Worked scenarios

Real-shaped cases taken from the facts through to a final settlement figure, showing which document decides each number and where settlements most often come in short.

The rules pages explain the law one provision at a time. These cases put the provisions together, the way they meet in a real settlement. Each one starts from a set of facts — dates, a package split into basic and allowances, how the employment ended — and works through to every line of the final settlement, with the arithmetic shown so that you can check it and swap in your own numbers.

The people are illustrative, not real, and the figures are for the facts as stated. Every calculation uses the same method as the calculator: whole years of service counted by date, the remainder pro-rated over the year it falls in, unpaid days removed, and a daily basic wage of monthly basic divided by 30.

By length of service

Where you are in your service decides which part of Article 51 does the work: the one-year threshold, the 21-day band, the change to 30 days after five years, or the two-year ceiling.

• Resigning during probation to join another employerArticle 9’s notice rules, the 4,800 AED cost of short notice, and the one-year permit bar if you leave the country without complying
• Leaving after eleven months on an 8,000 AED packageNo gratuity below a year — but 2,500 AED of leave still owed, and what one more month would have been worth
• Resigning after three years on a 12,000 AED packageUnder the five-year band, with unpaid leave deducted — and the 4,838 AED an employer still applying the repealed resignation scale would hold back
• Leaving at exactly five years on a 9,000 AED basicThree leaving dates side by side, showing that the band change alters the rate, not the total, on the anniversary
• Terminated after eight years on a 25,000 AED packageBoth bands, the final basic wage applied across all eight years, and what a 40% basic split costs compared with 60%
• Retiring after 28 years: when the two-year cap appliesWhere the ceiling cuts in, why twelve years is nowhere near it, and the wording point that could be worth 22,500 AED

By what happened

The formula is fixed. These cases are about the facts feeding it — the service period, the basic wage, and how the employment ended — and about the lines of the settlement besides the gratuity.

• Six years with four months of unpaid leaveWhy approved unpaid leave still comes off, why it costs at the 30-day rate here, and when it can wipe out a gratuity
• Basic salary cut in the final year of sevenA restructuring that left total pay unchanged and took 16,500 AED off the gratuity, and what to check before agreeing
• Told to leave the same day, with notice paid in lieuThree different wages in one settlement, notice pay on the full package, and whether paid notice counts as service
• Dismissed without notice under Article 44 after four yearsWhat dismissal for cause takes away — notice pay and the repatriation ticket — and why the gratuity survives

Using a scenario to check your own figure

1. Find the closest case by service length and by how the job ended.
2. Swap in your numbers — basic wage, dates, unpaid days — or run them through the calculator, which shows the same breakdown.
3. Compare line by line with what your employer has offered, using every line you are owed for the lines a scenario does not cover.
4. If the figures differ, work out which input differs. That tells you which document to ask for — the contract for the basic wage, the payroll record for unpaid leave, the termination letter for the end date.

If a case involves a free zone, a domestic worker or a UAE or GCC national, the federal arithmetic here may not apply. Start with free zones, domestic workers or UAE and GCC nationals instead.

This index revised 2026-10-18. Each scenario carries its own review date. General guidance, not legal advice — see the disclaimer.