A work injury is not sick leave, and the difference is five and a half months of pay

The line between the two regimes

Article 31(1) of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 begins: "If the worker is infected by a disease not arising from work injury…". That qualifier is the whole boundary. Sick leave — 15 days full pay, 30 days half pay, then unpaid, capped at 90 days a year — is the regime for illness that has nothing to do with the job. The moment an injury or illness is work-related, Article 31 stops applying and Article 37 takes over.

Read the wage base twice. Article 37(2)(b) says the worker receives "an amount equivalent of his full wage" during treatment — that is Wage as the law defines it: basic pay plus the cash allowances and in-kind benefits allocated under the contract. But the death and disability compensation in Article 37(3), and Article 3(2) of Ministerial Resolution No. 657 of 2022, are calculated on the Basic Wage — which by definition "does not include any other allowances or benefits in-kind". The same event is priced off two different numbers depending on which limb of the article you are in. On a package of AED 20,000 made up of 12,000 basic and 8,000 allowances, the monthly payment during treatment is 20,000; the death compensation base is 12,000.

The commute counts — unless you deviated

The definition of Work Injury in the Decree-Law is wider than most people assume. After covering the scheduled occupational diseases and injuries arising in the course of work, it adds:

"Any injury should be considered a work injury if it is proven that the accident happened to the worker during the period of his commute to and from work, without interruption or deviation from the normal route."

A road accident on the way to the site is a work injury, with the full Article 37 consequences. Ministerial Resolution No. 657 reinforces it from the employer's side: Article 2(6) lists "traffic accident while going to work or back to home" among the incidents that must be reported to the Ministry immediately. The two qualifying words are interruption and deviation — the school run, the detour to a shop, the stop that turns a commute into an errand. That is where these claims are lost, and it is a question of fact decided from the route, not the intention.

What "bear the expenses of treatment" actually covers

Article 37(2)(a) states the duty; Article 23(1) of Cabinet Resolution No. 1 of 2022 — the Executive Regulation — itemises it, and the list is broader than the medical insurance most workers assume is the whole answer:

• Treatment at a governmental or private healthcare facility.
• Payment continues until the worker recovers or his disability is established — note that this is not tied to the six- or twelve-month wage ladder. The wage entitlement runs out; the treatment obligation runs to a medical conclusion.
• Hospital stay, surgical procedures, X-rays and medical analyses.
• Medications and rehabilitation equipment.
• Artificial and prosthetic limbs and devices where disability is established.
• Transportation costs incurred for the worker's treatment.

The last two are the ones routinely refused, because they are the two an ordinary health insurance policy is least likely to pay. They are nonetheless in the Regulation as employer obligations, and the employer's liability is not discharged by the existence of a policy that declines them. Where treatment is to happen outside the country, Article 2(7) of Ministerial Resolution No. 657 requires the employer to file evidence of the agreement with the Ministry.

The five ways a worker loses the compensation — and the four conditions on the fifth

Article 38 lists the cases in which no work injury compensation is due, where established through the investigations of the competent authorities:

1. The worker deliberately injured himself.
2. The injury occurred under the influence of alcohol, narcotics or other psychotropic substances.
3. The injury resulted from a deliberate violation of the preventive instructions displayed in visible areas of the workplace.
4. The injury resulted from the worker's wilful misconduct.
5. The worker refused, without a serious reason, to be examined or to follow the treatment specified by the medical entity.

Every summary of UAE work-injury law stops here. The Regulation does not.

