How is end-of-service gratuity calculated in Qatar?

Who is entitled, and what if you worked less than a year?

Any worker covered by the Labour Law who has completed a full year with the employer is entitled to the gratuity, whether they resigned or the employer ended the contract, unless they were dismissed under Article 61. The law counts a year as 365 days (Article 8).

If your service ends before a full year, no gratuity is owed under Article 54. Once you pass a full year, the gratuity covers your whole service, including the part-year at the end.

• - The Labour Law does not cover government employees, the armed forces and police, or domestic workers (Article 3). Domestic workers have their own law, Law No. 15 of 2017, whose Article 15 sets the same three-week minimum.
• - Law No. 9 of 2026 also excluded people working part-time or self-employed (العمل الحر), unless a Cabinet decision applies the law to them or sets a special scheme.
• - If your employer runs a pension or similar scheme that gives you more than the gratuity, it does not have to pay both (Article 56).
• - Qatari nationals under the Labour Law are also covered by the Social Insurance Law (Law No. 1 of 2022), so their position needs checking case by case.

What counts as "basic wage"?

The gratuity is calculated on your last basic wage, meaning your basic wage on the date the gratuity falls due (Articles 54 and 72). The law defines basic wage as the pay for your work, by time, piece or output, including annual increments and nothing else (Article 1).

• - Counts: the basic salary in your latest contract or amendment, plus annual increments.
• - Does not count: housing, transport, food and other allowances.
• - Does not count: bonuses, incentives and other additions, which are part of your total wage, not your basic wage.

If you are paid by the piece or by output, the law uses your average pay over the three months before the gratuity falls due (Article 72).

If your contract does not separate basic salary from allowances, or its figure differs from the basic salary you are actually paid, settle that first.

How are years and part-years counted?

The minimum is three weeks' basic wage for each year of service, which is 21 days' wage, plus a proportional share for any part of a year (Article 54).

1. 1

   1. Divide your monthly basic wage by 30 to get your daily wage.

2. 2

   2. Multiply the daily wage by 21 to get the gratuity for one year.

3. 3

   3. Work out your years of service, from your first day to your last, including any part-year.

4. 4

   4. Multiply the gratuity for one year by your years of service.

In short: gratuity = (monthly basic wage ÷ 30) × 21 × years of service. The law sets no separate daily-wage formula for the gratuity. The 30 comes from its rule that a month means 30 days (Article 8).

• - Service starts on your first day of work. If a fixed-term contract is renewed, or both sides carry on after it ends, service runs from the day you first joined (Article 40).
• - If your service ended for a reason outside Article 61 and you were taken back within two months, your service counts as continuous (Article 54).
• - Leave or absence allowed by law or agreement does not break your service (Article 1).

The calculator on this page counts actual days, so its result can differ by a few riyals from the rounded examples below.

What does that look like in numbers?

These examples use the legal minimum and round numbers.

In the second example only the QAR 4,000 basic wage counts, because allowances are left out.

A contract or company policy can give more than three weeks a year, never less (Article 54).

What can be deducted, and when must it be paid?

The employer may deduct from the gratuity any amounts you owe it (Article 54), such as the balance of a loan. If you leave without working your notice, you may owe compensation equal to your basic wage for the notice not worked (Article 49).

The employer must pay your wages and all your dues, including the gratuity, before the end of the working day after the contract ends. If you left without giving the required notice, the deadline is seven days from the day you left (Article 67).

Does it matter if you resign or are dismissed?

The Labour Law gives the same gratuity whether you resign or the employer ends the contract: Article 54 makes no reduction for resignation. The real exception is dismissal under Article 61.

• - You resign with notice: after probation, notice is one month in your first two years and two months after that (Article 49). The full gratuity is owed.
• - You leave without notice in a case listed in Article 51, such as the employer breaking its obligations, an assault on you, or a final committee decision in your favour: you keep the full gratuity.
• - You leave without notice in any other case: the gratuity is still owed, but notice compensation may be deducted from it.
• - The employer ends the contract with notice: the full gratuity is owed.
• - You are dismissed without notice in a case listed in Article 61, such as forged documents, disclosing business secrets, or unexcused absence of more than seven days in a row or fifteen in a year: the employer may withhold the gratuity. Law No. 9 of 2026 added inciting an unlawful strike that disrupts the business.

A worker can challenge a dismissal before the Labour Dispute Settlement Committee. If it finds the dismissal arbitrary or unlawful, it orders reinstatement with back pay or fair compensation (Article 64).

When should you speak to a lawyer?

These situations are worth a legal review before you sign a final settlement:

• - Your employer has not paid the gratuity on time, or has paid only part of it.
• - You disagree about your basic wage or your start date.
• - You were dismissed under Article 61 and believe it was wrong.
• - Your employer wants to deduct large or unexplained amounts.
• - You worked under back-to-back contracts, or left and came back.
• - It is nearly a year since your contract ended. Claims lapse one year after the contract ends (Article 10).

If there is a dispute over the gratuity, this is the route the law sets:

1. 1

   1. The dispute goes to the competent unit at the Ministry of Labour for an amicable settlement within seven days, with the outcome put to both sides within the next seven days.

2. 2

   2. If it is not settled, the Ministry refers it within three working days to the Labour Dispute Settlement Committee, chaired by a judge of the Court of First Instance.

3. 3

   3. The committee decides within three weeks of its first hearing. Its decision can be appealed to the Court of Appeal within fifteen days.

A settlement request to the Ministry pauses the one-year limit until the settlement deadlines have run (Article 115 bis).

Questions people ask