Overtime pay in Saudi Arabia and the UAE: how to check the extra hour was paid
The cap on hours is in the statute, not in a line that says the salary includes everything. In Saudi Arabia an overtime hour is the hourly wage plus 50% of the basic. In the UAE the premium is at least 25%, and higher at night.
The quietest deduction is not a line on the payslip. It is an hour you work that is never counted. A contract sentence saying the salary “includes everything” does not cancel the cap in the law, and it does not turn the hours above that cap into volunteering.
Saudi Arabia: Article 98, then Article 107
Article 98, as the ministry publishes it in Arabic: you may not actually be worked more than eight hours a day if the daily standard is used, or forty-eight hours a week if the weekly standard is used. In Ramadan the hours for Muslims are reduced so they do not exceed six hours a day or thirty-six a week. Some English translations of an older file on the ministry site say nine and forty-five. The Arabic text on the ministry page is 8, 48, 6 and 36. Use that, not the translation.
Article 99 allows the Article 98 hours to be raised to nine for some categories, or for work that is not continuous, or lowered to seven for hazardous work, by a decision of the minister naming those categories. That is not a clause the employer writes alone into your contract.
Article 107: the employer pays, for overtime hours, an extra amount equal to the hourly wage plus 50% of the basic wage. If the wage the hour is taken from is the same as the basic, an overtime hour is one and a half ordinary hours. If your actual wage is higher than the basic, do not let the whole sum be built on the basic alone: the hour follows the wage, and the extra half follows the basic, which is what the article says. The daily wage payrolls usually use is monthly ÷ 30, and the hour is that ÷ 8 outside Ramadan. Hours on holidays and Eids are overtime by the article’s own words.
An example we chose, not a statistic: a basic wage of 30 riyals an hour, which is also the hourly wage. The overtime hour is 30 + 15 = 45 riyals. Ten overtime hours in a month is 450 riyals on top of the month’s wage. If the payslip shows the same salary and every day was twelve hours, the difference was not paid.
The UAE: Article 17, then Article 19
The private-sector cap is eight hours a day and 48 a week, two hours less per day during Ramadan, and one paid weekly rest day. Overtime is the ordinary hourly wage plus not less than 25% of that wage. Between 10pm and 4am the premium rises to not less than 50%, except for shift workers. The detail and the weekly rest are in the UAE hours guide.
An example: an ordinary hour of 20 dirhams. A daytime overtime hour is not less than 25 dirhams. If 20 was paid, the five are due, not a rounding.
What to keep
- A daily note: date, start, finish, and a rest day if you worked it.
- A photo of the attendance screen if there is one.
- The posted rota, photographed.
- A payslip that shows no overtime line despite the hours.
If you are offered “a day instead of the hours” rather than money, write the agreement down if you accept it, and do not rely on a spoken promise. The Saudi article speaks of pay. Any swap is read against the current text, not against custom in the accommodation. How to record hours is in the hours guide. A deduction on the slip with no reason is in the deductions guide.
The exceptions — senior posts of authority, preparatory work — are in the law. They do not cover a site labourer, a driver or a cook because someone called him a supervisor on WhatsApp. Check the two articles on the ministry site, and the decree on the legislation portal, before a complaint.
The daily standard and the weekly standard are not both used against you
Article 98 gives the employer one of two standards: the day or the week, not both at once however it suits. If the week is used, anything over 48 hours in the week is overtime even if some days were shorter. If the day is used, anything over 8 in the day is overtime. Ask which standard is in the contract or the work rules, and count on that. A 12-hour shift does not become ordinary because the weekly average “comes out fine”, if the daily standard is the one in force and no ministerial exception was issued.
The break between stretches of work is not an hour of work, and the weekly rest day is not a day whose wage is cut because the site “had no shift”. Work on the rest day is written down and asked about as overtime or as time in lieu. It is not forgotten because a supervisor said “we will make it up”. Compensation that is not on the payslip did not happen.
Sources
Rules and fees change and differ by country and employer. Always check with the official authorities before paying or signing anything.