portal); Federal Decree-Law 33 of 2021, articles 8 and 10.
Stages of work
What the role actually is.
Before the paper, the facts: what the person will do, under whose direction, on what hours and for how long. A contract that describes a different job from the one being done is the defect hardest to argue away.
The form, and what it settles.
We will put the contract on the ministry’s form and check that the occupation on it matches the work permit and the activity on your licence. Those three have to agree with each other before anything else matters.
The agreement that sits alongside it.
Everything the form does not reach — duties, confidentiality, intellectual property, equipment, expenses, what happens to unfinished work — goes into a second document that does not contradict the first.
Probation, written out.
The length, the notice on each of the three exits, and who bears the recruitment cost if the person moves to another employer. Written into the contract, this is arithmetic; left out, it is an argument.
Confidentiality and the restriction.
We will draft the non-compete inside its limits — time, place, nature of work — and say plainly which parts of it we think would hold, and which are there to be negotiated down.
Signing, filing and the copies.
Two copies, one to each side, filed where the ministry expects them and kept for as long as the law requires after the person leaves. We will hand you the set as templates your team can reuse for the next role.
Rules that apply to everyone rather than to one person live in employee handbooks.
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