⭐ Article 23(3) makes the third exclusion conditional on the employer's own compliance. The clause repeats the "deliberate violation of preventive instructions" ground and then continues: "provided that the employer complies with the following rules" — four of them:
(a) making the worker aware of detailed instructions on preventing fires and on the risks he may be exposed to on duty, in Arabic and in another language that the worker understands;
(b) informing him before he starts work of the risks of his occupation, requiring the prescribed preventive means, providing appropriate PPE and training him to use it;
(c) training him on the safety methods set out in the protection instructions;
(d) educating him at hiring about the risks of his occupation and the means of protection, and placing detailed written instructions at the workplace.
An employer who cannot evidence all four cannot rely on "he ignored the sign". The defence is not a fact about the worker's conduct alone; it is a fact about the employer's training file. An Arabic-only notice in a workforce that does not read Arabic fails condition (a) on its face.

The clocks: 48 hours and 10 days

Two deadlines carry the process, both from instruments issued in 2022:

The reporting channels are the MOHRE digital system, an approved business service centre, the MOHRE app, or any other channel the Ministry specifies. One point of practical weight sits in Article 4(3) of Cabinet Resolution No. 33 of 2022: the police investigation statements — including any finding on self-injury, intoxication, wilful misconduct or deliberate breach of instructions — are "mere inferences used by the medical authority, and it has the final decision in determining whether or not a work injury has occurred". A police report is evidence, not the verdict.

The money: how a disability percentage becomes a number

Article 37(3) sets the death figure and everything else is derived from it. Compensation equal to 24 months of basic wage, not less than AED 18,000 and not more than AED 200,000, paid to the eligible beneficiaries — and expressly "while preserving the rights of the deceased's family in the end of service benefits and any other financial entitlements". It is in addition to gratuity, not instead of it.

From there, Ministerial Resolution No. 657 of 2022, Article 3:

• Permanent total disability = the same amount as death. (Art. 3(6).)
• Permanent partial disability = the percentage from the schedules to Cabinet Resolution No. 33 of 2022 × basic wage for 24 months, subject to the AED 18,000–200,000 band. (Art. 3(5).)
• Calculated on the last basic wage the worker received. (Art. 3(2).)

Cabinet Resolution No. 33 of 2022 carries three schedules: 17 occupational diseases (Schedule 1), 7 heads of permanent total disability at 100% (Schedule 2), and 45 rated partial disabilities (Schedule 3). A disease that is not in Schedule 1 is not an occupational disease for these purposes — the Minister may update that schedule in coordination with the Ministry of Health and Prevention, but until he does, the list is the list.

⭐ The left-handed clause

Schedule 3 rates the right side higher than the left throughout: total loss of the right arm from the shoulder or elbow is 70%, the left is 60%; the right hand at the wrist is 38%, the left 34%; the right index finger is 15%, the left 10%. Then Article 7(2) of the Resolution reverses it for the worker it would otherwise penalise:

"If the worker injured is a left-handed, the compensation hereinabove provided for the left hand shall be the same as for the right hand."

A left-handed worker who loses his left hand at the wrist is rated at 38%, not 34%. On a basic wage of AED 6,000 that is AED 54,720 rather than AED 48,960 — a difference of AED 5,760 that turns entirely on whether anyone recorded that he was left-handed. It is not information the medical report is otherwise prompted to capture.

Two further rules in the same article widen the schedule: Article 7(1) — total incapacity to use an organ or part of one is treated as total loss of it, so a paralysed but present limb is rated as a lost limb; and Article 7(3) — disfigurement or unnatural alteration of any organ or sense not covered by the schedule is rated by the competent medical authority. The 45 rows are a floor, not a closed list.

Where the AED 18,000–200,000 band bites, and an ambiguity worth knowing about

The English text of Article 3(5) can be read two ways, and they are not academic. The operative bracket applies the band to the calculated figure: percentage × basic × 24, then floor at 18,000 and cap at 200,000. The sentence introducing it says the percentages are "calculated from the value of the death compensation stipulated in Clause (3) of Article (37)" — and that death figure already carries the same band, which would suggest banding the base first and applying the percentage after.

