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But Ministerial Resolution 340 is only one of two 2026 changes that reshape UAE private-sector pay compliance. This article walks through both — the 1 June 2026 payday rule and the AED 6,000 Emirati minimum wage — with the dates that matter and an HR action checklist at the end.
Ministerial Resolution No. 340 of 2026 (issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, MOHRE) came into force on 1 June 2026. It applies to establishments registered with MOHRE and repeals Ministerial Resolution No. 598 of 2022 — and with it the 15-day window after the due date that employers had been relying on for years. Article 4 lists a short set of exclusions, among them banks and financial institutions, places of worship, seafarers and mission work permits of up to three months.
The substantive change is a single unified due date: wages for the previous Gregorian month must be transferred through the WPS (Wage Protection System) on the first day of the new month. The resolution contains no carve-out for weekends, public holidays, or banking cut-offs: any payment made after the 1st is deemed a delay. 1 June 2026 was a Monday, but 1 November 2026 is a Sunday — that payroll has to be sent before the weekend, not after it.
Two practical points in the resolution are worth knowing:
The 15-day grace that used to buffer late payrolls in earlier WPS rules is gone.
The strictest part of the new UAE labour law in 2026 is how aggressively MOHRE escalates after a missed deadline. Here is the timeline private-sector HR teams need pinned to the wall in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and every other emirate:
| Day after due date | What MOHRE does |
|---|---|
| Day 2 | Notifications and alerts to the non-compliant establishment to pay the wages (electronic monitoring starts on the due date itself) |
| Day 5 | Suspension of new work-permit issuance against the establishment |
| Day 11 | Where the violation is repeated within six months: the administrative fine under Cabinet Resolution No. 21 of 2020 and reclassification into MOHRE's Third Category |
| Day 16 | For establishments with 25 or more workers (or same-owner groups with 25+ unpaid workers in construction, transport and storage, security, cleaning, recruitment agencies or domestic-worker recruitment offices): automatic registration of an individual or collective labour dispute and suspension of work-permit issuance |
| Day 21 | Executive instrument for the unpaid wages (fewer than 50 workers) or collective labour dispute procedures (50 or more); precautionary attachment; travel ban on the person in charge; notification of the Public Prosecution where the establishment has more than 50 workers and repeats the violation within two consecutive months |
The day-21 measures target larger and repeat offenders, or cases MOHRE treats as a risk to labour-market stability, but the day-5 suspension of new work permits applies to every non-compliant establishment. For a Dubai mid-size company with a hiring pipeline, having new work permits frozen because a payroll was still unpaid on the fifth day after the 1st is the immediate business risk to plan around.
The WPS registration, salary-file corrections and MOHRE contract updates these rules demand are filed by the company's PRO. Sarmat trains and certifies those people in Dubai: the Certified PRO Officer Program is KHDA-certified, runs three days and 15+ hours in person in Deira, and costs AED 2,890.
Don’t want to figure this out alone? Sarmat is a KHDA-certified training provider and registered typing centre in Deira, Dubai. Message us on WhatsApp — we answer questions like this every day.
The second piece of new UAE salary laws in 2026 is the AED 6,000 per month Emirati minimum wage, which came into force on 1 January 2026 under a MOHRE decision announced on 31 December 2025. Three dates matter:
For private-sector employers with 50 or more employees, this combines uncomfortably with the Emiratisation target: 2% a year in skilled jobs, reaching 10% by the end of 2026. The cost of leaving an Emirati hire at AED 5,500 in 2026 is no longer "pay the gap when we get around to it" — it is "lose Emiratisation credit on this hire and have new work permits suspended until we fix it."
There is still no statutory cross-sector minimum wage for non-Emirati workers in the UAE private sector. Article 27 of Federal Decree-Law 33 of 2021 lets the Cabinet set one, but the Labour Law itself stipulates no minimum salary. Recruiters who advertise "the UAE minimum wage" to overseas candidates are quoting company policy, not statute.
