What one hire actually costs: the fee list, line by line

1. Federal fees at MOHRE

The single biggest variable is not the employee. It is your establishment's classification under Cabinet Resolution No. 18 of 2022 — a compliance rating that prices the identical permit three different ways.

Three notes that matter more than the numbers. Everything except the federal fee is free through the MOHRE website and app — the AED 72 is what a business centre may charge for doing it for you, and it is a cap, not a tariff. The published figures exclude tax and collection charges. And permits run for two years, with the service itself completed in two working days.

Two arbitrages hiding in that table. First, classification: the gap between Category 1 and Category 3 is AED 3,200 per employee every two years — for a 40-person workforce, AED 128,000 a cycle, which is real money for a compliance record you were supposed to keep anyway. Second, the dependent permit: hiring someone already resident on a family member's visa costs AED 300 flat, regardless of your category, and skips the residence-visa layer entirely because you are not sponsoring them.

One gap worth flagging: the ministry's page for Issuance/Renewal of Employment Contracts lists the line "work permit renewal for two years" with no amount published against it. Renewals are priced by the same classification bands in practice, but we have not found the figure stated on an official page, so we do not print one.

2. Insurances you cannot skip

Workers' protection insurance is a precondition of the work permit itself. It covers the employee's financial entitlements including unpaid wages up to a ceiling of AED 20,000 over 30 months, plus repatriation of remains. MOHRE publishes the price list by worker type:

Each document value is exactly 2.5 times the annual figure, consistent with the 30-month cover period.

Health insurance became a condition of issuing or renewing a residence permit across all emirates on 1 January 2025, and the employer carries the cost. MOHRE's basic package is priced at AED 320 per year, aimed at private-sector employees and domestic workers in Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah and Umm Al Quwain. It runs on co-payments — 20% inpatient capped at AED 500 a visit and AED 1,000 a year, 25% outpatient capped at AED 100 a visit, 30% on medication capped at AED 1,500 a year — covers chronic and pre-existing conditions with no waiting period, and excludes pregnancy, childbirth and dental. The policy is written for two years with the second-year premium refundable if the visa is cancelled. Employers in Dubai and Abu Dhabi buy into their own emirate's mandatory schemes instead, which price higher.

Unemployment insurance (ILOE) is the employee's own subscription, not the employer's: AED 5 a month where basic salary is AED 16,000 or less, AED 10 a month above that, paying 60% of the subscription salary on job loss. It is worth putting in the onboarding pack — non-subscription attracts a fine on the employee, and that becomes an HR conversation either way.

3. The immigration layer (this one really is a range)

The residence side — entry permit, change of status if the hire is already in the country, medical fitness test, Emirates ID and visa stamping — is handled by ICP or by the emirate's own residency authority, and the per-service fees are not published in a form we can retrieve and verify. Reported all-in costs for a two-year employment residence cluster around AED 2,500–4,500, varying with emirate, urgency tier and whether a status change is needed. Treat that as a budgeting placeholder and get a written quote from your PRO or business centre; it is the one line on this page we cannot source to an official document.

4. The recurring costs, which are the real ones

• Gratuity accrual — 5.83% of basic wage a year for the first five years, rising to 8.33% after. On a basic of AED 9,000 that is roughly AED 6,300 accruing annually, and it is a liability from the first day of year two. The mechanics and the provisioning arithmetic are in calculating gratuity as an employer.
• The return air ticket. The employer bears the cost of repatriating the employee to their point of origin at the end of the relationship — unless they have joined another employer, or the termination is attributable to them.
• Thirty days of annual leave, plus public holidays and the statutory sick-leave ladder (15 days full pay, 30 half, 45 unpaid). Already inside the salary line, but it is the reason a monthly cost is not a monthly output.
• Emiratisation, if you have 50 or more employees. Skilled-role targets rise 2% a year — 1% each half — and from 1 July 2026 non-compliance costs AED 10,000 per month, AED 120,000 a year, for each unfilled Emirati position. For establishments with 20–49 employees in the selected economic activities, the contributions are AED 96,000 for a national not appointed in 2024 and AED 108,000 for 2025. On a mid-range salary that penalty is roughly the cost of the employee you did not hire — which is the design.

Putting one hire together

A Category 2 company, hiring a skilled expatriate from overseas on AED 15,000 a month with a basic of AED 9,000, over the first two-year permit cycle:

Which is the point of the exercise: the paperwork everybody asks about is 1.3–1.8% of the cost of employing someone. The expensive lines are the accruing gratuity — about 5.8% of basic, invisible until someone leaves — and, for a company of fifty or more, an Emiratisation exposure that can exceed the salary of the person in question.

None of it is chargeable to the employee. MOHRE's guidance for new employers is explicit: the employer bears recruitment costs from the worker's home country, the government fees related to their employment, and the insurances, contributions and guarantees required by law. Recovering any of it from salary is a breach, not a negotiation.