UAE Overtime Pay Calculator

Calculate UAE overtime pay in seconds

Overtime stops being simple the moment more than one rate is involved. An hour worked late on a Tuesday, an hour worked at 11 PM and an hour worked on a rest day are all overtime, and all three are paid differently. Add a month of mixed shifts and the arithmetic gets tedious enough that people either approximate it or argue about it.

The calculator above does the tedious part. It takes the basic monthly salary, converts it to an hourly wage, applies the right multiplier to each category of hours and shows you the breakdown as well as the total. It is useful for an employee checking a payslip, an HR team sizing up a month of approved overtime and a payroll team validating a query.

What it produces is an estimate built on the method described on this page. It is a starting point for a conversation with HR or payroll, not a substitute for one.

What is overtime pay in the UAE?

Overtime refers to hours worked beyond normal working hours. Because those extra hours sit outside the arrangement the salary was set against, they are generally compensated at a higher rate than the ordinary hourly wage.

Not all overtime is treated the same way. Additional daytime hours, hours worked during the night period and hours worked on a rest day or public holiday can each attract a different rate, which is why this calculator keeps them in separate fields rather than asking for one total.

Eligibility is a separate question from rate. Whether a particular employee is entitled to overtime, and on what basis, can depend on the employment contract, the role and its classification, the working arrangement and the provisions that apply to that situation. A calculator cannot see any of that, so treat the rates below as the calculation basis used here rather than a universal entitlement.

UAE overtime rates used by this calculator

How UAE overtime pay is calculated

The method has three steps, and each category of overtime goes through all three on its own before anything is added together.

1. Step 1

   Work out the hourly wage

   Divide the basic monthly salary by 30, then by 8. That gives the value of a single ordinary working hour.

   Basic monthly salary / 30 / 8

2. Step 2

   Pick the multiplier for the category

   Standard overtime uses 1.25. Night overtime uses 1.50. Rest day and public holiday work uses 1.50.

   1.25 (standard), 1.50 (night), 1.50 (rest day or holiday)

3. Step 3

   Multiply by the hours, then add the categories together

   Each category produces its own amount. The total overtime pay is the sum of those amounts, which is why hours entered in the wrong category change the answer.

   Hourly wage x hours x multiplier, per category

A worked example

Take an employee on a basic monthly salary of AED 6,000 who worked 10 standard overtime hours, 5 night overtime hours and 8 hours on a rest day.

Is overtime calculated on basic salary or gross salary?

This calculator uses basic monthly salary. Housing allowance, transport allowance, other allowances, bonuses and commissions are excluded from the estimate, which is why the figure it produces is usually lower than one worked out from a full package.

That distinction matters more than it looks. In many UAE packages the basic component is a fraction of the total, so calculating an hourly wage from the gross figure can overstate overtime substantially.

Overtime during Ramadan

Working hours may be reduced during Ramadan under applicable rules. Shorter standard hours change the point at which the working day ends, and therefore the point at which overtime begins, so the same shift pattern can produce a different number of overtime hours than it would in another month.

The calculator applies no Ramadan adjustment. It always works the hourly wage out on a 8 hour day, and it uses the overtime hours you enter exactly as you typed them. What Ramadan changes is which of your hours counted as overtime in the first place, and that is a judgement about your own working pattern rather than something a rate can capture.

So the step that matters happens before you reach this page. Work out how many hours you worked beyond the reduced working day that applied to you, then enter that figure in the relevant category above.

Arrangements are not identical everywhere. How reduced hours are applied can vary between employers, roles and working patterns, so confirm the arrangement that applied before deciding which hours count.

Rest day and public holiday overtime

Work performed on a scheduled rest day or a public holiday may attract a different compensation rate from ordinary overtime, which is why it has its own field above.

Compensation can also take a different form. Depending on the applicable requirements and the circumstances, rest day or holiday work may be settled through additional payment, or through a substitute day off, or through some combination agreed with the employer.

This calculator estimates the monetary component only. It does not determine whether a substitute day off was granted, whether one is required, or which arrangement applies to a given case. If a rest day was compensated with time rather than money, the amount shown here is not what is owed.

Who can use this calculator?

Common overtime calculation mistakes

Most overtime disputes come down to one of a handful of avoidable errors rather than a disagreement about the law.

• Using gross salary instead of basic salary

  Housing, transport and other allowances often make up a large share of a package. Feeding the gross figure into an hourly rate inflates every category at once.

• Applying one multiplier to everything

  Standard, night and rest day hours are not interchangeable. Running all of them at 125%, or all of them at 150%, is the most common source of a mismatch.

• Merging the categories before calculating

  Adding night and rest day hours into the standard bucket to save a step loses the distinction the multipliers exist to capture.

• Entering total hours worked

  These fields want the additional hours only. Entering the full shift length counts normal working hours as overtime.

• Skipping company policy

  Internal policy, shift arrangements and contractual terms can all sit on top of the general position, and they vary between employers.

• Ignoring employee-specific exceptions

  Role, classification and working arrangement can change whether overtime applies at all, and a calculator cannot see any of that.

• Treating an estimate as a final entitlement

  A figure produced here is a working number for a conversation, not a payroll instruction.

• Forgetting the substitute day off

  Rest day and holiday work is sometimes compensated with time rather than money. A monetary estimate does not know which arrangement applied.

When should businesses automate overtime tracking?

A calculator is fine for one person and one month. It stops being fine when overtime is spread across shifts, sites and approval chains, and someone has to reconcile all of it before a payroll cut-off.

That is usually the point at which an HRMS earns its place, because the overtime figure stops being something to calculate and becomes something the system already knows.

• Capture attendance from the source rather than a spreadsheet at month end.
• Track overtime hours by category as they happen, not in arrears.
• Route overtime requests through the approval path you already use.
• Apply your configured overtime rules consistently across teams and locations.
• Cut the manual recalculation that repeats every payroll cycle.
• Reduce the correction and rework that follows a payroll error.
• Keep an auditable record of what was worked, approved and paid.
• Give finance visibility into where overtime cost is actually building up.
• Hand approved overtime straight to payroll instead of re-keying it.

HONO connects attendance, overtime approvals and payroll in one place, so approved hours reach payroll in the category they were recorded in. If overtime is currently reconciled in a spreadsheet at the end of every cycle, that is the part worth looking at first.