For most of the workforce this makes no difference at all. The two readings give identical answers whenever 24 months of basic wage falls inside the band — that is, a basic wage between AED 750 and AED 8,333. They diverge only at the two ends:

Reading the band onto the result is the literal sense of the bracket in Article 3(5), and it is how the UAE Government portal describes the calculation. It produces a floor effect at the bottom that is worth knowing in its own right: on a low basic wage, a small rated injury and a much larger one can both settle at AED 18,000, because both fall under the floor. If your figure lands near either boundary, get the calculation confirmed against the medical committee report before accepting it — MOHRE's English texts are published marked "This is not an official translation", and the Arabic prevails.

You cannot be dismissed on the way to the medical report

Ministerial Resolution No. 657 closes the exit that would otherwise make all of the above optional. Article 2(2): the employer must inform the Ministry if the worker wishes to be terminated before the medical committee's report issues, retaining his rights according to that report, and "in all cases the employer shall not terminate the work relationship and cancel the contract of the injured or sick worker before granting him all his dues". Article 2(3) adds that the employer must comply with Article 37 of the Decree-Law, Article 23 of the Regulation and Article 3 of the Resolution on compensation before taking action to terminate. Cancelling the visa and closing the file is not a route around the compensation; the compensation is a precondition of the cancellation.

For employers: the third obligation that lands at 50 workers

Two duties attach at fifty workers under Cabinet Resolution No. 1 of 2022 — the work-organisation rules and the grievance system. Article 2(1) of Ministerial Resolution No. 657 of 2022 adds a third from a different instrument: establishments with 50 or more workers must adopt a system for monitoring work injuries and occupational diseases containing eleven specified elements:

1. A record of work-related injuries and occupational diseases.
2. Preventive tools and hands-on training programmes for workers in high-risk activities.
3. An inventory of all activities dangerous to worker health and safety.
4. The number of workers performing hazardous jobs.
5. A mechanism for periodic health examination of workers in hazardous activities.
6. A mechanism to promptly report injury and disease incidents internally.
7. A mechanism to investigate incidents and protect other workers from the same cause.
8. A mechanism to obtain the competent medical committee's report showing the level of disability.
9. A log of periodic medical examinations.
10. A record of workers exposed to occupational hazards, kept at least 5 years after their service ends.
11. A document issued to the worker at the end of service stating the period he spent performing the hazardous job.

Items 10 and 11 are the ones that survive the employment relationship, and they exist for a reason: occupational disease under Schedule 1 — pneumoconiosis, chronic skin disease, poisoning by heavy metals — presents years after exposure. The five-year record and the end-of-service hazard certificate are what allow a later diagnosis to be traced to an employer at all. They are also the two elements a company that has never had a serious incident is least likely to have built.

Article 14(3) of Cabinet Resolution No. 1 of 2022 ties this back to the handbook: the work instructions must include the measures and precautions for avoiding work injuries and fire hazards — the same document that Article 23(3) requires to exist, in a language the worker understands, before the "deliberate violation" defence is available at all.

What to do, in order

1. Get it recorded as a work injury from the first hour. The medical authority makes the final determination of whether a work injury occurred, and it does so from the account given at presentation. If the commute or the workplace cause is not stated then, it is being reconstructed later.
2. Check the employer filed within 48 hours through a MOHRE channel, and that the police report was made. Ask for the reference.
3. Keep every receipt, including transport to and from treatment — it is a listed head under Article 23(1)(d).
4. Do not accept the sick-leave ladder. If payslips show 15 days full then half pay, the wrong article is being applied. The correct entitlement is full wage to six months.
5. Take your copy of the medical report. Article 5(2) entitles you to one of the three copies; the disability percentage in it is the entire basis of the money.
6. State handedness if a hand, arm or finger is involved.
7. If the ten days pass unpaid, or the contract is cancelled before settlement, file with MOHRE. The route, the AED 50,000 threshold for a Ministry decision and the two-year limitation period are set out in our guide to unpaid end-of-service claims — the same machinery handles work-injury dues.