2026-07-23
The UAE Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation has published the list of situations in which an employee who is hurt at work receives no compensation from the employer. Six grounds are named, and all of them turn on one idea: the injury has to be an accident of work, not the result of the worker’s own deliberate act. In the same clarification, issued on 2026-07-23, the ministry restated two obligations that fall on the employer side of the same file. Compensation must be paid within a maximum of 10 days from the issue of the medical report that fixes the degree of disability, and the employment relationship of an injured worker cannot be terminated until every entitlement has been settled. For any company employing staff in the Emirates, that combination, narrow grounds for refusal plus a hard payment deadline, is the operative part of the news.
The six grounds MoHRE listed
The ministry set out the cases in which an employee is not entitled to compensation for a work injury as follows:
- The employee intentionally caused the injury to himself or herself, for any reason.
- The injury occurred while the employee was under the influence of alcohol, narcotics or other mind-altering substances.
- The injury resulted from a deliberate violation of preventive instructions displayed prominently at the workplace, as specified in the Executive Regulations of the law.
- The injury resulted from intentional misconduct on the part of the employee.
- The employee refused, without a valid reason, to undergo a medical examination or to follow the treatment prescribed by the competent medical authority.
- The competent authorities established that the injury occurred because the employee deliberately breached workplace safety instructions displayed in visible locations.
The last two items on that list are worth reading together with the third. UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 on the regulation of employment relations groups the substantive grounds in Article 38 and attaches a procedural condition to them: the ground has to be established through investigation by the competent authorities. In practice this means an employer cannot simply assert that a worker was reckless and stop paying. The exclusion has to be proved, and the burden sits with the party claiming it.
The condition employers usually miss
The exclusion for breach of preventive instructions has a built-in prerequisite. The instructions must be announced and displayed in a prominent, visible place at the worksite, in a form the workforce can actually read. Where a company has never posted them, or has posted them only in a language most of its staff does not read, the ground is difficult to rely on. The same logic runs through the ministry’s occupational health and safety requirements: training, briefing and documented instruction are employer duties first, and only then a basis for limiting liability.
This is a compliance point rather than a legal technicality. Free zone and mainland employers alike are expected to hold safety documentation, incident logs and evidence of worker briefings. If a dispute reaches MoHRE or the labour courts, those records are what turn an assertion into a proven case.
What the employer owes when the injury is covered
When none of the six grounds applies, the obligations are specific and time-bound:
- Report the injury to MoHRE and, where required, to the police, within 48 hours of the incident.
- Cover the full cost of treatment: hospitalisation, surgery, diagnostics, medication, rehabilitation, prosthetics and transport related to care.
- Pay the employee full wages during the treatment period for up to six months.
- If treatment continues beyond six months, pay half wages for a further six months, or until the worker recovers, a disability is confirmed or death occurs, whichever comes first.
- Pay the compensation itself within 10 days of the medical report determining the degree of disability.
Compensation is calculated on the employee’s most recent basic salary. Under Cabinet Resolution No. 33 of 2022, death and permanent total disability are compensated at 24 months of basic salary, subject to a floor of AED 18,000 and a ceiling of AED 200,000. Permanent partial disability is calculated by applying the percentage of disability set by the medical committee to that same 24-month figure, within the same floor and ceiling. Compensation is separate from end-of-service gratuity and any other accrued entitlements, which remain payable in full.
The termination rule
The ministry’s restatement of the termination ban is the point most likely to catch employers out. An injured employee’s contract cannot be ended, and the employment relationship cannot be cancelled, until all entitlements arising from the injury have been paid. Ending the relationship first and settling later is not an available sequence. Nor does an employee’s own resignation before the medical committee reports strip away the entitlement: the rights are still determined by the committee’s findings once they are issued.
For companies planning restructuring, project completion or visa cancellations, this creates a practical dependency. An open injury file freezes the exit process for that individual until the medical report is issued and payment is made. Building that timeline into workforce planning is far cheaper than discovering it at the point of cancellation.
What this means for business in the UAE
The rules themselves are not new; the value of the ministry’s clarification is that it draws a clean line for both sides. Three practical consequences follow.
Documentation is the deciding factor. Refusing compensation on one of the six grounds requires proof established by the competent authorities. Posted safety instructions, signed briefings, training records, incident reports filed within 48 hours and medical referrals are what carry that burden.
Insurance does not remove the obligation. Workmen’s compensation cover is standard practice and, for many licences and visa quotas, effectively expected. It funds the payment; it does not transfer the statutory duty or the 10-day deadline. The employer remains the obligor.
Sector exposure varies sharply. Construction, logistics, industrial services, hospitality and facilities management carry the highest injury frequency. Companies operating in those activities should treat occupational health and safety compliance as a licensing-level matter rather than an internal policy question, particularly when scaling headcount quickly.
A short compliance checklist for employers in the Emirates:
- Post preventive and safety instructions in visible locations, in languages the workforce reads.
- Keep dated records of safety briefings and training for every employee.
- Report any work injury to MoHRE within 48 hours and retain the filing confirmation.
- Track the medical committee timeline and diarise the 10-day payment deadline from the report date.
- Hold visa cancellation and termination steps until entitlements are settled.
- Review whether workmen’s compensation cover matches actual headcount and activity risk.
How Atlant Capital can help
Most of what sits behind these rules is set up long before an incident happens: the licensed activities a company holds, the structure it employs staff through, and the visa and permit files it maintains. We work with that layer. If you are building a workforce in the Emirates, our team handles company setup in the mainland and free zones and the employment infrastructure that follows, including work permits, work visas and residency for staff and their families. Where a company is entering a higher-risk activity, we help align the licence, the establishment card and the employee files so that the compliance obligations are met from day one rather than reconstructed after the fact. For the residency side of the same picture, our UAE residency visa guide sets out how the permits and status of employees fit together.
The bottom line
MoHRE has narrowed the argument to six proven grounds for refusing work injury compensation, and reinforced the two employer duties that surround them: payment within 10 days of the medical report, and no termination before entitlements are settled. Employers who post their safety instructions, document their briefings, report incidents inside 48 hours and hold their exit processes until settlement will rarely find themselves in a dispute. Those who do not will find the six grounds much harder to invoke than they look.
Source: Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, reported 2026-07-23; UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 and Cabinet Resolution No. 33 of 2022.
