What Article 54 of the Labour Law says
Article 54 of Labour Law No. 14 of 2004 obliges the employer to pay an end-of-service gratuity to every worker who has spent one full year or more in the job, on top of any other sums owed when the service ends. The two sides may agree the amount, but it cannot be less than three weeks' wage for each year of service. Part of a year earns a share in proportion to the time worked. The last basic wage is the base for the calculation, and the employer may deduct from the gratuity any amount the worker owes them. Service also counts as continuous if the worker is re-employed within two months, unless the earlier job ended in one of the Article 61 cases. We read the article on Al Meezan, Qatar's official legal portal, on 19 October 2026: it has been in force since 2 January 2005 and was not changed by the 2017 and 2020 amendments to the Labour Law.
A worked example
Take a worker on a basic wage of QAR 6,000 a month with exactly five years of service and a contract that gives the legal minimum. A year's basic wage is 6,000 × 12 = QAR 72,000, so one week is 72,000 ÷ 52 = QAR 1,384.62. Three weeks make QAR 4,153.85 for each year, and five years give QAR 20,769.23. Many employers count a month as 30 days instead: 6,000 ÷ 30 = QAR 200 a day, three weeks = 21 days = QAR 4,200 a year, or QAR 21,000 for five years. The law does not fix either method, which is why the calculator shows both. If your contract gives four weeks a year, the first figure becomes QAR 27,692.31.
Which wage counts
Article 1 of the Labour Law separates the basic wage from the wage. The basic wage is what the worker is paid for the work over a set period, or by piece or output, and the only addition it includes is the annual increment. The wage is the basic wage plus all allowances, bonuses and other payments made for the work. Article 54 uses the last basic wage, so housing, transport, food and similar allowances are left out unless your contract says otherwise. Use the basic figure written in your contract or on your latest payslip.
When the gratuity can be withheld
Article 61 lists the cases in which an employer may dismiss a worker without notice and without the gratuity. They include using a false identity or forged documents, causing the employer a serious material loss (which the employer must report to the labour department by the end of the next working day), breaking written safety instructions more than once after a written warning, repeatedly breaching essential duties after a written warning, revealing the business's secrets, being clearly drunk or under the influence of drugs at work, assaulting the employer or a manager, repeatedly assaulting colleagues after a written warning, being absent without a lawful reason for more than seven days in a row or fifteen days in a year, and a final conviction for a crime against honour or honesty. If a worker dies in service, Article 55 requires the employer to deposit all dues, including the gratuity, with the competent court within fifteen days for the heirs.
Unpaid absence and contract rates
Article 54 itself says nothing about unpaid leave or absence. The calculator therefore counts every calendar day between your first and last working days unless you enter days to exclude. Fill that field in only when your contract or company rules exclude such days, and keep the evidence. The weeks-per-year field starts at three because that is the legal minimum; a contract can give more, for example a month per year after a number of years, in which case you can enter the higher figure (about 4.33 weeks equals one month).
Who is covered, and where disputes go
Article 3 leaves some groups outside the Labour Law, including staff of ministries and other public bodies, certain petroleum and petrochemical companies, the armed forces and police, casual workers and domestic workers such as drivers, nannies and cooks; their end-of-service rules come from other laws or their own contracts. Under the dispute rules added to the Labour Law in 2017 and updated in 2020, a worker or employer with a dispute must first take it to the ministry's Labour Relations Department for an amicable settlement within seven days. If that fails, it goes to a Labour Dispute Settlement Committee, chaired by a judge of the Court of First Instance, which rules within three weeks of its first hearing. Either side can appeal to the Court of Appeal within fifteen days of the decision.