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Years of Experience
With a wealth of experience managing payroll, our expertise speaks volumes.
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Global Clients
Running payroll isn't just a service, our clients' success is our priority.
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Payrolls / Month
Processed accurately and on time every month — 40,000+ delivered since inception.
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Recruitment/Month
Since 2006
Est. 2006
Formerly esquare.com.pk
20 years of trusted HR services in Pakistan and beyond.
Trusted & Compliant With
An Employer of Record (EOR) in UAE is a service provider which enables a qualified business to employ staff in the UAE via an EOR employment structure and allows the client company to manage the employee’s day-to-day work and business activities while e-square handles the formal employment relationship and agreed upon employment administration.
Using an Employer of Record can assist businesses who wish to hire in UAE but do not want to initially create their own comprehensive local employment infrastructure.
A UAE EOR can support:
Who uses UAE EOR?
Establishing a first foothold without a full local entity.
Testing the market with a compliant, low-friction start.
Building a team without an internal HR administration function.
Scaling presence in one of the region's key hubs.
Bringing in specific skills without a lengthy setup.
Keeping options open before committing to a permanent structure.
Creating a UAE-based operation involves numerous requirements that need to be fulfilled prior to commencing employment. However, using an EOR model enables eligible businesses to start employing staff without having created a total employment infrastructure internally.
Employment law varies greatly among various regions globally. As such, e-square assists in administering the employment agreements, payroll administration, benefits and other agreed upon workforce-related functions within the applicable UAE framework.
Rather than expending valuable internal resources on typical employment administration functions, your management team can focus on developing relationships with clients/customers, growing your business, increasing sales, etc.
Regardless of whether you are planning on hiring one employee or constructing a larger team in UAE, an EOR model can serve as a versatile platform for supporting workforce development
Structured payroll and HR administration means your team is not tied up managing routine employment processes internally.
Employment law changes constantly. Additionally, there exist differences in the requirements that vary depending on the region or type of employment arrangement used. As such, e-square supports compliance with applicable UAE employment law within the scope of the agreement.
Choosing between an EOR and establishing your own employment structure depends on your business plans, workforce size, operating model and long-term presence in the UAE.
| Consideration | UAE EOR | Own UAE Entity |
|---|---|---|
| Employment administration | Managed by EOR within agreed scope | Managed by your company |
| Employment contracts | EOR-supported | Company-managed |
| Payroll | EOR-supported | Company or payroll provider |
| Employee records | EOR-supported | Company-managed |
| Benefits administration | EOR-supported | Company-managed / outsourced |
| HR administration | Outsourced | Internal or outsourced |
| Initial administrative burden | Generally lower | Generally higher |
| Day-to-day employee management | Client | Client |
| Best suited for | Market entry, initial hiring and workforce expansion | Established long-term local operations |
e-square provides an integrated approach to UAE employment administration, helping businesses manage employees across the employment lifecycle.
We prepare and administer the necessary documentation for the applicable UAE employment arrangement (including essential details such as job description/title, compensation, working conditions, leave entitlements, notice periods), etc.
In addition to required employee documentation, we also facilitate agreed-onboarding activities and coordinate initial payroll set up.
If part of the services provided, we will arrange any required visa/work permit applications and submissions with relevant government agencies and/or partners.
We manage agreed payroll processes, including salary calculations, allowances, deductions, payroll records, payslips and reporting.
For employees requiring WPS payment administration as per UAE Labor Law requirements, e-square will administer applicable salary payments.
Employee benefits we agree upon, such as health insurance, allowances and other contractually stipulated benefits, will be administered by e-square.
Annual leave, sick leave, maternity leave and all other applicable types of leave will also be integrated into our employee administration process.
We will support you with the calculation of any applicable End of Service Benefits and assist with the administrative process related to the employee leaving your organization.
As part of our agreed-upon HR administration process, e-square maintains the employee’s employment record and payslips/payroll information.
e-square supports the applicable offboarding process. This may include: Final payroll; Balance of any accrued leave; Calculation of End of Service Benefits (if applicable); Any other requirements associated with the employee’s departure (as per the agreement).
