Types of Leave in the UAE (2026): A Complete Guide to All 8 Leave Entitlements

A practical, employer-focused guide for HR, payroll, founders, and line managers.

Leave is where good intentions meet payroll reality. An employer wants to be fair; the labour law sets out exactly what "fair" means — how many days, at what pay, under which conditions — and getting any of it wrong turns a routine request into a dispute, a wrong payslip, or a MOHRE complaint. The rules are not complicated, but they are precise, and the precision is where employers slip.

This guide sets out all eight types of leave in the UAE under Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, the private-sector labour law in force since February 2022. For each, you get the entitlement, the pay treatment, and the governing article — followed by the rules that most often trip employers up, an at-a-glance summary table, and a short FAQ. It is written for employers who need to apply the rules correctly, not just know they exist.

Informational only — not legal advice. This guide summarises general principles for the UAE private sector mainland. Rules change, and the DIFC and ADGM operate separate frameworks. Verify your position with MOHRE or a qualified adviser before acting.

1. Annual leave — Article 29

The headline entitlement, and the one with the most avoidable errors.

• Entitlement: an employee who has completed one year of service is entitled to 30 calendar days of paid annual leave per year. An employee with more than six months but less than a year of service accrues 2 days per month.
• Pay: full wage. If an employee's service ends before they use their accrued balance, the unused leave is paid out (leave salary) for the fraction of the year worked.
• Key point: annual leave is counted in calendar days, not working days — a distinction that causes real disputes (more on this below).

Annual leave is the benefit employees track most closely, so accuracy in the balance is what keeps trust and avoids arguments at exit. Two practical points worth setting in policy: whether unused leave can be carried over to the next year (the law does not compel unlimited carry-over, so define your rule in the contract), and how leave salary is calculated — generally on the wage the employee would have received had they worked. Leaving either point implicit is what turns an exit into a negotiation. Our guides to annual leave encashment and managing annual leave through the summer cover the practical side, and the annual leave calculator does the arithmetic on an individual balance.

2. Maternity leave — Article 30

• Entitlement: 60 days of maternity leave, made up of 45 days at full pay followed by 15 days at half pay.
• Complications and illness: where a pregnancy-related illness or complication prevents the employee returning to work, she may take up to a further 45 days of unpaid leave. Where a newborn is ill or has a disability, an additional 30 days at full pay is available, extendable by another 30 days unpaid, on medical proof.
• After return: a nursing mother is entitled to one or two additional daily breaks, totalling up to one hour, for up to six months.
• Pay: as above — 45 full, 15 half, further periods as specified.

Maternity pay is a frequent payroll error because of the full-then-half split; the system has to switch the pay rate mid-leave, not pay a flat amount. Our complete guide to maternity leave in the UAE works through the entitlement and the pay calculation in more detail.

3. Sick leave — Article 31

The three-tier pay scale here is the single most miscalculated leave in UAE payroll.

• Entitlement: after the probation period, up to 90 days per year, continuous or intermittent.
• Pay, in three tiers:
  • First 15 days — full pay.
  • Next 30 days (days 16–45) — half pay.
  • Following 45 days (days 46–90) — unpaid.
• Notice and proof: the employee must notify the employer of the sickness within three days and submit a medical report from an approved medical authority.
• During probation: there is no entitlement to paid sick leave during probation. An employer may grant unpaid sick leave on production of a medical report, but paid sick leave begins after probation.

The recurring error is paying full salary across the whole period. Days 16–45 are half pay and 46–90 are unpaid — paying full throughout, across several employees, is exactly the kind of mistake that surfaces in a MOHRE audit. See our complete guide to sick leave in the UAE for the tier calculation and the documentation rules.

4. Bereavement (compassionate) leave — Article 32(1)(a)

• Entitlement: 5 days on the death of a spouse; 3 days on the death of a parent, child, sibling, grandchild, or grandparent.
• Pay: full pay.
• Timing: the entitlement begins from the date of death.

Bereavement leave is paid, and it is a statutory minimum — not a discretionary favour. Refusing it, or treating it as unpaid, is non-compliant.

5. Parental leave — Article 32(1)(b)

The UAE was the first Arab country to introduce paid parental leave, and it applies to both parents.

• Entitlement: 5 working days, available to either parent (father or mother) to care for their child.
• Timing: taken continuously or split, at any point within the six months following the birth.
• Eligibility: applies regardless of length of service — there is no minimum-service condition.
• Pay: full pay.

Because parental leave has no service qualification and covers both parents, it is often missed for fathers and for very new employees who are in fact entitled to it.

6. Study leave — Article 32(2)

• Entitlement: 10 working days per year to sit examinations, for an employee enrolled at an educational institution in the UAE.
• Condition: the employee must have completed at least two years of service with the employer.
• Pay: paid leave, on proof from the relevant institution.

7. Sabbatical / national service leave — Article 32(3)

• Entitlement: an Emirati employee is entitled to paid sabbatical leave to perform national or reserve service, in line with the applicable UAE legislation.
• Pay: paid, per the governing national-service rules.
• Proof: documentation from the relevant authority is required.

Article 32 also allows for any other leaves specified by the Cabinet, so this list reflects the current statutory position and can be added to by future Cabinet decision — a reason to check the current rules rather than rely on a fixed list indefinitely.

