WPS & UAE payroll guide: SIF files, deadlines and gratuity
From 1 June 2026 UAE salaries are due on the 1st with no grace period. WPS rules, SIF file format, fines, gratuity formula and GPSSA explained.
At a glance
Since 1 June 2026, salaries for the previous month are due through WPS on the 1st, with no grace period. This guide covers the new rule, the SIF file, pay and leave rules, end-of-service gratuity and pension contributions for Emirati staff.
MOHRE-registered employers must pay wages through WPS via a bank, exchange house or approved agent.
MR 340/2026: salaries are due on the 1st of each month, no grace period, and at least 85% of wages due must be paid.
WPS fine: AED 1,000 per unpaid worker, capped at AED 20,000 (Cabinet Resolution 21/2020).
Gratuity: 21 days of basic wage per year for the first 5 years, then 30 days per year, after at least 1 year of service.
GPSSA for UAE nationals: 11% employee, 15% employer (12.5% in the private sector below AED 20,000), due by the 15th.
Final settlement, including gratuity and unused leave, is due within 14 days of the contract ending.
Key dates
25 Nov 2022: MR 598/2022 in force: 15-day tolerance, 80% compliance
1 Jun 2026: MR 340/2026 in force: due on the 1st, no grace, 85% compliance
1st of each month: Previous month's salaries due through WPS
15th of each month: Latest date for GPSSA contributions
14 days: Final settlement after the contract ends
What WPS is and who must use it
The Wage Protection System (WPS) is the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE) system that records every salary payment in the private sector. Article 22 of Federal Decree-Law 33/2021 requires wages to be paid on their due dates through MOHRE-approved systems, and the Executive Regulation (Cabinet Resolution 1/2022, Art 16) says how: through a bank, an exchange house or another approved agent.
In practice this covers every MOHRE-registered establishment, meaning mainland companies and the free-zone entities whose staff are under MOHRE. Wages are paid in AED unless the contract names another currency. Each month you send your agent bank a Salary Information File (SIF) listing every employee and what they are paid. The bank pays the salaries and reports them to MOHRE, which checks them against your registered workforce.
Free zones, DIFC and ADGM: Some free-zone authorities run their own wage arrangements, so check with your zone. DIFC and ADGM have their own employment laws, so this guide's Labour Law rules do not apply there in full.
The new deadline: salaries due on the 1st (MR 340/2026)
Ministerial Resolution 340/2026 was issued on 12 May 2026, took effect on 1 June 2026 and repealed MR 598/2022. Salaries for the previous month are now due on the 1st day of each Gregorian month, with no grace period. So June pay was due on 1 July, and October pay is due on 1 November 2026.
Under the old rule (MR 598/2022, 25 November 2022 to 31 May 2026), wages only became late 15 days after the due date, and you were compliant if you paid more than 80% of total wages. Now you must pay at least 85% of total wages due. A worker still counts as paid at 85% if the shortfall is lawful deductions.
What happens if you pay late
Days after the due date | Consequence
Day 2 | Alerts sent to the employer
Day 5 | New work permits suspended and a warning issued
Day 11 | Fine under Cabinet Resolution 21/2020; a repeat within 6 months moves the company to the Third Category
Day 16 | Labour disputes opened automatically and permits suspended (companies with 25 or more workers)
Day 21 | Executive instrument (under 50 workers) or collective dispute (50 or more), with attachment and travel ban
Two months in a row | Referral to the Public Prosecution
Fines come from Cabinet Resolution 21/2020. Not paying through WPS costs AED 1,000 per worker, capped at AED 20,000 (item 7). If you leave 30 workers unpaid, the fine is AED 20,000, not AED 30,000. Submitting false WPS data, or making workers sign false documents, costs AED 5,000 per worker, capped at AED 50,000 (item 6).
No grace period any more: If your bank needs a working day or two to process the SIF, upload it before the end of the month. Under the old rule you had a 15-day buffer. Now pay that arrives on the 2nd is already late, and the escalation clock is running.
The SIF file: what goes in it
The SIF is a comma-separated file with one Employee Detail Record (EDR) for each employee and one Salary Control Record (SCR) for the whole file. The layout below follows the CBUAE/MOHRE standard. Your agent bank may run extra checks of its own.