Beyond hiring an employee, e-square can support the entire lifecycle of the employee. Support for UAE Payroll/Wage Protection System Our UAE EOR Services include UAE payroll management. e-square manages the agreed-upon payroll administration for employees. Therefore, based on their employment agreements and applicable requirements, they receive compensation on time .
Payroll is one of the most important components of UAE EOR services. e-square manages agreed payroll administration so that employees are paid according to their employment terms and applicable requirements. Our UAE Payroll Services support can include:
The Wage Protection System (WPS), is an electronic system designed to help facilitate and monitor employee salary payments in the United Arab Emirates. According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, WPS is "a method for paying wages electronically via authorized banking entities using the wages registered under employment contracts”.
Requirements for WPS applicability and the rules surrounding it can vary greatly depending on both the employer and employee circumstances. Thus, it is advisable to assess payroll administration for compliance with the relevant regulations.
A properly structured employment contract establishes the terms of the employment relationship. Depending on the applicable employment arrangement, employment documentation can cover:
The UAE's Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 and its amendments regulate employment relationships in the private sector and address employment contracts, working hours, overtime, wages, leave and other employment matters. As part of our EOR services, e-square assists clients with managing employee documentation as outlined in the agreed-upon EOR Scope.
A UAE EOR must comply with the applicable employment laws governing both employers and employees. Key areas include:
Working hours, rest periods and overtime are regulated under the UAE's employment law. There are specific rules regarding working hours, overtime and exceptions dependent upon the employee category and situation.
Employees are typically entitled to annual leave based upon years of service. For example, employees typically accrue 30 days of annual leave per year after completing a certain amount of service.
Sick leave is provided to employees in accordance with UAE employment law and wage treatment varies depending on whether leave is taken during a short term illness or if longer-term illness occurs.
In the UAE, employees are entitled to maternity leave in accordance with current private sector employment legislation. The maximum entitlement to maternity leave is currently 60 days which includes 45 days at full pay followed by 15 days at half pay. These entitlements apply to female employees who meet the necessary criteria and conditions set out in statute.
Employees are entitled to statutory public holidays in accordance with applicable UAE regulations.
Termination of employment and resignation are subject to the contractual and statutory requirements as established for both parties including notice provision and payment of final entitlements.
Applicable employees may be entitled to end of service benefits determined pursuant to UAE employment regulations and their qualifying service.
Businesses employing UAE nationals may have applicable Emiratization obligations depending upon their formation, workforce composition and classification.
The UAE has strict compliance rules for businesses operating from free zones. Companies licensed in a free zone have two different sets of regulations to follow — those set forth by the free zone itself and those related to employment.
e-square is licensed as E Square Services LLC-FZ under Meydan Free Zone (License No. 2309891.01), authorized to deliver HR and information service solutions including PEO and long-term HR deployment services under Activity Codes 7830.01 (Provision of Human Resources for Client Businesses) and 6390.00 (Other Information Services).
Meydan Free Zone
Meydan Free Zone offers licenses for various types of businesses in Dubai. The Meydan Free Zone currently lists over 2500 different business activities across many different business sectors; these sectors include professional services, IT and communications, trading, healthcare, education, manufacturing and other.
The business activity(s) listed on a Meydan Free Zone company’s trade license will determine the scope of the company’s licensed activities.
Licensed Activities
Meydan's current activity framework includes categories such as:
The exact activity and approval requirements should always be checked against the current Meydan Free Zone activity list.
Regulatory Compliance
While having a Free Zone license exempts a company from some regulatory compliance issues regarding its workforce, it does not exempt the company from all compliance issues. Specifically, a company still needs to comply with laws related to employment, immigration, payroll and data protection for its workforce.
e-square assists businesses with managing the administrative aspects of employing people in the UAE through our EOR service.
UAE Personal Data Protection Law
On November 20th, 2021 the UAE government passed Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 "Regarding the Protection of Personal Data" (PDPL). This law established a comprehensive regulatory framework that governs how organizations handle personal data within the UAE. As part of this regulation, employers and third-party providers handling employee personal data (such as EOR services) must implement privacy and data security measures that protect employee:
Employee data is handled using appropriate privacy, confidentiality and information-security controls consistent with applicable requirements — e-square is ISO 27001:2022 certified for information security management.
