Why the six countries differ so much
People move around the Gulf and assume the rules travel with them. They do not. The same career produces very different numbers depending on which side of a border it happened on, and the differences are not small.
Saudi Arabia calculates on your whole wage, including fixed allowances. The UAE calculates on basic salary alone, which for many people is half their package. Kuwait divides by a 26-day month where everyone else uses 30. Qatar pays one flat rate for every year with no step up. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait still reduce the amount if you resign; the UAE, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain do not.
Three countries have also changed their systems recently, and this is where most online calculators are now wrong. Oman changed its rate on 31 July 2023, so service that straddles that date is paid at two different rates. Bahrain moved expatriate indemnity to monthly contributions at the Social Insurance Organisation on 1 March 2024, so your money now comes from two places. The UAE abolished its resignation penalty on 2 February 2022, yet pages published this year still tell people they will lose two thirds of their gratuity for resigning.
What these calculators do differently
They ask for dates rather than years, because "three years and seven months" is exactly the sort of thing people get wrong and it changes the answer. They show the working for every line, with the article it comes from, so you can check it or hand it to your employer. And where the law is genuinely unsettled — whether Oman still requires a full year of service, what "wage" means in the UAE's two-year cap — they say so instead of quietly picking a number.
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