8. Unpaid leave — Article 33

• Entitlement: leave beyond the statutory paid entitlements may be granted as unpaid leave, by agreement between employer and employee.
• Pay: none — and this matters for other calculations. A period of unpaid leave is generally not counted toward continuous service for entitlements such as gratuity, unless agreed otherwise.
• Key point: because unpaid leave affects service accrual and payroll, it should be documented and agreed in writing, not handled informally.

The rules that trip employers up

Knowing the eight types is the easy part. Applying them cleanly month after month is where compliant, well-meaning employers still make mistakes — usually not through bad faith, but through a policy that was never written down precisely enough. These three interactions are the most common:

Leave approval and business-continuity duties. An employer can set the timing of annual leave to suit business needs, and can require reasonable notice — but cannot simply refuse a statutory entitlement. The right is to manage when leave is taken for continuity, not whether it is granted at all. Blanket refusals, or pressuring employees to forgo leave, are non-compliant.

Public holidays falling inside a leave period. Because annual leave is counted in calendar days, this is a genuine trap. Unless the employment contract or company policy explicitly states otherwise, a public holiday that falls within an annual-leave period is generally treated as additional entitlement, not a leave day — the employee should not lose an annual-leave day to a public holiday. Counting the holiday as leave without contractual authority is a common and challengeable error. The dates themselves are in our UAE public holidays guide, and the pay treatment in our guide to public holiday pay.

Leave, probation, and final settlement. Probation interacts with leave in specific ways: there is no paid sick leave during probation, and annual leave accrues from six months of service. At exit, unused annual leave is paid out as leave salary for the accrued balance — a statutory item in the final settlement that has to be calculated on the correct wage and included. Getting the accrued balance wrong is one of the most common end-of-service disputes.

For how leave balances flow into the wider payroll and end-of-service picture, see our guides to UAE payslips and salary structure and tracking gratuity and leave liability.

At-a-glance leave-entitlement summary

Leave type	Duration	Pay treatment	Article
Annual leave	30 days/yr after 1 year; 2 days/month for 6–12 months	Full pay; unused balance paid out	Art. 29
Maternity leave	60 days (+45 unpaid on complications)	45 days full + 15 days half	Art. 30
Sick leave	Up to 90 days/yr (after probation)	15 full · 30 half · 45 unpaid	Art. 31
Bereavement leave	5 days (spouse); 3 days (listed relatives)	Full pay	Art. 32(1)(a)
Parental leave	5 working days, within 6 months of birth	Full pay; either parent	Art. 32(1)(b)
Study leave	10 working days/yr (2+ years' service)	Paid	Art. 32(2)
Sabbatical / national service	Per national-service legislation (Emiratis)	Paid	Art. 32(3)
Unpaid leave	As agreed	Unpaid	Art. 33

Quick FAQ

How many types of leave are there in the UAE? There are eight statutory leave types under Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021: annual, maternity, sick, bereavement, parental, study, sabbatical/national service, and unpaid leave — alongside official public holidays, which are governed separately under Article 28.

Is bereavement leave paid? Yes. Bereavement (compassionate) leave is paid at full wage — 5 days for the death of a spouse and 3 days for the death of a parent, child, sibling, grandchild, or grandparent, under Article 32.

Can an employer refuse leave? An employer can manage the timing of annual leave for business continuity and require reasonable notice, but cannot refuse a statutory entitlement outright. Statutory leave — annual, sick, maternity, bereavement, parental and the rest — is a legal right, not a discretionary benefit. What an employer controls is when, within reason, not whether.

The bottom line

Eight leave types, each with its own entitlement, pay rule, and governing article — and the compliance risk lives in the details: the sick-leave tiers, the maternity split, the calendar-day counting, the public-holiday interaction, and the unused balance at exit. Track leave accurately against these rules and it stays a routine part of running a team. Track it loosely and it becomes payslip corrections and MOHRE complaints.

When leave requests, balances, and approvals live in one system — and feed straight into payroll — the entitlements apply themselves correctly and the accrued balance is always right. There is more practical UAE HR and payroll guidance on the RadixHR blog.

Sources & references

This guide is based on the following official UAE government sources, current at the time of writing (verify the latest versions directly, as the law and MOHRE guidance are updated periodically):

• Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Employment Relationships (as amended) and its Executive Regulations — Article 28 (public holidays), Article 29 (annual leave), Article 30 (maternity leave), Article 31 (sick leave), Article 32 (bereavement, parental, study and sabbatical leave) and Article 33 (unpaid leave). Published on the UAE Legislation portal.
• UAE Government Portal (u.ae) — employment in the private sector, the official summary of annual leave and the other statutory leave entitlements.
• MOHRE (mohre.gov.ae) — guidance on leave entitlements, medical certification for sick leave, and final settlement for the mainland private sector.
• DIFC and ADGM — separate employment frameworks with their own leave entitlements. Confirm the applicable regime with the relevant authority.

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This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Leave entitlements are set under Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 and its Executive Regulations and are subject to change; the DIFC and ADGM operate separate frameworks, and certain categories of worker fall outside the federal law. Verify current requirements with MOHRE or a qualified adviser before acting.