Where things stand right now — as of 22 August 2026. The UAE Government Media Office has announced Friday 28 August as a paid public holiday for Prophet Mohammed’s birthday, for the public and private sectors alike. The birthday itself falls on Tuesday 25 August; the holiday sits on the Friday. For anyone on a Saturday–Sunday weekend that makes a three-day break. Everything below the box is the law, not the calendar — it applies to every public holiday, this year and next.
The short answer: you are entitled to the day off on full pay, and if your employer needs you to work it, you get either a replacement day off or your normal day’s wage plus at least 50 per cent of your basic wage for that day. Which of the two you receive is the employer’s call, not yours.
That sentence contains the detail most often misread, and it is worth slowing down on: UAE public holiday pay is calculated on your basic wage, not your total package. The law says so in as many words, and on any package that splits a basic wage from separate allowances those are two different numbers.
The rules come from Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Employment Relationships, published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation. We have quoted it directly below rather than paraphrasing summaries of it.
Am I entitled to a paid day off on a public holiday?
Yes. Article 28(1) is one sentence long: “The worker shall be entitled to official days off with full pay on public holidays, which are defined by a resolution of the Cabinet.”
Two things follow from that wording. Full pay means the day is not deducted and not offset against your annual leave. And the Cabinet defines which days count — an employer cannot decide that a given holiday does not apply to its staff, and cannot substitute a day of its own choosing.
The official list on the UAE Government portal covers Gregorian New Year, Eid Al Fitr, Arafah Day, Eid Al Adha, Hijri New Year, Prophet Mohammed’s birthday and National Day, and it states plainly that these apply to “both, public and private sectors”. The Islamic dates move each year because they follow the moon sighting, which is why the exact date is announced rather than fixed in advance.
My employer needs me to work that day — what am I owed?
Article 28(2) sets out exactly two acceptable outcomes. If work conditions require you to work a public holiday, the employer shall compensate you with another day off for each day worked, or pay you the wage for that day at the normal working-day rate, plus an increase of not less than 50 per cent of the basic wage for that day.
Read the structure carefully, because it decides most disputes:
- It is one or the other, not both. A replacement day off satisfies the law on its own.
- “Not less than” is a floor, not a rate. Fifty per cent is the minimum; a company may pay more, and some do.
- The choice sits with the employer. Nothing in the article gives the worker the right to pick.
- It is per day worked. Two holiday days worked means two replacement days, or the uplift twice.
Is the 50 per cent on my whole salary or just basic pay?
Basic pay. The law says “fifty percent of the basic wage for that day”, and that qualifier is deliberate — it appears the same way in the overtime provisions.
This is where expectation and entitlement part company. Where a package is split between a basic wage and separate allowances — housing and transport are the usual ones — the uplift is worked out on the basic figure alone. We are not putting a typical split on that, because it is set contract by contract and we have no verified figure for the market. Yours is on your own contract, and it is the only one that counts.
Before you raise anything, find the basic-wage line on your contract or payslip. It is the number the whole calculation turns on, and it is also the number that drives end-of-service gratuity, so it is worth knowing regardless. Our UAE salary guide covers how packages in this market are typically split.
What if the holiday falls on my weekly day off?
Here the answer sits in a Cabinet resolution rather than the labour law. The UAE Government portal cites Article 3 of Cabinet Resolution No. 27 of 2024: the public holiday cannot be transferred to another day where it coincides with another public holiday or falls on the weekend.
So a holiday landing on your existing rest day is not carried forward. The same resolution works the other way for a midweek occasion. Article 2 of it, as Khaleej Times reports the wording, provides that “Except for Eid holidays, the UAE Cabinet may, by issuing a resolution, move any of the public holidays to the beginning or end of the relevant week on which the concerned event falls.” That is why a religious date and the day off announced for it are frequently not the same day — in 2026, Prophet Mohammed’s birthday falls on Tuesday 25 August and the holiday was set for Friday 28 August.
A moved holiday is also not worth the same to everyone. Khaleej Times notes that public-sector employees in Sharjah already take Friday as part of their normal weekend, so a Friday public holiday adds no extra day off for them. The gain from a transfer depends entirely on which days your own weekend already covers.
Working your weekend is a separate entitlement with its own rule. Article 19(4) gives you another day off or your day’s wage plus not less than 50 per cent of basic wage — the same shape as the holiday rule — and Article 19(5) adds that you may not be required to work more than two consecutive weekend days, except for day workers. Article 21 guarantees the paid weekend itself: not less than one day.
Does this law actually apply to me?
Article 3 answers this and the answer surprises people. The law applies to all establishments, employers and workers in the UAE private sector. Three groups are expressly outside it:
- Employees of federal and local government entities
- Employees of the armed forces, police and security
- Domestic workers
The third one matters most in practice, because household staff are the workers most often assumed to be covered by the headline rules and are not. Domestic workers sit under separate legislation with its own terms, and a household employer applying Article 28 by analogy is guessing. Government employees are not left out in substance either — their holidays are set through their own authorities rather than this law.
