Your DEWS Account: What DIFC Employees Are Actually Entitled To?

If you work inside the Dubai International Financial Centre, your end-of-service benefit is calculated and held completely differently from everyone else in the UAE. Since February 2020, DIFC has replaced the traditional lump-sum gratuity model with DEWS, the DIFC Employee Workplace Savings Plan, a monthly contribution scheme where your money is invested and ring-fenced in your own account rather than sitting as an unfunded liability on your employer’s balance sheet. This matters practically in one important way: if your DIFC employer goes bankrupt, your DEWS savings are protected. Under traditional gratuity, they are not.

What DEWS actually is

DEWS is a defined contribution workplace savings scheme mandatory for eligible employees of DIFC licensed entities. Launched on 1 February 2020, it replaced the traditional end-of-service gratuity system that operated inside the DIFC under the previous employment law framework. Instead of an employer accumulating a gratuity liability and paying it as a lump sum when employment ends, under DEWS the employer makes mandatory monthly contributions into a personal account held in your name, managed by a regulated scheme administrator, and invested to earn returns over the course of your employment.

The scheme is administered by Equiom as Master Trustee, Zurich International Life as the default fund manager and plan administrator, and Mercer as independent investment adviser. Contributions are held in US dollars at Standard Chartered Bank UAE through a dedicated account structure. The DIFC Authority oversees and regulates the scheme under DIFC Employment Law.

Who it covers, and who it does not

DEWS is mandatory for non-UAE and non-GCC national employees of DIFC licensed companies. UAE nationals and GCC nationals working in the DIFC are excluded from DEWS because they are covered by the General Pension and Social Security Authority instead. They can choose to enrol in DEWS voluntarily to make additional savings, but they do not receive mandatory employer contributions under the scheme.

DEWS is specific to the DIFC. Other Dubai free zones including DMCC, DAFZA, DWC, and JAFZA follow the standard UAE mainland gratuity system under Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, not DEWS, unless they operate a separately approved qualifying alternative scheme. Mainland UAE employment is entirely outside the DEWS framework. This is one of the most commonly misunderstood points about DEWS, a widely shared article or social media post claiming DEWS applies across the UAE is incorrect. It applies only inside the DIFC. If you are on a mainland UAE contract, the UAE end of service gratuity guide covers how your entitlement is calculated instead.

Freelancers and self-employed individuals cannot access DEWS, regardless of whether they work with DIFC based clients. The scheme requires an employment relationship with a DIFC licensed entity.

Contribution rates and how they are calculated

Employer contributions under DEWS are calculated on the employee’s basic salary, the same base used by the traditional gratuity formula, and vary by length of service.

For the first five years of continuous service, the mandatory employer contribution is 5.83 percent of basic salary per month. This rate is designed to match the traditional gratuity formula of 21 days per year of service, expressed as a monthly percentage.

From year five onwards, the contribution increases to 8.33 percent of basic salary per month, matching the traditional gratuity rate of 30 days per year applied after five years of service.

A practical example helps clarify the numbers. An employee with a basic salary of AED 25,000 who has worked in DIFC for seven years would receive employer contributions averaging around 7 percent of salary across the full tenure, with investment returns of approximately 4 percent per annum on the accumulated balance, producing a total DEWS balance at exit of approximately AED 148,000 based on 2026 verified data. Under the traditional gratuity formula, the same employee would receive AED 180,208 as a lump sum, but that amount would not have been invested or earning returns during the employment period, and it would have sat as an unfunded employer liability with no ring-fencing if the employer ran into financial difficulty.

There is no upper limit on employer contributions. Employers may choose to contribute more than the mandatory minimum.

How the money is invested?

DEWS contributions are invested rather than simply held as cash. Employees can choose from a range of approved funds covering different risk profiles from capital protected to growth oriented. The default fund if no election is made is a conservatively managed balanced option. Zurich International Life, as the plan administrator, provides the fund range and handles day to day account management through the DEWS online portal and mobile app.

Sharia compliant fund options are available within the fund range for employees who require or prefer Islamic investment structures.

Employees receive regular statements and have real time online access to their account balance, contribution history, and investment performance through the DEWS portal. This is a significant structural difference from traditional gratuity, where an employee has no visibility of the accumulated liability sitting on their employer’s balance sheet until the moment they leave.

Voluntary contributions

Employees can contribute additional amounts on top of the mandatory employer contributions through salary deductions. Voluntary contributions are entirely at the employee’s discretion, can be started, stopped, or adjusted at any time, and are invested in the same fund range as employer contributions.

Critically, voluntary contributions are always 100 percent owned by the employee from day one, with no vesting period. This is different from employer contributions, which are subject to vesting rules based on length of service. An employee who leaves before completing one year receives no entitlement to employer contributions, mirroring the traditional gratuity rule. After one year, employer contributions and their investment returns are accessible in full on exit.

Employees who have made voluntary contributions can withdraw up to two partial withdrawals per year while still employed, up to 30 percent of their voluntary savings balance per withdrawal, through the DEWS online portal without requiring employer approval.

What happens when you leave your DIFC employer

When employment ends, the employer notifies the scheme administrator and submits the final monthly contribution. The employee then logs into the DEWS portal and initiates a withdrawal request, choosing between full withdrawal, partial withdrawal, or transfer to another qualifying scheme.

Payouts are typically made within 30 to 60 days of the final employment settlement. Payment goes to a UAE bank account or an international IBAN as specified by the employee. There is no UAE income tax on DEWS payouts, the same as all personal financial returns in the UAE.

Employees also have the option to leave their balance invested in DEWS after leaving employment, continuing to benefit from investment returns while they seek a new role, rather than withdrawing immediately. This is a meaningful practical advantage for professionals who expect a gap between roles and want their savings to continue working rather than sitting in cash.

DEWS accounts are portable within the DIFC. An employee moving from one DIFC employer to another can transfer their accumulated DEWS balance to a new scheme rather than withdrawing and restarting from zero.

DEWS versus traditional UAE gratuity: the real comparison

The two systems produce similar headline amounts over a long career based on the same contribution rates, since DEWS is deliberately designed to mirror the gratuity formula expressed as monthly contributions. The meaningful differences are structural rather than numerical.

Under traditional gratuity, the employer holds the money and pays a lump sum when you leave. If the employer cannot pay, the gratuity is an unsecured creditor claim in any insolvency, which in practice means employees frequently receive less than their full entitlement when an employer goes bankrupt. Under DEWS, the money is ring-fenced in a trust structure independent of the employer’s balance sheet. An employer insolvency does not affect the accumulated DEWS balance.

Traditional gratuity is calculated on final basic salary only, with no investment return on the accumulated entitlement during employment. DEWS contributions are invested from the moment they are made, earning returns throughout the employment period rather than being a flat calculation applied at the end.

Traditional gratuity is paid only when employment ends. DEWS voluntary contributions can be partially withdrawn while still employed. Traditional gratuity is an opaque liability from the employee’s perspective until the day they leave. DEWS is fully visible in real time through the portal throughout employment.

For a broader comparison of end of service options across the UAE including for employees on mainland contracts rather than DIFC ones, the UAE end of service gratuity guide covers how the mainland calculation works and the most common disputes that arise around it. For freelancers and self-employed professionals who sit outside both systems entirely, the retirement planning guide for UAE freelancers covers the National Bonds Golden Pension Plan and robo advisor options available when neither gratuity nor DEWS applies.