Employment & HR
Sick leave, maternity and parental leave
Ninety days of sick leave a year on a sliding scale — fifteen full pay, thirty half pay, forty-five unpaid. Maternity is sixty days, and parental leave applies to both parents.
The entitlement
What the law gives, regardless of contract.
After probation, an employee is entitled to up to ninety days of sick leave per year, taken continuously or intermittently, paid on a sliding scale: the first fifteen days at full pay, the next thirty at half pay, and the remaining forty-five unpaid. A medical certificate from an approved authority is required, and the employer must be notified within the prescribed period. Maternity leave is sixty days — forty-five at full pay and fifteen at half pay — with additional unpaid leave available in defined circumstances.
Parental leave is the provision employers most often do not know about. Five working days of paid parental leave is available to both parents, to be taken within six months of the birth, and it applies to fathers as well as mothers. It was introduced alongside the 2021 reforms and remains poorly implemented, largely because staff handbooks were written before it existed and nobody updated them. Separately, a mother is entitled to nursing breaks for a period after returning to work, and sick leave taken during probation is generally unpaid unless the employer agrees otherwise.
The numbers
- Sick leave
- Up to 90 days per year after probation
- First 15 days
- Full pay
- Next 30 days
- Half pay
- Remaining 45 days
- Unpaid
- Maternity
- 60 days — 45 at full pay, 15 at half pay
- Parental leave
- 5 working days for both parents, within 6 months of birth
What it costs
Proportions indicative — they shift with visa count, premises and activity.
In practice
How this is actually administered.
- Require a certificate from an approved authorityAnd notify within the prescribed period. An undocumented absence is not sick leave.
- Apply the sliding scale correctlyFifteen days full, thirty half, forty-five unpaid. Paying ninety days at full pay is generous; paying nothing is a breach.
- Update the handbook for parental leaveFive working days for both parents. Most UAE staff handbooks still do not mention it.
- Handle probation sick leave explicitlyGenerally unpaid unless the employer agrees, which is a decision worth making before it arises.
- Do not terminate for sickness within the entitlementDismissal during a protected sick leave period is a specific exposure.
Related
Questions
Up to ninety days a year after probation: fifteen at full pay, thirty at half pay, and forty-five unpaid.
Sixty days — forty-five at full pay and fifteen at half pay — with additional unpaid leave available in defined circumstances.
Yes. Five working days of paid parental leave applies to both parents, taken within six months of the birth.
Sick leave during probation is generally unpaid unless the employer agrees otherwise.
One question
How many people are on the payroll?
Then the order matters. Establishment card, then quota, then work permit, then entry permit, then medical, Emirates ID and contract registration. Skipping ahead to a signed offer letter before the quota exists is the usual way a start date slips by six weeks.
The first hire, in orderOr just ask usThis is the size where informal arrangements start costing money — salaries paid partly outside WPS, leave that was never tracked, gratuity nobody has accrued for. None of it is hard to fix now and all of it is expensive to fix at a MOHRE hearing.
What you are accruing without knowingOr just ask usThen Emiratisation quotas, WPS timing, ILOE subscriptions and health insurance renewals are running on separate calendars, and the penalty for each is levied per employee. Consolidating those dates is usually worth more than any single piece of advice.
What gets inspectedOr just ask us