UAE Work Permit: Types, Eligibility, and How MOHRE Issues One (2026)

You have a signed job offer from a company in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Sharjah. Everyone keeps saying the paperwork is "with the Ministry". Nobody has explained what is actually being applied for, who applies for it, what it costs, how long it lasts, or what happens to it the day you resign. That missing document is your work permit.

Direct answer. Yes — you need a work permit, and it is issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE), not by your employer. Under Article 6 of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Employment Relationships (the UAE Labour Law, in force since 2 February 2022) and its amendments, it is illegal for a person to work in the UAE without a valid MOHRE work permit, and equally illegal for an employer to recruit or employ anyone without one. MOHRE runs 13 permit categories. The cost of issuing or renewing one ranges from AED 250 to AED 3,450 depending on the company's A/B/C classification. This guide covers all 13 categories, the conditions MOHRE checks, the offer-letter-to-permit-to-contract sequence, the fee bands, validity and renewal, and what cancellation actually does. Source: the federal portal's work permits page.

Two clarifications before we go further. A work permit is not a residence visa — the permit is the labour-side authorisation from MOHRE, while the residence visa and Emirates ID come from the federal identity and immigration authority. And a work permit is not an employment contract. The permit lets a named person do a named job at a named establishment; the contract governs pay, term and termination. If you want the full statutory picture around the permit, start with our complete guide to the UAE Labour Law, and read the statute itself at Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021.

What a UAE work permit actually is

A work permit is MOHRE's written authorisation for one specific worker to perform one specific occupation at one specific registered establishment. It is not transferable by handshake.

Three consequences follow, and they catch people out constantly:

• It is establishment-bound. The permit attaches to the company that applied for it. Doing paid work for a different company — even a sister entity, even for a week — needs its own permit or a temporary/part-time permit.
• It is occupation-bound. MOHRE requires the occupation assigned to the worker to be aligned with the business activity of the establishment. A trading licence cannot sponsor a permit for a nursing role.
• It is the thing that makes you legal. Working on a visit or tourist visa is prohibited outright, whether you are paid or not, and both worker and employer face penalties.

The plain-language definition sits in our dictionary entry for work permit, which is useful when you are reading a contract that switches between "labour card", "permit" and "visa" as if they were the same document. They are not.

Types of work permit UAE: all 13 MOHRE categories

MOHRE issues 13 types of work permit, and which one you get is decided by the nature of the job, not by your preference.

Per the official listing on u.ae, the categories are:

• Recruitment from outside the UAE — the standard route for a new hire arriving from abroad. Valid for two years.
• Transfer from one establishment to another — for a worker already inside the UAE moving employers. Valid for two years.
• Resident on family sponsorship — lets a company hire someone who is already resident under a family visa. Valid for two years.
• Temporary work permit — assigns a worker already in the UAE to a task at a different company for a limited period, after which they return to their original employer.
• Mission work permit — brings a worker in from abroad for a specific temporary job or a time-bound project.
• [Part-time work permit](/dictionary/part-time-work-permit) — a contract with fewer hours or days than a full-time role. A worker may hold more than one employer with the Ministry's approval.
• Juvenile work permit — for a young person aged 15 to 18, under conditions protecting minors. Valid for one year.
• Student training and employment permit — for a student aged 15 already in the UAE. Valid for three months.
• UAE/GCC national work permit — for employing a UAE or GCC national. Valid for two years.
• [Golden visa](/dictionary/golden-visa) holder work permit — for employing someone inside the UAE who already holds Golden Residency. Valid for two years.
• National trainee work permit — to train a UAE citizen in line with their academic qualifications. Valid for 12 months, renewable by mutual agreement.
• Freelance work permit — for individuals working independently without an employer sponsor and without an active employment contract, including foreign nationals on self-sponsored residence visas.
• Private teacher work permit — for qualified professionals giving private lessons. Granted free of charge for two years under Ministerial Resolution No. 710 of 2023. Tutoring without it exposes you to fines.

Two of these deserve a flag. The [freelance permit](/dictionary/freelance-permit) is the one most people confuse with a trade licence — it authorises you to work independently, but it is not a commercial licence and does not by itself let you invoice as a company. And the Golden visa holder permit exists because Golden Residency does not remove the permit requirement — you still need MOHRE authorisation to be employed. If you are checking Golden Residency itself, see UAE Golden Visa eligibility.

Domestic workers sit outside this framework entirely and are regulated separately — see the UAE domestic worker law and rights.

UAE work permit requirements: what MOHRE checks before issuing

MOHRE tests the establishment as hard as it tests the worker, which is why a clean candidate can still be refused.

