Termination support in the UAE
We will name the ground the law recognises, run the investigation where one is required, draft every document and put the dates in one sequence — so the exit does not become a complaint.
Notice period
Срок уведомления
30 to 90 days
От 30 до 90 дней
If it is unlawful
Компенсация
Up to 3 months' pay
До 3 месяцев зарплаты
Unexcused absence
Прогул
7 days in a row
7 дней подряд
Job search in notice
Поиск работы
One day a week
Один день в неделю
When you need termination support
You have decided to let someone go
The decision is made and the sequence is not. Which ground applies decides the notice, the payment and whether an investigation has to happen first.
The reason is performance
Underperformance is a ground with conditions attached, and the conditions are about what you did before: what was said, in writing, and how many times.
Something serious happened yesterday
Dismissal without notice exists for exactly this, and it is the route with the most procedure attached. Acting fast and acting correctly are not the same day.
The person resigned and now disputes it
A resignation given after a conversation gets described afterwards as something else. What the file shows about that conversation is what decides it.
A whole team is being closed
Ending several contracts at once multiplies every step and adds a question about how the individuals were chosen. That question is asked later, by others.
They complained, then you decided
Where a dismissal follows a complaint the worker made to the ministry, the order of those two events becomes the case. Timing is evidence here.
What termination support covers
Ending an employment relationship here is a procedure with dates in it, and most of what goes wrong is a step taken in the wrong order. The ground you rely on decides the rest: whether notice runs, how long it runs, whether an investigation has to come first, and what the last payment contains.
What you get
- The ground identified, and the conditions that come attached to it.
- The investigation run properly where the ground requires one.
- Every document drafted: the warning, the notice, the decision, the record.
- The dates in one sequence, including the ones that run in parallel.
- A file that answers the question a complaint would ask.
The grounds and the notice
Either side may end a contract for a legitimate reason, in writing, provided the contract keeps being performed through a notice period of no less than thirty days and no more than ninety. The worker is paid in full for that period on their last wage. A party that does not serve the notice owes the other a payment in place of it, calculated on that same last wage, and that is owed even where no harm was caused.
Where it is the employer who ends the contract, the worker is entitled to one unpaid day a week during the notice period to look for other work, choosing the day and telling you at least three days ahead.
Dismissal without notice
The law lists the situations in which an employer may end the service with no notice at all — among them a forged document, a deliberate act causing substantial material loss, disclosure of the company’s confidential material, assault at the workplace, and absence without acceptable excuse for more than seven consecutive days or more than twenty non-consecutive days in a year. Failing basic duties belongs on the list too, but only after the worker has been warned twice of dismissal and continued anyway.
The procedure is the part that gets missed. This route is open only after a written investigation of the worker, and the dismissal notice itself has to be in writing, reasoned, and handed over properly. Where the ground is a substantial material loss, the ministry has to be told within seven working days of you learning of it.
What makes it unlawful
A termination is unlawful where it follows the worker making a serious complaint to the ministry, or bringing a case against you that turns out to be valid. The compensation a court awards for that is capped at three months of the worker’s wage on their last rate, and the court sets the figure by the type of work, the damage done and how long the person had been employed. Gratuity, notice dues and anything else outstanding are claimed on top.
Sources: terminating employment contracts (UAE Government portal); Federal Decree-Law 33 of 2021, articles 42, 43, 44 and 47.
Stages of work
Deciding what the ground actually is.
We will read the contract, the file and what happened, and name the ground the law recognises. Companies often have a reason and no ground; those are different things, and only one of them survives being questioned.
The investigation, where one is required.
Where the route is dismissal without notice, a written investigation comes first. We will run it so the record shows what the person was told, what they answered, and who decided afterwards.
The notice and its dates.
Length, start, the wage that runs through it, the weekly day for job hunting, and what to do when you would rather the person did not stay. Paying in place of notice is available, and it is a calculation, not a gesture.
The last payment.
End-of-service benefit, notice dues, untaken leave and anything the contract adds, calculated from the same wage definition throughout. Disputes start where two documents use two different definitions of pay.
The permit and the residency.
Cancelling the work permit and closing the residency have their own steps and their own clocks, and they run alongside the employment ones. Missing them leaves a person unlawfully present and the file open.
If it is challenged afterwards.
A complaint goes to the ministry first, which looks at the reasons and tries to settle it; unsettled, it goes on to the court. We will assemble the file for that and stay on it. Where the conflict is already running, that is employment disputes.
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