What Needs to Be in a DIFC Employment Contract

Taking on staff in the Dubai International Financial Centre for the first time is unfamiliar territory for most UK businesses, and the contract is where that unfamiliarity tends to show. DIFC Employment Law No. 2 of 2019 sets out a specific list of terms a written contract must include, and treats several of them as minimums that cannot be reduced even if both sides agree to it. This guide explains what a DIFC employment contract actually needs to cover, where a UK template usually falls short, and what to check before you issue one.

What Must Be in a DIFC Employment Contract?

A DIFC employment contract has to be in writing, in English, and given to the employee within seven days of them starting work. DIFC Employment Law No. 2 of 2019 requires it to set out:

• Job title and a description of duties
• Start date and, where relevant, probation period
• Remuneration and how it is paid
• Working hours
• Holiday entitlement
• Notice period
• Place of work

These are treated as mandatory minimums. If a clause gives an employee less than the law requires, that clause is void, regardless of what both parties signed. A DIFC employment contract that is vague about notice or leave entitlement does not fail outright, but it leaves room for a dispute later about what was actually agreed, and that ambiguity tends to resolve in the employee’s favour.

Probation Periods Under a DIFC Employment Contract

DIFC law allows a probation period of up to six months. During that time, either party can end the employment relationship on shorter notice than the standard period would require, but only if the DIFC employment contract sets that out clearly.

If the contract is silent on probation, the standard notice period applies from day one. That catches out a fair number of employers who assumed a shorter notice period during probation was automatic, when it depends entirely on what the contract says.

Notice Periods in a DIFC Employment Contract

Notice periods run on a sliding scale tied to length of service, generally starting at seven days for each year worked once someone has been employed for less than three years, and increasing from there. A contract can set a longer notice period than the statutory minimum. It cannot set a shorter one.

Worth checking your template actually reflects the current minimum rather than a figure that was correct a few years ago. The law has been amended more than once since 2019, and an outdated notice clause in a DIFC employment contract is one of the more common issues we see when reviewing existing paperwork.

Why a UK Employment Contract Does Not Work in the DIFC

The usual approach, take a UK contract template and swap the jurisdiction clause for Dubai, misses provisions the DIFC law specifically requires. A few things a standard UK contract typically gets wrong for a DIFC employment contract:

• Governing law and jurisdiction clauses need to point to DIFC law and the DIFC Courts, not England and Wales
• End of service arrangements need to reflect the DIFC Employee Workplace Savings scheme, DEWS, rather than the gratuity model most UK templates assume
• Restrictive covenants, non-competes and non-solicitation clauses in particular, are treated differently under DIFC law than under English law

For support beyond the contract itself, our employment law in the DIFC team can advise on the wider picture.

What Sits Alongside Your DIFC Employment Contract

The written contract is only part of the picture. Most employers also need an employee handbook covering working hours, sick leave, conduct expectations and disciplinary procedure in more detail than the contract sets out.

Without one, managers and employees end up working from different assumptions about how day to day policy actually applies, and that gap tends to become visible at exactly the wrong moment, mid dispute rather than before one starts.

Final Thought

A DIFC employment contract that meets the statutory minimums on paper is not the same as one that has actually been checked against them. The gap between the two usually only becomes visible once a notice period, a probation clause or an end of service calculation is challenged.

If your business needs a DIFC employment contract drafted or reviewed, MAR Legal can help with practical, commercially focused advice.

Contact MAR Legal today to discuss your DIFC employment contract.