UAE Overtime Calculator

Want the reasoning rather than the number? Read the complete UAE overtime calculation guide — the rates, the hourly-wage basis, and the shift-worker and rest-day exceptions.

How is UAE overtime calculated?

Under UAE Labour Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, Art. 19), overtime is paid on top of the normal hourly wage, which is derived from the basic salary rather than the total package:

• Hourly wage = basic salary ÷ 30 days ÷ daily working hours.
• 125% of that rate for ordinary overtime.
• 150% for overtime between 10pm and 4am, except for shift workers.

Deriving the hourly rate from basic salary alone is what makes overtime cheaper than most employees expect. An employee on AED 8,000 basic plus AED 6,000 of allowances has an overtime rate built on the 8,000, not the 14,000.

Worked example 1 — ordinary daytime overtime

Worked example 2 — night hours between 10pm and 4am

Worked example 3 — a mixed month

The two exceptions most calculators miss

A plain 125%/150% calculator will overstate the entitlement in two common situations. Both are worth checking before an employee raises a claim, or an employer builds them into payroll.

Shift workers and the night uplift

The enhanced rate for hours between 10pm and 4am does not apply to employees working on shift patterns. Whether a given hour is ordinary working time or overtime depends on the employee's scheduled shift and total hours worked — but for a rotating shift operation such as a workshop, a hotel or a 24-hour facility, the 50% night uplift is not in play.

Rest-day work and the substitute day

Where an employee works on a contractual rest day, the law provides for either a substitute day of rest orthe day's normal remuneration plus at least 50% of the basic wage. It is an alternative, not a combination — and it is a day-based entitlement rather than an hourly uplift, which is why this calculator does not model it. Presenting rest-day work as automatically attracting both a premium and a day in lieu is one of the more common errors in UAE payroll.

Working hours and the daily limit

The UAE Government states normal working hours as 8 hours a day or 48 hours a week for private-sector employees, and that overtime should not exceed two hours in one day. Other limits, break entitlements, weekly rest and the categories of employee who fall outside the working-hours provisions are set out in the law and its implementing regulations; check those, or ask MOHRE, for anything beyond the daily limit.

Where payroll usually goes wrong

• Deriving the hourly rate from gross salary instead of basic, which overstates every overtime line.
• Applying the night uplift to shift workers whose roster already covers those hours.
• Paying a rest-day premium and granting a day in lieu, where the law offers a choice between them.
• Recording overtime in whole days rather than hours, so the two-hour daily limit is never visible.
• Leaving overtime outside the WPS salary file, so the transferred amount does not match the payslip.

Most of these come from the same root cause: overtime hours are collected on paper or in a spreadsheet, away from the attendance record that produced them. Where fingerprint or facial recognition terminals feed the HR system directly, the hours arrive already split into ordinary and night bands against each employee's own shift pattern, and the two-hour daily limit is visible before payroll closes rather than after. Our HR and payroll platform covers that path from biometric device to payslip to WPS file.