Record | Fields in order
EDR (one per employee) | "EDR"; employee unique ID (14-35 alphanumeric); agent routing code (9 digits); employee account or IBAN (up to 23 characters); pay start date and pay end date (YYYY-MM-DD, same month); days in period; fixed income (e.g. 2345.87, or 0.00); variable income; days of unpaid leave in the period (0 if none)
SCR (one per file) | "SCR"; employer unique ID (13-35 alphanumeric); employer bank routing code (9 digits); file creation date (YYYY-MM-DD); file creation time (HHMM); salary month (MMYYYY); EDR count; total salary; currency (AED); employer reference (optional)
The salary month in the SCR must match the month in every EDR, or the bank rejects the file.
The SCR total salary must equal the sum of fixed plus variable income across all EDRs, and the EDR count must equal the number of employees paid.
Days in period = end date minus start date plus 1.
The reference sample puts the SCR last, but some vendors put it first. Confirm with your agent bank.
Payroll-software guides give the file name as {EmployerID13}{YYMMDD}{HHMMSS}.SIF, matching the SCR date and time. That pattern comes from vendors only and is not in the bank reference guide, so check what your bank expects.
Wages, overtime and deductions
Before you build the SIF, the amounts themselves must follow Decree-Law 33/2021:
Overtime (Art 19): no more than 2 hours a day and 144 hours in 3 weeks. Pay is basic hourly wage plus 25%, or plus 50% between 10 pm and 4 am (shift workers excluded). Work on a rest day earns a substitute day off or basic wage plus 50%.
Deductions (Art 25): only for the cases the law lists. Loans must be interest-free with written consent. Recovery of an overpayment is limited to 20% of the wage. All deductions together cannot exceed 50% of the wage.
Example: an employee on a basic hourly rate of AED 40 works 2 hours of normal overtime (AED 40 × 2 × 1.25 = AED 100) and 2 night hours (AED 40 × 2 × 1.5 = AED 120). If their monthly wage is AED 8,000, total deductions that month cannot go above AED 4,000, and an overpayment recovery cannot go above AED 1,600.
Leave basics that affect payroll
Leave | Entitlement | Article
Annual | 30 calendar days a year after 1 year; 2 days a month if service is over 6 months but under 1 year | Art 29
Sick (after probation) | Up to 90 days a year: 15 on full pay, 30 on half pay, 45 unpaid | Art 31
Maternity | 60 days: 45 on full pay, 15 on half pay | Art 30
Parental | 5 working days within 6 months of the birth | Art 32
Bereavement | 5 days (spouse); 3 days (parent, child, sibling, grandparent, grandchild) | Art 32
Unused leave, plus the pro-rata part of the final year, is paid out on exit at the basic wage (Executive Regulation Art 19(2)). With your approval, up to half of the annual leave can be carried forward or paid in cash. Sick pay is not due during probation.
Accrue leave monthly: Book a leave accrual every month (30 days a year is 2.5 days a month, valued at the basic daily wage). That way, the payout when someone leaves is already on the balance sheet.
End-of-service gratuity: formula and worked example
Under Article 51, foreign full-time employees with at least one year of continuous service earn gratuity based on their last basic wage:
21 days' basic wage for each of the first 5 years.
30 days' basic wage for each year after 5.
Partial years are pro-rated once the first year is complete. Days of unpaid absence do not count as service.
Total gratuity cannot exceed two years' wage (Art 51(6)).
Resignation no longer reduces gratuity. The old one-third and two-thirds cuts under Law 8/1980 are gone.
Worked example
Basic wage AED 10,000 a month, total wage (with allowances) AED 15,000, exactly 7 years of service and no unpaid leave.
Step | Daily rate = basic × 12 ÷ 365 | Daily rate = basic ÷ 30
Daily basic wage | AED 328.77 | AED 333.33
Years 1-5: 21 days × 5 | AED 34,520.55 | AED 35,000.00
Years 6-7: 30 days × 2 | AED 19,726.03 | AED 20,000.00
Gratuity | AED 54,246.58 | AED 55,000.00
Two points the law leaves open: Daily rate: the Labour Law does not say how to turn a monthly basic into a daily rate. Press examples use basic ÷ 30, and ADGM uses ÷ 365. Cap basis: the law says "two years' wage", and wage is defined as basic plus allowances, but many practitioners cap at 24 × basic. Confirm both with your adviser and apply them consistently.
The alternative savings scheme
Under Cabinet Resolution 96/2023, employers can opt employees into an approved savings fund instead of paying gratuity. The monthly contribution is 5.83% of basic wage while service is 5 years or less, and 8.33% after that, paid within 15 days of the 1st of each month. On a basic of AED 10,000, that is AED 583 a month. DIFC uses a similar scheme, DEWS (5.83% / 8.33%, DIFC Employment Law Art 66). ADGM uses the 21/30-day formula with a ÷ 365 daily rate and no 2-year cap.
