Managing leave around public holidays in the United Arab Emirates
Reviewed by Mellow Editorial Team, HR & payroll content team
Public holidays in the UAE do not automatically extend an employee's annual leave entitlement — they are separate. How the two interact depends on whether a public holiday falls inside or outside a period of approved leave, and getting this right matters for payroll accuracy and staff trust.
How annual leave and public holidays are treated under UAE law
Under Federal Decree-Law No. 33/2021, employees are entitled to 30 calendar days of paid annual leave after completing one year of service. Public holidays are a distinct entitlement, announced each year by the Federal Authority for Government Human Resources (FAHR) for the public sector, with private-sector employers expected to follow the same schedule.
The key principle: if a public holiday falls within an employee's approved annual leave period, that day should not be counted against their leave balance. The employee has, in effect, not "used" a leave day on that date — they were entitled to the holiday regardless. The practical consequence is that either the leave period extends by the number of public holidays falling within it, or the corresponding days are credited back to the employee's balance.
This is the position consistently applied by UAE courts and the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE). Employers who absorb public holidays into leave without adjustment are underpaying their staff's entitlement.
Planning around Islamic calendar holidays
Several UAE public holidays follow the Hijri (Islamic lunar) calendar — Eid Al Fitr, Eid Al Adha, Islamic New Year, the Prophet's Birthday and Al Isra' Wal Mi'raj. Exact dates are confirmed only a day or two in advance by official moon-sighting announcement. The government typically issues a formal notification shortly before the holiday.
This creates a genuine planning challenge. An employee on leave when an unconfirmed holiday is announced may not know in advance how many days to credit back. The practical approach is to finalise leave adjustments after the official announcement rather than trying to predict dates. Build this into your HR process: when an employee returns from leave that spanned a confirmed holiday period, recalculate the balance before closing out the request.
Keep a record of every official announcement. FAHR and MOHRE publish holiday circulars; save these as your reference documents if a dispute arises later.
Setting a clear internal policy
The law sets a floor, not a ceiling. You can offer more generous treatment of public holidays within leave periods, but you cannot offer less. A written leave policy removes ambiguity for both managers and employees.
A practical policy should specify:
- How public holidays within leave are handled — extension of the leave period, or credit back to the balance. Either is defensible; pick one and apply it consistently.
- How Islamic calendar holidays are managed — acknowledge the moon-sighting uncertainty and confirm that adjustments are made once dates are officially declared.
- Minimum notice for leave requests — particularly relevant around high-demand periods like Eid and National Day when large portions of a team may apply simultaneously.
- Carry-over rules — the law does not mandate unlimited carry-over; your policy should state whether unused leave lapses, carries forward, or is paid out, and within what timeframe.
Document the policy in your employment contracts or staff handbook and make sure it is reflected in your payroll and HR system settings.
Managing peak leave periods operationally
Eid Al Fitr and Eid Al Adha each typically involve three public holidays, and many employees attach annual leave days to create extended breaks. National Day in December has a similar effect. In practice, this concentrates leave demand into a small number of windows each year.
A few measures that help:
- Set a leave request deadline ahead of peak periods so you can approve or adjust before the business is short-staffed.
- Agree a minimum staffing level for each team and communicate it before employees start submitting requests.
- Sequence approvals fairly — a first-come-first-served or rotating-priority approach avoids complaints of favouritism.
- Cross-train where possible so that coverage gaps during peak periods do not create critical bottlenecks.
For businesses running payroll through the Wage Protection System (WPS), make sure any leave pay adjustments linked to public holiday credits are captured before the pay cycle closes. Errors here create reconciliation problems and, in the case of underpayment, potential MOHRE complaints.
Record-keeping and audit readiness
MOHRE inspections can include a review of leave records. Your system should be able to show, for any employee, the leave taken, the public holidays that fell within that leave, and how the balance was adjusted. A spreadsheet is workable for small teams but becomes error-prone at scale. Whatever system you use, the output should be auditable and consistent with what is reflected in your WPS submissions.
For companies employing both UAE and GCC nationals alongside expatriates, note that the leave entitlement rules apply equally — the distinction between the two groups under UAE employment law relates primarily to end-of-service gratuity and pension scheme enrolment, not annual leave.
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