Nafis now runs to 2040, which gives you a fourteen year horizon to plan an Emirati pipeline against. The reset that comes with the extension takes effect in September 2026, and one line in it moves onto your payroll: from September you pay the employer’s share of pension contributions for your Nafis-enrolled Emirati employees. That share is 12.5% of monthly salary. Nafis covered it until now.
The Emirati Talent Competitiveness Council announced this on 14 April 2026. Most coverage led with the extension and the new salary support tiers. The pension line is the one with a number attached to it, and you have six weeks to put that number in a budget.
The number to give your CFO
Emirati employees in the private sector are registered with the General Pension and Social Security Authority. The total contribution is 20% of monthly salary, split three ways.
| Who pays | Share of monthly salary |
|---|---|
| Employee | 5% |
| Employer | 12.5% |
| Government | 2.5% |
For Emiratis hired through Nafis, the programme has been paying the employer’s 12.5%. From September 2026, you pay it.
Scope matters here. This applies to Emirati employees enrolled in Nafis. Any Emirati staff you hired outside the programme are already on your books at 12.5% and nothing changes for them. So the exposure is not your Emirati headcount, it is your Nafis-enrolled headcount, and those are usually different numbers.
The calculation, in one line: Nafis-enrolled Emirati employees, multiplied by their monthly salaries, multiplied by 12.5%. Four months of it falls in this financial year.
Worked through, for a Dubai mainland company of 240 people with nine Nafis-enrolled Emirati employees on an average salary of AED 14,000:
| Per employee, per month | AED 1,750 |
| Nine employees, per month | AED 15,750 |
| September to December 2026 | AED 63,000 |
| Full year, 2027 onward | AED 189,000 |
That is the whole exercise. If Nafis enrolment is not a field in your HRIS, adding it is the only prerequisite, and it takes an afternoon.
Everything else that starts in September 2026
The pension line does not arrive alone. These apply from September 2026 for new beneficiaries.
| What applies from September 2026 | Figure |
|---|---|
| Maximum monthly salary support, bachelor’s degree | AED 6,000 |
| Maximum monthly salary support, diploma | AED 5,000 |
| Maximum monthly salary support, secondary certificate | AED 4,000 |
| Below secondary, married or with dependants | AED 4,000 |
| Below secondary, unmarried, no dependants | AED 3,000 |
| Minimum salary to qualify for support, all categories | AED 6,000 per month |
| Maximum salary to qualify for support | AED 20,000 per month |
| Child Allowance Scheme | AED 600 per child per month, no cap on number of children, salary up to AED 50,000 |
Two new schemes also open in September 2026, each paying up to AED 3,000 a month: one for children of Emirati mothers working in the private sector, one for wives of Emirati men working in the private sector. Eligibility detail was described as still to be announced when the schemes were unveiled in April, so treat AED 3,000 as a ceiling rather than a figure you can promise a candidate.
Your existing Nafis employees move across gradually
Employees already receiving Nafis support are not switched to the new tiers in September. Their support steps down by AED 500 every six months until it aligns with the new framework, over a period of up to three years.
The practical effect is that a portion of your Emirati employees’ total package will change on a known schedule, in known increments, starting from a known date. That is unusually good conditions for a compensation conversation. You can model each person’s position at six, twelve and eighteen months and decide in advance whether you adjust base pay, hold, or do nothing, rather than responding to it case by case as it arrives.
StrongYes view: the pension line and the taper are usually discussed separately because one sits on the company’s accounts and the other sits on the employee’s payslip. They are the same planning exercise. Both start in September, both run on fixed schedules, and both can be modelled now from figures that are already published. Employers who put them in one model will have a settled answer ready when the first employee asks. Employers who model only the pension line will have half an answer.
Worth adding to the model: an Emirati employee leaving also opens a quota position. If your company has 50 or more employees and your Emiratisation ratio drops, you have two months from the date of the decline to re-achieve it before the AED 10,000 monthly contribution applies to that position. Retention and compliance are one number in this system, not two.
Free zone employers are on a different schedule
There is a separate mechanism for private-sector employees outside MoHRE and Central Bank scope, which includes free zones, who currently earn below the AED 6,000 minimum. Once their salary is brought up to AED 6,000, they receive 100% of their current support for six months from September 2026, then 70% for six months, then 30% for three months. Fifteen months in total.
If you run entities on both sides of the mainland and free zone line, these employees are on a different clock to your mainland Emirati staff, and they need a separate line in the model.
Two figures worth checking your model against
Both of these are still circulating in vendor material and consultant decks, so it is worth confirming which ones your own planning is built on.
Nafis ending in 2026. It was extended to 2040 on 14 April 2026. Pages published after that date still carry the closing-window framing, so a document’s date is not a reliable guide here.
Nafis salary support at AED 7,000 or AED 8,000. Those are pre-reset figures. From September 2026 the maximum is AED 6,000, for a bachelor’s degree holder, and subject to the AED 20,000 salary ceiling.
One thing we do not yet know
The announcement confirms that employers take on the pension share from September 2026. It does not say whether that transfer phases in alongside the three year taper for existing beneficiaries, or applies in full to everyone from September.
We have modelled it as applying in full, because that is what the announcement says on its face, and because budgeting the higher figure and being wrong leaves you with a surplus rather than a gap. We will update this page when implementation detail is published. If you are writing a board paper, we would say the same thing there: model the full amount and flag the open question next to it.
What to do this week
- Pull the list. Every Emirati employee enrolled in Nafis, with current monthly salary. Add the enrolment flag to your HRIS if it is not there.
- Run the number. 12.5% of each salary, summed. Four months for this year, twelve for next.
- Send it to finance now. It is a recurring cost with a known start date, which makes it a straightforward budget line if it goes in before September.
- Map the taper per employee. When each existing beneficiary’s support steps down, and what their package looks like at six, twelve and eighteen months.
- Decide your position once. Absorb part of the taper, restructure, or hold. Any of the three is defensible. Deciding it in advance is what makes it defensible.
Questions HR teams are asking
Yes, from September 2026. Until then Nafis covered the employer’s share of pension contributions for Emirati employees enrolled in the programme. From September 2026 the employer pays it. Emirati employees hired outside Nafis were always the employer’s responsibility.
The employer’s share is 12.5% of monthly salary. The full GPSSA contribution is 20%, split as 5% from the employee, 12.5% from the employer and 2.5% from the government. For an Emirati earning AED 14,000 a month, the employer share is AED 1,750 a month.
Employers take on the pension contribution share for Nafis-enrolled Emirati employees. Maximum monthly salary support is set at AED 6,000 for a bachelor’s degree, AED 5,000 for a diploma and AED 4,000 for a secondary certificate. The minimum salary to qualify for any Nafis support is AED 6,000 a month and the maximum is AED 20,000. Two new schemes open, for children of Emirati mothers and for wives of Emirati men working in the private sector.
No. Nafis was extended to 2040 on 14 April 2026 by the Emirati Talent Competitiveness Council. Pages stating that the programme closes in 2026 are out of date, including some published after the extension was announced.
From September 2026 the maximum monthly salary support is AED 6,000 for a bachelor’s degree holder, AED 5,000 for a diploma holder and AED 4,000 for a secondary certificate holder. Employees already receiving support move to the new levels gradually, reducing by AED 500 every six months over up to three years.
Important Disclaimer: This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute any legal, regulatory, or tax advice. Companies should verify current obligations directly with MoHRE, Nafis, and relevant sector regulators, including the Central Bank of the UAE. Official guidance is available at mohre.gov.ae, nafis.gov.ae, and u.ae.
