Leaving after eleven months on an 8,000 AED package

No gratuity is payable below one year of continuous service. That is the part everyone knows. What gets lost is that the rest of the settlement is still owed in full, and one line of it is worth almost as much as the gratuity would have been.

The facts

Sales coordinator, Sharjah mainland, private company under the federal law
Started 1 November 2025; probation of six months passed without incident
Resigned with the 30 days' notice in the contract; employment ended 1 October 2026
Package 8,000 AED: basic 5,000, housing 2,000, transport 1,000
7 days of annual leave taken in June 2026; no unpaid leave

Step 1 — is there a gratuity?

1 November 2025 to 1 October 2026 is 334 days, or 0.915 of a year. Article 51(2) gives end-of-service benefits to a full-time foreign worker "who completed a year or more in continuous service". Article 51(3) pays fractions of a year in proportion — but only once that first year has been completed.

So the answer here is nothing. There is no pro-rated gratuity for eleven months, and it makes no difference that he resigned rather than being let go. A termination by the employer at eleven months would produce exactly the same zero.

What one more month would have been worth

Had the employment ended on 1 November 2026 instead, service would be exactly one year: 1 × 21 = 21 days of basic wage, at 5,000 ÷ 30 = 166.67 AED a day, which is 3,500 AED. The threshold is a cliff, not a slope. Anyone within a few weeks of a year who has any say over the timing of their departure should look at the date before they look at anything else.

Step 2 — annual leave, which is still owed

Annual leave does not depend on completing a year. Article 29(1)(b) gives two days for each month where service is more than six months and less than a year, and Article 29(9) says a worker who leaves before using accrued leave is paid for it, "calculated according to the basic wage".

Eleven months of service × 2 days = 22 days accrued
Less 7 days taken in June = 15 days untaken
15 × 166.67 = 2,500 AED

That is the usual reading of Article 29(1)(b): once service passes six months, the two days accrue for each month worked, including the first six. Some employers apply a less generous policy for the first year. If yours does, ask which provision it relies on — the statute is a floor, and a contract or policy can improve on it but not go below it.

Step 3 — the rest of the settlement

Item	Amount	Basis
End-of-service gratuity	0	Under one year of continuous service, Article 51(2)
15 days' untaken annual leave	2,500	Article 29(9), at basic wage
Salary for September	8,000	Full package for the final month worked
Notice pay	—	Notice was given and worked, so nothing is due either way
Repatriation expenses	check	Article 13(12): on the employer, unless he joins another employer or the reason for termination is attributable to him

All of it is payable within 14 days of 1 October 2026 under Article 53. The absence of a gratuity does not slow anything else down.

Three ways people get this wrong

Assuming nothing is owed. Because the gratuity is zero, people sometimes sign a settlement showing only the final salary. The leave line here is 2,500 AED — about 70% of what the gratuity would have been at one year. It is not a technicality.
Counting the year from the wrong day. Service runs from the first working day to the end of the employment, and a worked notice period counts towards it because Article 43(2) keeps the contract alive through the notice. It does not run to the day you handed in your resignation, and it does not stop at the date a visa is cancelled.
Forgetting unpaid leave. Article 51(4) excludes unpaid days of absence from the service term. Someone whose dates span a year and a week, but who took ten days of unpaid leave, is below the threshold. Check the record before relying on the calendar.

What about probation?

The probation period counts towards service once you continue past it (Article 9(2)). This case is well after probation, so the special notice rules for probation do not apply. Leaving during probation is a different situation, with its own notice periods and consequences — it is worked through in resigning during probation.

If the date is close

If you are a few weeks short of a year and the employer is the one ending the contract, the date of termination is worth checking against the notice period in your contract. Under Article 43(2) the contract stays in force throughout the notice period and ends when it expires — so a termination notified at ten and a half months with sixty days' notice may well take you over the line. Do not assume the date on the letter is the date the employment ends.

Questions

I worked 11 months and 25 days. Is there really nothing?

No statutory gratuity, on the wording of Article 51. The threshold is a completed year of continuous service. A contract or company policy could be more generous, and occasionally is, but the statute does not round up.

Do I still get paid for leave I had not taken?

Yes. Article 29(9) pays accrued but unused leave on leaving, at the basic wage, regardless of whether a gratuity is due. Past six months of service the statutory minimum is two days per month.

My contract was for one year and the employer did not renew it. Does that change anything?

If the contract ran its full term of a year, you will usually have completed a year of continuous service, and the gratuity is due — 21 days of basic wage. A contract that ends a few days before the anniversary, however, does not reach the threshold. Check the actual start and end dates.

Figures are for the case described. Published 2026-10-18 and reviewed against Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021. General guidance, not legal advice — see the disclaimer.