One reason companies expand globally is due to favorable tax environments. In general, the UAE does not require individuals employed in the country to pay personal income taxes based upon their employment income.
However, businesses operating in the UAE typically have other tax obligations (in addition to corporate income tax), including tax obligations related to their specific type of business (if any), foreign ownership status, number of shareholders, etc. Additionally, businesses operating in the UAE also have licensing, immigration and labor law requirements. For example, there are restrictions regarding who can employ workers and when.
Corporate income tax obligations are completely independent from the payment of individual employee payroll taxes.
For our EOR clients, we focus solely on the employment administration and payroll-related aspects of our clients’ workforce and do not address corporate taxation.
The UAE does not generally impose personal income tax on individuals' employment income.
A competitive UAE employment package can include more than base salary. Depending on the role, employer policy and employment agreement, compensation may include:
e-square can administer agreed salary and benefits as part of the EOR employment arrangement.
As mentioned earlier, the cost and availability of health insurance varies greatly among Emirates. The Dubai Health Insurance Corporation under the umbrella of the Dubai Health Authority administers and regulates health insurance requirements in Dubai. For employees working in the UAE through e-square's EOR services, we assess their required health insurance coverage according to their place of residence and their employment arrangements.
Employer of Record (EOR) and Professional Employer Organization (PEO) are often used interchangeably in search queries, but they aren't necessarily the same employment model.
An EOR generally becomes the formal employer for the employee under the applicable employment structure and manages agreed employment administration, while the client directs the employee's daily work.
A PEO generally operates through a co-employment or shared-employment model, where responsibilities are divided between the PEO and client.
| Feature | EOR | PEO |
|---|---|---|
| Formal employment role | EOR | Shared / co-employment structure |
| Payroll | Managed by EOR | Managed / shared |
| HR administration | EOR-supported | PEO-supported |
| Day-to-day employee direction | Client | Client |
| Local entity considerations | Depends on structure | Depends on structure |
| Market-entry use case | Strong | Depends on arrangement |
| Employment administration | EOR-led | Shared |
End-of-service benefits are an important part of UAE employee lifecycle administration. When an eligible employee leaves employment, the final settlement may need to account for:
e-square supports the applicable calculation and final settlement administration within the agreed EOR scope.
Provide details regarding the roles you will be hiring, work location(s) that you will need to staff, salary/benefits information, and anticipated start date(s).
Review your hire plans with e-square and let us help you determine which type of EOR best fits your needs and what is included in the scope of services.
Once you've reviewed and accepted the terms of an e-square EOR agreement, we will create all necessary documents to begin an employment relationship.
Coordinate the onboarding process based upon the details provided by you prior to agreeing to establish the employment relationship through e-square. This includes setting up the pay, employee benefits and agreed employment administrative tasks associated with employing people in the UAE.
Manage recurring payroll and coordinate other agreed-upon administrative functions associated with employing people in the UAE.
Continue to provide support during all phases of the employee life cycle from leaves and benefits to terminating the employment relationship at end-of-service or otherwise as requested by you.
Businesses entering the UAE can use an EOR to support their initial hiring requirements.
Startups can build their first UAE team without immediately creating a large internal HR administration function.
Small and mid-sized businesses can outsource employment administration while focusing on operations and growth.
Larger organizations can use UAE EOR support for specific workforce requirements or new market expansion.
Companies hiring UAE-based remote employees can use an EOR structure where appropriate.
An EOR can provide a practical workforce option while a company evaluates its long-term UAE operating model.
Since 2006, e-square has provided payroll, recruitment and outsourced employment services. Their existing EOR offering includes local compliance, payroll management, workforce assistance, and entering the UAE market.
Our capabilities extend beyond EOR, including:
This gives businesses the option to consolidate multiple workforce requirements with one HR partner.
Supporting an employee from hire through onboarding, pay processing, benefit administration and finally termination is all part of the agreed upon scope of our service.