The new UAE labour law 2026 framework is the enforcement layer on top of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, which remains the substantive statute. The Article 51 gratuity formula (21 days of basic per year for the first five, 30 days from year six, capped at two years' wage) is unchanged. The Article 9 probation rules are unchanged. The Article 4 anti-discrimination protections are unchanged.
What has changed is the cost of getting any of these wrong. Federal Decree-Law No. 9 of 2024 (announced by MOHRE in August 2024) raised the fines for unlicensed employment, misused work permits and closing a business without settling workers' dues from AED 50,000–200,000 to AED 100,000–1 million, multiplied by the number of workers in fictitious-employment cases. Ministerial Resolution 340 of 2026 closes the WPS timing gap. The cumulative posture is: the rules you already know are now being policed by automated systems that surface breaches in days, not months.
For a fuller treatment of the underlying FDL 33/2021 framework, the UAE labour law 2026 HR briefing covers the six compliance pillars (gratuity, WPS, Emiratisation, remote work, probation/termination, anti-discrimination) and includes an interactive gratuity calculator. This article is the news-side companion — focused on what is actually new in 2026.
If your payroll calendar still assumes a 15-day post-due grace, here is the minimum set of actions to take before the next pay cycle:
Ministerial Resolution No. 340 of 2026 took effect on 1 June 2026. From that date, private-sector salaries for the previous Gregorian month must be paid through the WPS by the first day of the new month, with no 15-day grace period.
No. The AED 6,000 minimum wage applies to Emirati nationals in the private sector. There is still no statutory minimum wage for non-Emirati workers: the Labour Law stipulates no minimum salary, although Article 27 lets the Cabinet set one.
MOHRE escalates by day after the due date: notifications from day 2; new work permits suspended on day 5; on day 11 the administrative fine and Third Category reclassification where the violation is repeated within six months; on day 16 an automatically registered labour dispute and a halt to work-permit issuance for establishments with 25 or more workers; on day 21, for larger and repeat offenders or where MOHRE sees a risk to labour-market stability, an executive instrument for the unpaid wages, precautionary attachment, a travel ban on the person in charge and, for repeat violations at establishments with more than 50 workers, notification of the Public Prosecution.
Yes. Under Article 2 an establishment is deemed compliant if it transfers at least 85 per cent of the total wages due by the due date. It is a compliance measure, not a discount: every worker is still owed the full wage, and an individual shortfall is accepted only where it comes from lawful deductions.
Article 4 excludes, among others: workers whose wage claim has been referred to court, workers with an active absconding report, workers on approved unpaid leave, seafarers, foreign workers of foreign establishments who are paid outside the UAE, holders of mission work permits of up to three months, banks and financial institutions, places of worship, and fishing boats and public taxis owned by individual citizens.
Resolution 340 does not mention employment contracts or ask for them to be reissued; it sets the first of the month as the due date by regulation. If a contract or company policy names a later payday, work to the 1st and check with MOHRE or a legal adviser whether the contract should be amended. For Emirati employees below AED 6,000, salaries had to be raised to the new floor by 30 June 2026, and MOHRE called on establishments to amend those employees' employment contracts to match.
Your HR team can pick up the new UAE salary laws 2026 framework by trial and error — one MOHRE warning, one suspended work permit, one arbitration ruling at a time — or it can take a single day. Sarmat's KHDA-certified UAE Labour Law Training works through Federal Decree-Law 33 of 2021 in real workplace scenarios: employment contracts, probation, leave, WPS compliance, end-of-service gratuity, warnings and termination, and MOHRE disputes. It is taught by HR and legal practitioners who have faced Labour Ministry audits and untangled payroll disputes themselves. Participants leave with a certificate of completion, a reference copy of the UAE Labour Law to keep, and practical take-home tools to cut compliance risk before the next payroll cycle.
For a payday-readiness check on your establishment file, send the case to our team on WhatsApp and we will tell you honestly whether training, advisory, or both is the right next move.
If you have a payroll cycle landing in the next 30 days, the cheapest fix is one day of proper labour-law training, not another warning letter. Book your seat on the next cohort of the UAE Labour Law Training programme, or send your specific compliance question to our team on WhatsApp.
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