Institute for Migrant Rights
Railway line at Cianjur station, c. 1890 · KITLV, CC BY 4.0

Migration Jurisprudence from the South › United Arab Emirates

Gratuity before one year of service

UAE Court of Cassation (as reported) · United Arab Emirates · 2014-05 · National court

Citation: [case number to be added]
Type of case: Private
Outcome: Decided against the migrant side

Question

Is a worker who leaves before completing one year of service entitled to end-of-service gratuity?

What the court decided

No, as reported: under the 1980 Labour Law a full year of continuous service was required.

In plain language

A worker who left before a year asked for end-of-service pay. The court said the law then in force required a full year. The 2021 law keeps a one-year threshold. [Check.]

Dalam bahasa sederhana

Seorang pekerja yang berhenti sebelum setahun meminta pesangon. Pengadilan menyatakan UU yang berlaku saat itu mensyaratkan setahun penuh. UU 2021 tetap memakai batas satu tahun. [Periksa.]

Pertanyaan: Apakah pekerja yang berhenti sebelum genap setahun bekerja berhak atas pesangon?

What happened afterwards

  • 2014-05: Judgment reported.

Sources

Open this decision in the interactive collection (compare, filter, Indonesian view, downloads).

Cite as: Institute for Migrant Rights (2026), Migration Jurisprudence from the South, version 0.1, https://theimr.org/court-decisions/d/ae-gratuity-2014/. This page summarizes a court decision for research and advocacy; it is not legal advice.

For researchers

This collection of decisions is built for empirical legal scholarship and socio-legal research on migration and the rights of migrant workers, as well as for advocacy.

The coded variables support statistical analysis in law: cross-national comparison, regression and event-history designs, and law and economics questions such as how recruitment fees, wage protection and limits on changing employer affect migrant workers. The data can be downloaded for replication.

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