Note also that some UAE free zones operate their own employment regimes rather than the federal one. If your contract names a free-zone authority, check the rules of the regime it names rather than assuming the federal position applies.
How is holiday pay different from overtime?
They are separate articles doing separate jobs, and conflating them is the most common source of a wrong expectation.
- Ordinary overtime (Article 19(2)) — the wage for the normal hours, calculated on basic wage, plus not less than 25 per cent.
- Overtime between 10pm and 4am (Article 19(3)) — basic wage plus not less than 50 per cent. Shift workers are excluded from this clause.
- A public holiday worked (Article 28(2)) — a replacement day off, or the day’s wage plus not less than 50 per cent of basic wage.
Article 19(1) also caps the hours themselves: overtime may not exceed two hours a day, and total working hours may not exceed 144 hours in any three weeks. That ceiling applies whatever the pay arrangement.
What if my contract gives me more than the law?
Then your contract governs, and this is written into the law rather than being a matter of goodwill. Article 65 states that the rights in the decree-law represent the minimum rights for workers, and that its provisions do not prejudice more favourable rights granted under any other legislation, agreement, regulation or employment contract.
Practically: if your contract or staff handbook promises double pay for holiday working, or a replacement day and an uplift, that is what you are owed. The law sets the floor and stops an employer going below it; it does not cap what a company chooses to offer. When you are checking a new offer, this is one of the clauses worth reading properly — our guide to hiring under UAE labour law sets out the same rules from the employer’s side.
Can my employer simply exempt my role from the holiday?
Some roles are handled differently, and the clearest published example is on the government side. Announcing the 2026 holiday for Dubai Government departments, the Dubai Government Human Resources Department stated that the holiday would not apply “to employees who work on a shift basis or whose duties involve serving the public or managing public service facilities”, with each entity setting working hours for those categories according to operational need.
Two things follow, and the distinction matters. That circular governs Dubai Government entities — it is not a private-sector rule, and it does not repeal anything in Article 28. If you are in the private sector and your employer requires you to work, the replacement-day-or-uplift entitlement still applies exactly as set out above.
What it does illustrate is that continuously-staffed work — shifts, public-facing counters, healthcare, aviation, hospitality, retail — is the category most likely to be working through a public holiday in the first place. If that is you, the question to settle in advance is not whether you will be off, but which of the two remedies you are getting.
What do I do if I am not paid correctly?
Work through it in order. Most cases are resolved well before the last step.
- Establish the facts first. Your contract’s basic-wage figure, the dates you actually worked, and what was paid or offered. A claim without those three is difficult to progress.
- Ask in writing. Email HR or your manager, name the article, and state which of the two remedies you are asking about. A written trail is what converts a conversation into a record.
- Confirm which remedy was applied. Article 28 is satisfied by a replacement day off just as much as by the uplift, so check your leave balance and the roster before concluding that nothing was given.
- Escalate to MOHRE. The Ministry handles private-sector labour complaints and publishes worker-rights guidance directly. Our step-by-step guide to the MOHRE complaint process covers what happens after you file.
One wording worth noting, because it is the article’s own: Article 28(2) is framed around work conditions requiring the worker to work the holiday. How that reads for a shift someone put their own name down for is not something the article spells out, and we are not going to fill that gap with a guess — if it is your situation, put it to MOHRE rather than to a comment thread.
What is the short version?
A public holiday is a paid day off, set by the Cabinet, for the private sector as much as the public one. Work it, and you get a replacement day or your day’s pay plus at least half your basic wage — employer’s choice, calculated on basic, not on your package. Domestic workers and government employees sit outside this law entirely. And whatever the law says, a contract that offers you more is the one that counts.
For what Eid Milad un Nabi actually marks, and how the rest of the Gulf treats it, see our explainer on the occasion itself. For the dates, see our calendar of UAE public holidays, and for how the Islamic dates are set — which is why several of them move each year — our guide to the Hijri calendar across the Gulf.
Last updated: 22 August 2026. We update this guide rather than replace it — the law below changes rarely, the dates above change every year.
Primary sources: the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation’s own text of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 and its amendments (Articles 3, 19, 21, 28 and 65), the UAE Government portal’s official public holidays page (which cites Cabinet Resolution No. 27 of 2024), MOHRE’s Dear Worker — Know Your Rights guidance and the Ministry’s own portal. The Cabinet’s power to move a public holiday to the beginning or end of its week (Article 2, Cabinet Resolution No. 27 of 2024) and the Sharjah weekend point are as reported by Khaleej Times; the Dubai Government Human Resources Department’s wording on exempt categories is from its separate report on the Dubai circular. Those, and the item below, are news reports and are cited as supporting rather than primary sources. The 28 August date was announced by the UAE Government Media Office and carried by The National.