The conditions for issuing a permit, per u.ae, are:

• The worker must be at least 18, except under a juvenile permit or a student training/employment permit.
• The occupation assigned must be aligned with the establishment's business activity.
• The company's trade licence must be valid and free of violations.
• The worker must meet any conditions set in legislation for specialised professions, or roles that require a licence to practise.
• The application must be submitted by someone legally authorised to represent the company.

MOHRE may also refrain from issuing or renewing, or may cancel a permit outright, where the establishment provides incorrect documents, is fictitious or does not actually carry on its registered activity, or is not compliant with the Wages Protection System or other labour-market regulatory systems. That last one is the quiet killer: a company with WPS arrears cannot pull permits, and new joiners simply stall. Our dictionary entry on the Wage Protection System explains what compliance means in practice.

Your own paperwork matters too. Before residency can proceed you will need a passport valid for at least six months, the prescribed medical screening, and — for many professions — academic certificates attested in the country of origin and then by the UAE embassy or consulate. Skill classification affects both the fee band and how you sign: workers in professional levels 1, 2 or 3 sign the job offer, while fingerprint is accepted at levels 4 and 5. See MOHRE skill levels and job classification for where your role lands.

The MOHRE work permit process, step by step

The sequence is fixed: signed job offer first, permit second, contract third — never the other way round.

1. The job offer. It must be provided in Arabic and English plus a third language the worker understands, with the statutory annex attached. The employer signs it electronically and sends it to the worker for review and approval. Providing incorrect information or documents in order to recruit a foreign worker into the UAE carries a fine of not less than AED 20,000 and not more than AED 100,000 under Article 59 of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 — AED 20,000 is the statutory floor, not the ceiling. Our guide to the MOHRE offer letter breaks down every field.
2. Initial work permit approval. The signed job offer is attached to the application. MOHRE reviews the file for completeness. This approval is what allows the worker to enter the UAE.
3. Entry. The entry permit is valid for two months from issue, and within one month of entering the UAE the sponsored individual must complete residency procedures. Residency is issued for two years.
4. Signing in-country. On arrival, both employer and worker sign the job offer, which is then registered with MOHRE as a legally binding employment contract. No clause may be replaced or amended unless the worker's rights are not undermined, both parties agree, and MOHRE approves.
5. Contract filing. The employment contract must be submitted to MOHRE within 14 days of the worker's arrival, or of the status change if they were already in the country. Under Article 8(3) of the Labour Law the contract runs for a definite period, renewable by agreement between the parties. The in-force text sets no maximum term — the three-year cap that still circulates in older explainer articles does not appear in Article 8, so read the statute rather than a summary of it. Article 8(4) adds that any extension or renewal is treated as a continuation of the original period and counts towards your continuous service.

If the worker is already in the UAE, the same order applies — the worker signs the job offer before the employer can apply for initial approval.

MOHRE has been compressing this. The Work Bundle consolidated five platforms into one and eight services into a single flow, cutting the process from 15 steps and 16 documents to 5 steps and 5 documents, in-person visits from 7 to 2, and processing time from 30 working days to 5. Detail: the federal portal's page on expatriate employment in the private sector.

Work permit UAE cost: fee bands and company classification

The cost of issuing or renewing a work permit ranges from AED 250 to AED 3,450, and it is driven by the company's classification, not by the worker.

MOHRE classifies establishments as A, B or C. The classification reflects how far the company complies with the Labour Law, the Wages Protection System, ministerial resolutions and directives, workers' rights legislation, and the cultural and demographic diversity policy. Companies with a history of violations and non-compliance are placed in category C — and category C pays the most. Renewal fees are likewise set by permit type and by the Ministry's approved establishment classification system.

The fee is an employer cost. Under the Labour Law framework the recruitment and permit costs sit with the employer, so a demand that a new joiner "reimburse the visa" should be questioned rather than paid quietly.

The exact fee is set by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation and can change; confirm the current schedule with MOHRE or a licensed UAE lawyer before you budget. The governing fee instrument is Cabinet Resolution No. 37 of 2022 amending Cabinet Resolution No. 21 of 2022 on service fees and administrative fines at MOHRE.

Validity, renewal and cancellation

Most permits run for two years, and renewal re-tests every condition that applied at issue.

To renew, the issuing conditions must still be met, all required documents, certificates and qualifications must be provided, and fees must be paid according to permit type and company classification. Nothing is carried over on trust.

To cancel, the employer submits a formal cancellation request with complete data and attachments, settles any outstanding fines for late issuance or non-renewal, and confirms that the worker has received all due entitlements. That confirmation is the leverage point: cancellation should not be processed while your end-of-service money is outstanding. Work out what you are owed with our end-of-service gratuity calculation guide or the gratuity calculator before you sign anything.

Cancelling the permit is a separate act from cancelling the residence visa, and the two have different deadlines and consequences — see UAE employment visa cancellation. Where the split is termination itself rather than paperwork, terminating an employment contract in the UAE covers notice and just cause.

