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UAE compliance · MoHRE · Nafis

The target is on skilled roles, not on headcount.

Total employees decides which regime an establishment is in. The percentage is charged on skilled roles alone, and the two numbers are rarely close. Getting them the wrong way round either over-provisions by a multiple or produces a shortfall discovered on 1 July.

Last reviewed

The establishment

No Nafis subsidy field, deliberately. Wage support, pension top-ups and training subsidies reduce what compliance costs. They do not change what it requires, and an employer sizing a shortfall should see the gross number before the offsets.

Annual contribution if unfilled

AED 480,000

4 positions short, at AED 10,000 a month each.

Regime50 or more employees
Target share of skilled roles10%
120 skilled × 10%12.00
Emiratis required12
Currently employed8
Current share of skilled roles6.67%
Shortfall4
Monthly contributionAED 40,000
AnnualisedAED 480,000

Notes on this calculation

  • Counted against skilled roles, not total headcount. Total headcount decides only whether the establishment is in this tier at all.

An estimate for planning, not a determination. The MoHRE establishment dashboard is the assessment of record.

An estimate for planning, not a determination. The MoHRE establishment dashboard is the assessment of record, and it reads the skilled classification off the work permits rather than off a form.

The rate, and why two numbers are circulating

AED 10,000 a month per unfilled position, from 1 July 2026.

A great deal of current guidance says AED 9,000. That is the 2025 figure, still in circulation. MoHRE stated AED 10,000 a month — AED 120,000 a year — ahead of the 30 June 2026 deadline, and two independent checks agree with it: the escalation set out in Ministerial Resolution No. 279 of 2022 starts at AED 6,000 and rises AED 1,000 a year, which reaches AED 10,000 in 2026; and the flat annual amounts published for smaller establishments were AED 96,000 for 2024 and AED 108,000 for 2025, which are 8,000 and 9,000 times twelve.

The rate is held here as a dated table rather than a constant, so a figure from an earlier year produces that year's answer rather than quietly producing this year's.

What this page could not retrieve. The ministry's own site refused every request made while this was written, so everything attributed to MoHRE here comes through news reporting of its statements. The resolution texts were not retrieved either. The rounding convention and the list of fourteen sectors are the two things to confirm against them.

What counts as a skilled role

  • The role sits in professional levels 1 to 5.
  • The worker holds a certificate above secondary level, attested by the competent authority.
  • Monthly basic salary is at least AED 4,000.

All three conditions, not any of them. Manual trades, drivers, security and cleaning roles sit outside the definition and therefore outside the denominator.

One secondary source restricts this to levels 1 to 3. The UAE government platform gives levels 1 to 5, which is what is used here.

What most calculations get wrong

Five things worth knowing before you budget for a shortfall.

01

Two headcounts, and they are not the same number

Total employees decides which regime applies — nothing below twenty, a fixed number of hires from twenty to forty-nine, a percentage at fifty and above. The percentage itself is charged on skilled roles only. A two-hundred-person contractor with thirty skilled roles owes against thirty. Reading the target off total headcount over-provisions by a factor of six, and reading the threshold off skilled roles takes an establishment out of a regime it is in.

The error runs in both directions, and only one of them is discovered before July.

02

The target rises twice a year, not once

Two points a year, one by 30 June and one by 31 December, reaching ten per cent of skilled roles by the end of 2026. An establishment that plans annually is compliant in December and short in June — and the contribution for a missed half-year begins accruing from the first of the following month rather than at the year end.

03

A fractional position rounds up

One hundred and twenty skilled roles at nine per cent is 10.8, which is eleven Emiratis. A tenth of a person cannot be hired and the ministry does not pro-rate the contribution for the fraction. Any model that rounds to nearest, or truncates, is short by one position for most of the year — which at the current rate is AED 120,000.

04

Twenty to forty-nine is a headcount rule, and only in fourteen sectors

Smaller establishments in fourteen named economic sectors carry a fixed obligation — one Emirati from 2024 and two from 2025 — rather than a percentage. Outside those sectors, an establishment of that size carries nothing. Whether a business is inside the list is a classification question on its own establishment file, and it is the whole question at that size.

05

Reducing the workforce to duck the target is its own offence

Cabinet Resolution No. 95 of 2022 penalises establishments that cut headcount, reclassify roles or use fictitious Emiratisation to appear compliant, at AED 20,000 to AED 100,000 per employee, with Nafis benefits suspended and subsidies recovered. It is not modelled here because it is a sanction for fraud rather than a planning input — but a plan that gets to the target by reclassifying skilled roles has walked into it.

2026 is the last year of the announced schedule. The programme was set at two points a year to reach ten per cent of skilled roles by the end of 2026. What applies from 2027 has not been published. This page carries a forty-five day review interval for that reason, and a projection past December 2026 is an assumption rather than a target.

Sources

  1. MoHRE reaffirms the 30 June deadline for H1 2026 targets, and the AED 10,000 monthly contribution from 1 July 2026 — Zawya, reporting MoHRE
  2. Private firms face AED 120,000 per Emirati not hired if targets are missed by 30 June — Gulf News
  3. MoHRE urges firms to meet Emiratisation targets ahead of 30 June — the 9% minimum rising to 10% by year end — Gulf News
  4. MoHRE begins implementing Emiratisation targets on companies with 20–49 employees in fourteen sectors — Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation
  5. Ministerial Decision No. 279 of 2022 — monitoring Emiratisation ratios and the contributions imposed for non-compliance — Lexis Middle East
  6. UAE monitoring mechanism for Emiratisation rates in the private sector — Gulf Labour Markets and Migration (GLMM)
  7. Emiratisation on track with 190,000 Emiratis employed in the private sector — The National

A shortfall is a monthly accrual, not an annual fine.

The contribution runs per position per month from the day after the deadline, so it belongs in the ledger as it accrues rather than as a provision someone remembers in December. The skilled classification that drives it has to be a field on the employee record, because that is the number the target is charged on.

The other UAE payroll liabilityBook a scoping call