Overtime disputes rarely start as disputes. They start as an arrangement that seemed fine at the time — staying late through a busy period, covering a colleague — and only become a problem at the end of employment, when someone adds it up.
The rates
| When you worked | Rate |
|---|---|
| Beyond normal hours, daytime | 125% of normal hourly pay |
| Between 10pm and 4am | 150% |
| Weekly rest day | Substitute day off, or 150% |
| Public holiday | Compensatory leave, or 150% |
All of it is calculated on basic salary. Housing, transport and other allowances are excluded — a point HR teams get wrong in both directions.
The hourly rate argument
Here is where overtime claims actually get stuck. UAE law fixes the premium percentages but never says how to convert a monthly salary into an hourly one, and two conventions are both in widespread use:
- Basic ÷ 30 ÷ 8 — the more common payroll approach
- Basic × 12 ÷ 365 ÷ 8 — spreads across the calendar year, giving a slightly lower hourly figure
On AED 6,000 basic that is AED 25.00 against AED 24.66 per hour. Small in isolation, meaningful across a year of regular overtime, and the source of a great many payroll disagreements. Neither is unlawful. What matters is that your employer applies one consistently and can say which. The Overtime Calculator shows both figures side by side so you can see what the choice costs you.
The limits your employer must respect
Normal hours are eight per day or 48 per week, reduced by two hours daily during Ramadan. Overtime is capped at two hours per day, and beyond that is only permitted where the work is necessary to prevent substantial loss or a serious accident — not because the workload is heavy. You should also not work more than five consecutive hours without a break.
Regularly working three or four hours of overtime a day is not a generous arrangement. It is outside what the law permits.
Who does not get the night premium
Shift workers. If night hours form part of your normal rotating schedule, those hours are your ordinary working time rather than unsociable overtime, so the 150 per cent rate does not apply. This is one of the few genuine exclusions and it is frequently misunderstood by employees on night rosters.
Certain supervisory and managerial roles are also treated differently under the working-hours provisions. Whether an individual role qualifies turns on actual duties, not on a job title — being called a manager does not by itself remove your overtime entitlement.
The evidence that counts
Overtime claims succeed or fail on records, and the burden of showing hours worked usually falls on the person claiming them.
- Attendance and biometric logs — the strongest evidence, and your employer holds it. Request it in writing early.
- Written instructions to work late — emails or messages asking you to stay carry more weight than your own note that you did.
- Your own contemporaneous log — dates, start and end times, recorded as you go. Far more credible than a reconstruction after you resign.
- Payslips showing what was actually paid for those periods.
Start keeping the log now if overtime is routine, rather than when the relationship sours.
Raising it
Put the calculation in writing to your employer first — hours, rate basis, amount — and give them a chance to correct it. If that fails, MOHRE handles wage complaints, and unpaid overtime forms part of your final settlement rather than a separate claim, so it sits alongside gratuity and leave in the same fourteen-day window.
Work out the full picture with the Final Settlement Calculator, and see the wider entitlements around leave and notice in the Labour Law Calculator.
General information, not legal advice. Sector and contract terms vary; DIFC and ADGM have separate legislation.