The rules governing employment are different in the UAE than they would be in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc. With a service model specific to each country; our clients have ready access to a source of workforce solutions relevant to that market.
We will assist with managing all agreed employment process and payrolls based upon the relevant UAE employment law, regulations, compliance requirements.
Trusted by businesses worldwide to manage their workforce globally.
"e-square services have been working with K-Electric Limited as one of its outsourced services providers since July 2008. Currently 325 e-square employees are engaged in delivery of required services at various departments of K-Electric Limited. These employees belong to e-square services & K-Electric Limited has no employer-employee relations with these employees."
"e-square services had served Ufone (PTML) as one of our outsourced employment services providers from July 2006 to May 2015. These employees belonged to e-square services & Ufone had no employer-employee relations with these employees, while these employees were on e-square payroll to deliver the required services to Ufone. During this tenure e-square provided on average 250/month employees to work for Ufone Contact center in Karachi."
"e-square services have been working with PTCL as one of its outsourced employment services providers since July 2007. Currently 1800 e-square employees are engaged in delivery of required services to PTCL. These employees belong to e-square services & PTCL has no employer-employee relations with these employees."
"e-square Services Private Limited have been working with Careem as one of its outsourced employment services providers since January 2017. We are enjoying their excellent services in the following functional areas: Recruitment of human resource, Payroll management, Salary & benefits disbursement."
"E-Square Services (Pvt.) Limited have been collaborating with M/s Worldcall Telecom Limited as its outsourced employment services provider since 2014. During this period e-square has hired & placed sales force and field collectors to work for Worldcall on E-Square's payroll. These employees belong to E-Square Services and Worldcall has no employer-employee relations with these employees. A total of almost 300 e-square employees has served Worldcall over this period of time in a good collaborative environment."
"CHS has outsourced our Human Resource need for 483 employees to M/s e-square services in November 2016 via contract signed between the two companies. e-square evaluated, recruited and onboarded 483 employees for us. Our expectations were exceeded by the standard of candidates and the swiftness of delivery."
An Employer of Record in UAE is a service provider that manages the formal employment relationship and agreed employment administration for eligible workers, while the client manages the employee's day-to-day business activities.
The EOR manages agreed employment administration such as contracts, payroll, benefits and employee records while the client directs the employee's daily responsibilities.
An EOR may allow eligible businesses to employ workers through an appropriate local employment structure without establishing their own complete local employment infrastructure. The correct structure depends on the circumstances and applicable UAE requirements.
A UAE EOR can handle employment documentation, onboarding, payroll, WPS support where applicable, benefits, leave administration, employee records, end-of-service calculations and offboarding.
Yes. Payroll is a core component of e-square's UAE EOR offering and can include salary calculations, allowances, deductions, payslips, reporting and WPS-related administration where applicable.
The Wage Protection System is an electronic wage-payment mechanism used to facilitate and monitor employee salary payments through approved financial institutions.
An EOR can coordinate applicable visa and work-permit processes where those services are included within the engagement and permitted under the relevant UAE structure.
Health-insurance requirements depend on the emirate and applicable regulations. Dubai has a regulated health-insurance framework administered by the Dubai Health Insurance Corporation under the Dubai Health Authority.
End-of-service benefits are calculated according to the applicable UAE employment rules, employee service period, qualifying status and relevant wage components.
An EOR generally takes the formal employment role under the applicable structure, while a PEO generally operates through a shared or co-employment model.
EOR support may be available depending on the Free Zone, employee circumstances and applicable employment structure. The specific requirements should be assessed before onboarding.
The appropriate employment arrangement should be assessed based on the company's licence, employee location, activity and applicable UAE requirements. Meydan maintains its own current business activity and licensing framework.
Yes. An EOR can administer agreed employee benefits such as health insurance, allowances and other contractual benefits.
The timeline depends on employee documentation, employment structure, immigration requirements, approvals and other onboarding factors. e-square can provide an estimated timeline after reviewing your requirements.
UAE EOR pricing depends on factors such as employee salary, number of employees, benefits, onboarding requirements, visa support and service scope. e-square can provide a customized quotation based on your workforce requirements.
Explore Employer of Record and HR Services across our primary markets.
