What banks and embassies look for
The person reading a salary certificate wants to tie it to a real employee and a real employer. Make the employee's name match the passport exactly and add the passport number when the certificate goes to a bank or an embassy. Use the job title on the employment contract. The pay figures should match payroll and the bank statements the employee will show, because a mismatch is the most common reason a bank sends a certificate back.
- Letterhead or logo with the company's address and contact details
- Employee's full name as on the passport, with the passport number
- Job title and joining date
- Monthly salary split into basic pay and allowances, with the total
- Name and position of the signatory, a signature and the company stamp
Basic salary versus allowances
In the Gulf, the basic salary is often well below the total package, with housing and transport paid as allowances. The split matters: end-of-service gratuity in the UAE and the end-of-service award in Saudi Arabia are worked out from wage figures defined in the labour law, and lenders may treat allowances differently from basic pay. Showing the parts separately avoids confusion. This site's gratuity and Saudi end-of-service calculators use the same split if the employee wants to check those figures.
Salary certificate, salary transfer letter and payslip
A salary certificate only confirms employment and pay. A salary transfer letter is a different document, usually on the bank's own form, in which the employer agrees to pay the salary into that bank until a loan is cleared; use the bank's form for it. A payslip shows one month's pay after deductions. Banks may ask for any of the three, so check which one the request names.