Probation deserves its own note. Probation cannot exceed six months and cannot be extended. An employer terminating during probation gives 14 days' written notice. A worker moving to another UAE employer during probation gives one month's written notice, and the new employer compensates the old one for recruitment costs unless agreed otherwise. A worker leaving the UAE during probation gives 14 days' notice — and if they return within three months on a new work permit, the new employer becomes liable for those recruitment costs. Definition: probation period.

When a permit is refused, suspended or banned

MOHRE can block permits at the company level and at the worker level, and the two are frequently confused.

At company level. Under Ministerial Resolution No. 543 of 2022 on administrative suspension of an establishment's file, firms are denied new work permits for four categories of violation: breaches under the service-fees and administrative-fines resolution; failing to provide appropriate labour accommodation under Ministerial Resolution No. 44 of 2022; facing human trafficking allegations; and abusing privileged access to MOHRE systems in a way that could disrupt the Ministry's operations. The resolution sets the suspension duration and the steps a firm must take to regularise.

At worker level. A one-year ban on issuing a new work permit applies where the worker terminates the contract during probation and the employer had not breached its obligations, where a work-abandonment report against them is proven valid, or where their permit at a fictitious establishment was cancelled. The Decree-Law exempts several categories from the abandonment-based ban, including workers on family residence visas, workers reapplying with the same establishment, workers with professional skill or knowledge levels the UAE needs, and Golden visa holders. The ban lifts automatically at the end of its term, and the period starts once the worker departs the UAE. A worker can check their status with the MOHRE call centre on 600590000 between 8am and 8pm, and can contest a ban by filing a grievance with supporting documents. Source: the federal portal's page on the one-year ban on issuing a new work permit.

Our fuller pieces cover the two live scenarios: how UAE labour bans changed and checking and removing an absconding report. Plain definition: labour ban.

Free zones, DIFC and ADGM: who issues your permit and which law applies

If your employer is in a free zone, the free zone authority — not MOHRE — handles your permit, and that is a narrower point than "the Labour Law does not apply to you".

Two separate questions get conflated here, and pulling them apart saves a lot of wasted argument.

Who sponsors you and issues the permit. In a free zone the employment relationship is registered with the free zone authority. That authority issues the work permit and sponsors the residence file, so the MOHRE permit categories, the MOHRE fee bands and the MOHRE complaint route set out in this article are not the ones that apply to you. Your first-instance dispute route runs through the free zone authority. Reference: the federal portal's page on working in free zones.

Which law stands behind the contract. Article 3 of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 states that the Decree-Law applies to all establishments, employers and workers in the private sector in the State, and excludes only three categories: employees of federal and local government agencies, members of the armed forces, police and security, and domestic workers. Free zones are not carved out. The federal portal makes the same point on its free zone page, adding that the provisions set out in the employment contract must accord with the Labour Law. So if you work in a non-financial free zone, the federal minimums on gratuity, leave, notice and termination still stand behind your contract, whoever printed the letterhead. Read the statute at Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021.

The two real exceptions. DIFC and ADGM are financial free zones with their own civil and commercial legal systems. Each operates separate employment legislation and its own courts, and the federal Labour Law does not run inside them. If your offer letter names DIFC or ADGM, nothing in the onshore framework transfers automatically — see DIFC employment law versus onshore.

Practically: check the licensing authority named on your offer letter before assuming any process in this article applies to you. If it names a free zone authority, the permit type and the fee bands here are not yours. But unless that authority is DIFC or ADGM, the Labour Law entitlements behind your contract still are — and that is the half people give away too easily.

For the residence and identity side of the file — entry permits, residency, Emirates ID — the reference point is the Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security.

Plain definition: residence visa.

What to do now

Start by confirming which permit category your job actually falls into, because everything downstream — fee, validity, renewal, and what happens on exit — flows from that.

A short checklist:

• Ask your employer, in writing, which of the 13 permit types was applied for and on what date.
• Check the offer letter names your occupation in terms consistent with the company's licensed activity.
• Confirm the establishment is not under WPS or classification problems before you resign from a current role.
• Keep a copy of the signed offer, the permit approval and the registered contract. If a dispute starts, these three documents are the case.
• If you are already mid-dispute, our guide on filing a labour complaint with MOHRE sets out the free first step.

Where the answer is genuinely contested — a refused permit, a disputed abandonment report, a cancellation processed with money still outstanding — get advice from a UAE-licensed lawyer before you sign or fly. You can browse verified UAE lawyers on LEXAI by practice area and language, contact them directly, and agree fees with them yourself. LEXAI lists and verifies lawyers; any engagement and any payment is between you and the lawyer, off-platform.