United Arab Emirates
Country or regionNo national statutory minimum wageGlobal rank #19 of 77
Explore how minimum wage compares to Big Mac prices in United Arab Emirates, and how many burgers you can earn with 1 hour of work.
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Minimum wage (gross)
Source: UAE Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) · effective Jan 1, 2026
UAE Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE)The UAE has NO national statutory minimum wage covering most adult full-time workers. Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 (Labour Law) only requires salaries be sufficient for basic needs and does not set a general minimum; WageIndicator confirms no minimum salary is stipulated in the Federal Labour Law. Expatriates make up roughly 88-90% of the workforce and have no statutory minimum (only non-binding visa salary benchmarks, e.g. ~AED 12,000/month for university graduates). The ONLY statutory wage floor is the reference rate reported here: AED 6,000/month, applying EXCLUSIVELY to Emirati (UAE national) citizens employed in the private sector, effective 1 January 2026 (raised from AED 5,000; employers must adjust existing Emirati salaries by 30 June 2026). This is a nationality/category-based minimum, not a universal one. weekly_hours_used=48 reflects the UAE statutory standard (8 hrs/day, 48 hrs/week); no hourly conversion was computed. Corroborated by KPMG GMS Flash Alert 2026-006, Time Out Dubai, VisaHQ, and WageIndicator.org. (Official MoHRE page could not be auto-fetched due to a TLS certificate error but the figure/date are consistently confirmed across sources.)
Big Mac price: The Economist · Jan 1, 2026