The most common and default contract type in Qatar. It has no fixed end date and continues until terminated by either party with proper statutory notice (1-2 months depending on tenure) or for cause. Employees on indefinite contracts accrue full annual leave, sick leave, and end-of-service gratuity entitlements once qualifying service thresholds are met.
Fixed-term contracts specify a defined end date or project/task and are commonly used for project-based or time-limited roles. They end automatically on expiry without notice obligations, but early termination without a valid cause can expose the terminating party to compensation for the remaining contract term (commonly limited to a few months' wages). Successive renewals or continued performance past the stated end date can raise questions about whether the relationship has effectively become indefinite, so fixed terms should be tracked and renewed deliberately.
Standard working hours are 8 hours/day and 48 hours/week over a 6-day week (Friday is the mandatory weekly rest day; many employers also give Saturday off). During Ramadan, working hours for Muslim employees are reduced to 6 hours/day / 36 hours/week. Daily hours may be extended up to 10 hours including up to 2 hours of overtime. Overtime is paid at a minimum of 125% of the regular hourly wage for daytime work and 150% for night work or work on the weekly rest day/public holidays.
The probationary period may not exceed 6 months and an employee cannot be placed on more than one probationary period with the same employer. Termination notice during probation is typically set by the employment contract (commonly ranging from about 1 week to 1 month), and either party may terminate on that notice or with payment in lieu. Employees retain full Labour Law protections (minimum wage, working conditions, safety) during probation.
Qatar Labour Law does not mandate a 13th or 14th month salary. Any such bonus is a discretionary benefit offered at the employer's choice, typically documented in the employment contract or company policy rather than required by statute.
Qatar Labour Law does not maintain a restrictive statutory list of permitted job titles, but the written employment contract (mandatory under Article 39) must state the worker's job title/type of work, as this ties directly to the employee's work/residence permit classification with the Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Interior. Certain regulated professions (e.g., legal, medical, engineering, accounting) require separate professional licensing or credential recognition to practice under that title, independent of the general Labour Law.
Two separate regimes apply in Qatar, and which one applies depends entirely on nationality: (1) Qatari and other GCC nationals are covered by the General Retirement and Social Insurance Authority (GRSIA, 'Daman') under Social Insurance Law No. 1 of 2022. The employer contributes 14% and the employee 7% (21% total) of the contribution salary (basic wage + social/housing allowance), a rate phased in from a prior 10%/5% split effective from late 2022. (2) Non-GCC expatriate employees — the population a RemoFirst EOR client will almost always be hiring — are NOT covered by GRSIA at all, so the ongoing statutory 'employer contribution' rate for them is effectively 0%. Instead, expatriates accrue an end-of-service gratuity: a lump-sum severance-style benefit of not less than 3 weeks' basic wage per year of completed service (Article 54), paid out at the end of employment rather than remitted monthly to a fund. As a rough ongoing-cost equivalent, 21 days ÷ 365 days works out to about 5.7-5.8% of annual basic salary accruing as a year-end/end-of-contract liability rather than a monthly contribution. RemoFirst accrues and manages this gratuity liability on behalf of EOR clients for their expatriate hires.
As with employer contributions, this splits by nationality. Qatari nationals contribute 7% of the GRSIA contribution salary to their pension/social insurance under Law No. 1 of 2022; other GCC nationals contribute at rates set by their home country's scheme via the GCC Insurance Protection Extension System (rates vary by nationality, e.g. roughly 7-11.75% depending on the country). Non-GCC expatriate employees make NO ongoing social-security-style deduction from their pay at all — there is no employee-funded pension or social insurance scheme for expatriates in Qatar, so the applicable expatriate figure is 0%. Their only end-of-employment benefit is the employer-funded end-of-service gratuity described above, which is not employee-funded and not deducted from salary.
In addition to statutory leave, employees are entitled to the following statutory benefits:
Qatar's social insurance system is administered by the General Retirement and Social Insurance Authority (GRSIA, also known as 'Daman') under Social Insurance Law No. 1 of 2022. Coverage depends entirely on nationality:
Instead of ongoing pension contributions, expatriates are covered by the end-of-service gratuity system (see Severance Pay), a lump-sum benefit paid at the end of employment rather than an accruing pension fund.
Qatar does not operate a separate state-run workers' compensation insurance fund comparable to GRSIA. Instead, the Labour Law (No. 14 of 2004) places the cost of occupational injury and disease directly on the employer.
RemoFirst, as Employer of Record, arranges appropriate coverage for employees engaged through its Qatar EOR service.
Qatar's severance mechanism is the end-of-service gratuity (EOSG), set out in Article 54 of Labour Law No. 14 of 2004. It applies to expatriate employees in lieu of a pension, since expatriates are not covered by GRSIA.
For RemoFirst EOR clients hiring expatriates, this gratuity — not a GRSIA pension contribution — is the ongoing statutory cost to plan for, typically accrued at roughly 5.7%-5.8% of annual basic salary.
Qatar Labour Law does not require a 13th or 14th month salary.
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Your employee's hours, time off, holidays, bonuses, and commissions are automatically calculated into payroll. RemoFirst will invoice you in either US Dollars (USD), Euros (EUR), British Pounds (GBP), Canadian Dollars (CAD), Australian Dollars (AUD), or Singapore Dollars (SGD) around the 15th of each month to make sure your employees are paid on time. To make it even easier, you can summarize your entire global team's salaries to aggregate them into one payment (instead of many individual payments).
Unlike full-time employees, contractors work on projects with multiple companies at a given time and are technically self-employed. Full-time employees are solely focused on their employer and usually receive benefits (such as health insurance, equity or stock options, and time off) as an additional form of compensation. While it can be cheaper to work with international contractors instead of paying benefits to a full-time employee, you run the risk of misclassification. It's recommended to work with an EOR for contractor onboarding and payments, so you can know that your international contractors are paid compliantly and on time.
Whenever the employee or employer has a question about, or anything else related to international employment, they can speak with our customer support team to get answers from our team of experts.
