Our multipart webinar series Navigating Employment Law in the Middle East recently kicked off with a session looking at the applicable employment regulations and immigration processes within the Abu Dhabi Global Market for new employees. In this blog post, find some of the key takeaways from this webinar and be sure to join us for our future webinars.
Webinar Key Takeaways
- The ADGM Employment Regulations 2024, which entered into force on 1 April 2025, is the applicable law in the ADGM, replacing the previous regulations from 2019.
- The ADGM Employment Regulations 2024 introduced the concept of a remote employee. This is an individual who can work either inside or outside of the UAE, but whose normal place of work is not at the employer’s premises in the ADGM. For remote workers in the UAE, the employer must still obtain a work permit for the individual (and a residence visa if required) and provide health insurance. On the other hand, employers are not obliged to provide a visa, work permit, or medical insurance for an employee working outside of the UAE. The introduction of this concept gives employers and employees greater flexibility where the requirements of the role do not require the individual to be physically in the office.
However, we discussed in the webinar that where an employee works remotely outside of the UAE, it is possible that, in addition to the application of the ADGM Employment Regulations 2024, the individual may be subject to local law rights (or taxation obligations) of their home jurisdiction, and the ADGM employer must consider this carefully before putting this sort of arrangement in place. - Employers have the option to issue either indefinite-term contracts or fixed-term contracts under the ADGM Employment Regulations 2024. We noted that indefinite-term contracts remain the most popular choice, particularly as the risk of a fixed-term contract is that where an employer seeks to terminate employment (for example, due to poor performance) the employee may be able to claim their salary for the remaining period (subject to a duty to mitigate their loss).
- To legally work in the ADGM, employees must have a UAE residence visa and work permit. While there are an increasing number of expatriates holding golden visas, this does not change the fact that the employer must obtain a work permit for anyone working for their organization.
- The ADGM provides for temporary work by nonemployees. A nonemployee means someone who is performing work or providing services to an ADGM entity, within the ADGM, in circumstances where there is no direct employment relationship between the ADGM entity and the individual. For example, this can arise by virtue of a secondment arrangement, internship, or consultancy arrangement (provided that the consultancy is correctly licensed). In these cases, the ADGM entity can obtain a 3-, 6- or 12-month temporary work permit and the individual will not acquire employment rights. However, it is required that the individual already hold a UAE residence visa, and as such this arrangement is not suitable for someone joining the ADGM entity directly from abroad.
Stay tuned for more future webinars specifically for the ADGM, looking at key employment terms and termination of employment.