WPS registration and HR compliance in the UAE
We will put your employment file in order: a permit for every role, contracts on the ministry form, wages through the protected channel, and an Emiratisation count that holds up when an inspector asks.
Wages via WPS
Зарплата через WPS
at least 85%
не менее 85%
Emiratisation charge
Взнос по квоте
AED 108,000 in 2026
108 000 AED в 2026
Probation
Испытательный срок
6 months, no renewal
6 месяцев, без продления
Minimum wage
Минимальная зарплата
not set by law
в законе не задана
When you need WPS registration in the UAE
Salaries went out late
On the fifth day after the due date the ministry stops issuing your work permits; on the eleventh a fine follows. Hiring halts before anyone calls you.
You are hiring your first employee
Working without a permit from the ministry is unlawful for the person and for the company that engaged them. The permit has to be in hand before the first day.
The company crossed fifty staff
At fifty employees the Emiratisation target starts to run, and every citizen you are short of that target is charged for monthly until the gap closes.
An inspection asked for documents
Contracts, permits and payment records are read together. The usual finding is not a missing document but three documents that describe different people.
Someone is leaving the company
Gratuity, notice, the final payment and cancelling the permit all fall due at once, and each of them has its own rule about what counts as the wage.
What you get
- A company file that matches
- Contracts in the required form
- Payroll set up for WPS
- An Emiratisation position you can defend
- A calendar of dated duties
What is required for WPS in the UAE
Employment in the Emirates is federal law plus the rules of the place where the company sits. The federal labour law covers the whole private sector, and an ordinary free zone adds its own rules on top of the federal law. Two financial free zones, the Dubai International Financial Centre and Abu Dhabi Global Market, run their own employment regimes and sit outside the federal one.
Most of what an employer owes is documentary: a permit before the work starts, a contract in the ministry’s form, wages paid through a monitored channel, and records that agree with one another when someone asks.
What the ministry checks
- A work permit for every employee. Article 6 of the labour law makes working without one unlawful, and it forbids the employer to engage anyone without it.
- A fixed-term contract on the approved form. Probation may not exceed six months and may not be extended; ending it inside probation takes fourteen days’ written notice.
- Wages through the Wages Protection System, paid into accounts at institutions the central bank has authorised. At least 85 per cent of the total due must go on time.
- The Emiratisation count, the pension registration for Emirati staff, and the end-of-service position for everyone else.
What a late salary sets off
Salaries for the previous month fall due on the first day of each Gregorian month. From there the ministry escalates on a published schedule, and the later steps depend on how many people the company employs.
| Day after the due date | What the ministry does |
|---|---|
| Day 2 | Alerts and notifications to the employer |
| Day 5 | New work permits suspended, with a warning |
| Day 11 | Administrative fine and reclassification, on a repeat within six months |
| Day 16 | A labour dispute is registered, from 25 employees |
| Day 21 | Attachment, a travel ban on the person in charge, referral to prosecution |
Emiratisation and the quota
An establishment with fifty or more employees raises Emiratisation by two per cent a year in skilled jobs, and pays a monthly contribution for each citizen not employed against the target. Companies of twenty to forty-nine employees in fourteen listed sectors were required to hire one Emirati by the end of 2024 and a second by the end of 2025, with annual contributions of AED 96,000 and AED 108,000 for missing them.
What the law does not set
There is no minimum wage in the UAE labour law for the private sector generally: the law requires only that wages be sufficient to meet the employee’s basic needs. The one published floor is for Emirati staff, set by the ministry at AED 6,000 a month from 1 January 2026. Any other figure you meet online is somebody’s estimate.
Sources: wages and WPS, Emiratisation, work permits (UAE Government portal); Federal Decree-Law 33 of 2021.
Stages of work
Reading the file you already have.
We will start from the licence, the establishment card and the people already on it, and say where the records disagree with each other before anyone else finds it.
Permits and contracts.
We will match each role to the right permit out of the thirteen the ministry issues, and put the contracts on the approved form with the probation and notice terms the law allows.
Payroll into the protected channel.
We will set up payment through the Wages Protection System with an authorised institution, and mark which of your people fall outside it under the published exclusions.
The Emiratisation position.
We will count your skilled headcount against the target that applies to your size and sector, and write down what the contribution would be if the target is missed.
End of service, before it is needed.
We will fix how gratuity is calculated on your contracts and whether the savings scheme is worth choosing instead, so a departure becomes arithmetic instead of an argument.
The calendar.
Permit renewals, contract expiries, the Emiratisation checkpoint and the monthly wage date go into one list, with the dates that carry a penalty marked.
Our other employment work sits in Employment Law.
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