GPSSA pension for UAE nationals
Emirati employees are not paid gratuity. They are covered by Federal Decree-Law 57/2023, in force since 31 October 2023. The employer deducts the employee share and pays both shares to GPSSA.
Employee: 11% of contribution salary. Employer: 15%. In the private sector, the government pays 2.5% for nationals whose contribution salary is under AED 20,000, so the employer pays 12.5% (Art 4).
Contribution salary (private sector): the contract wage, with a minimum of AED 3,000 and a maximum of AED 70,000 (Art 5(2)).
Due from the 1st of the following month, and no later than the 15th (Art 12).
Late payment: 0.1% a day of the contributions due, up to 100%. Under-declaring salary adds 10% (Art 11).
Example: on a contract wage of AED 15,000, the employee share is AED 1,650, the employer pays AED 1,875 (12.5%) and the government pays AED 375. Nationals first insured before 31 October 2023 stay under Law 7/1999. Abu Dhabi nationals fall under ADPF, and the published rates there should be confirmed separately.
Final settlement and the accounting entries
When employment ends, Article 53 requires the final settlement within 14 days: outstanding wages, leave encashment and gratuity, less any deductions allowed by law or a court judgment. Notice periods are 30 to 90 days as set in the contract (Art 43), and pay in lieu is allowed.
Event | Debit | Credit
Monthly payroll | 6100 Salaries (plus 6105 housing, 6110 transport, 6115 overtime) | 2300 Salaries and Wages Payable
WPS payment released | 2300 Salaries and Wages Payable | Bank
GPSSA, employer share | 6140 Pension Contributions – Employer | 2310 GPSSA Contributions Payable
Gratuity provision top-up | 6130 End-of-Service Benefits Expense | 2540 Provision for End-of-Service Benefits
Leave accrual | 6135 Annual Leave Expense | 2330 Accrued Annual Leave
Each month, the gratuity provision should equal the gratuity every eligible employee would receive if they left at month end. Post the difference from last month. Many SMEs use this actual-liability method, which IFRS for SMEs (s28) accepts.
Monthly payroll checklist
Lock attendance, overtime and unpaid leave for the month by around the 20th.
Check overtime limits and that total deductions stay under 50% of each wage.
Run payroll and check that net pay equals the SIF total and the EDR count equals headcount.
Upload the SIF to your agent bank early enough for funds to land by the 1st. Keep the bank acknowledgement.
Check that at least 85% of wages due have been paid, and look into any employee below that level.
Pay GPSSA contributions for Emirati staff by the 15th.
Post the payroll, gratuity provision and leave accrual entries, and reconcile 2300 to zero after payment.
For anyone leaving, diarise the 14-day final settlement deadline. Try our gratuity calculator and see key dates on the compliance calendar.
Done right: A clean month looks like this: the SIF was accepted before month end, salaries landed on the 1st, the payroll payable account is back to zero, and the gratuity provision matches each employee's calculated entitlement.
How Rami handles this
Dana prepares the monthly payroll run and generates the SIF file, checking that the EDR total equals the SCR total and net pay before you upload it to your agent bank.
She flags deductions above the 50% cap, overtime beyond legal limits and missing IBANs before the run is approved.
She updates the gratuity and leave provisions each month and drafts the journal entries for your approval.
She calculates GPSSA contributions for Emirati staff and reminds you before the 1st and the 15th.
Sources
Federal Decree-Law 33/2021 Regulating Labour Relations (Arts 19, 21, 22, 25, 29-32, 43, 51, 53), as amended by DL 14/2022, DL 20/2023 and DL 9/2024
Cabinet Resolution 1/2022 (Executive Regulation of the Labour Law), Arts 16 and 19
Ministerial Resolution 340/2026 on wage protection (in force 1 June 2026)
Ministerial Resolution 598/2022 on wage protection (repealed from 1 June 2026)
Cabinet Resolution 21/2020 (MOHRE fees and fines), items 6-7
Cabinet Resolution 96/2023 (alternative end-of-service savings scheme), Art 6
Federal Decree-Law 57/2023 on Pension and Social Security, Arts 4, 5, 11, 12
CBUAE/MOHRE WPS Salary Information File standard (as reproduced in the Dubai Islamic Bank WPS File Format Reference Guide v1.1)
DIFC Employment Law 2/2019 Art 66; ADGM Employment Regulations 2024 s61
Last updated 2026-10-19. This guide is general information as of October 2026, not legal or tax advice.