Hire anyone in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or anywhere in the UAE without opening a company here. As your Employer of Record we become their legal employer, sponsor their visa and run their payroll. You decide what they work on.
We hold our own UAE licence and do the work ourselves — no local partner in the middle, no handoffs.
7 to 10 working days
From signed offer to first day
From USD 200
Per employee, per month
5,000 employees
Employed through us in the UAE
10 years
Running EOR in the UAE since 2016
Licence 773036
Our own MOHRE on-demand labour supply licence
9 countries
UAE plus 8 more across the Middle East
We are the employer, not the middleman.
Most global EOR platforms do not hold a UAE licence. They sign you up, then subcontract your employee to a local company you have never heard of. When payroll breaks or a visa stalls, you are two phone calls from anyone who can fix it.
We are a direct entity: our licence, our contract, our name on the visa, our team doing the work. The UAE issues that licence only to Emirati-owned companies, which is why very few providers here can say the same.
Four reasons clients stay with us
One company, start to finish.
Contracts, visas, Emirates ID, payroll, insurance, offboarding. All of it done by our own team, under our own licence.
Ten years in the UAE.
We have been running EOR here since 2016 and we employ 5,000 people in the country. We have seen the edge cases.
Someone always picks up.
A large in-house team with Western management, working the way you do. You get a person on the phone, not a ticket queue.
Mainland licence.
We employ on the UAE mainland, so your people can work anywhere in the country and with any client.
Everything it takes to employ someone legally in the UAE, in one monthly fee.
You direct the work, set the salary and run the relationship. We carry the employment.
From your signed offer to their first day: four steps, all of them run by our own team.
Tell us the role and the package.
Salary, start date, job title. We come back with the full monthly cost, no estimates to be revised later.
We issue the contract.
A compliant UAE contract under our licence, with your own IP and confidentiality clauses added.
Visa and permits.
MOL contract, then the e-visa — from which point they can legally work. Medical and biometrics follow, then the labour card, e-residency and Emirates ID.
They start, and we run payroll.
Salary through WPS, insurance live, one invoice to you.
Hiring someone who already holds a UAE Golden Visa?
A Golden Visa holder still needs a work permit to be employed in the UAE, and we issue it through our EOR service — but you skip the visa and medical costs.
Our fee starts from USD 200 per employee per month. Here is everything else that lands on your invoice.
Most providers will not put this in writing. Here it is.
| What you pay | How much |
|---|---|
| Our management fee | From USD 200 per employee per month |
| Visa, work permit, medical, Emirates ID | Quoted by visa type: skilled or unskilled |
| Health insurance | From AED 1,000 per employee per year. Required by UAE law; you choose the tier |
| Security deposit | One month of the employee's salary, fully refundable |
| Currency conversion | Nothing. We use the Emirates NBD published rate |
| Gratuity | Accrued monthly at the statutory rate and set aside for the employee |
That turns on whether the employee holds an attested university degree, not on their job title or seniority. Tell us which applies and we will quote.
Pay in USD, EUR or AED. If your current provider charges you a few percent for "currency management" on a USD invoice, that is a markup, not a cost.
Payroll dates vary by client, and we confirm yours at onboarding.
How EOR pricing models compare across providers is set out in our EOR cost comparison.
If you are hiring one to five people in the UAE, an EOR is faster and cheaper. Past that, do the maths.
| Through us | Your own UAE entity | |
|---|---|---|
| First hire working | 7 to 10 working days | Months |
| Upfront cost | One month's salary as a refundable deposit | Licence, office, share capital, setup fees |
| Who carries compliance | We do | You do |
| Emiratisation | Sits on our quota | Sits on yours |
| Ongoing admin | One invoice | PRO work, visa renewals and cancellations, payroll, end-of-service calculations, licence renewals, audits, in-house HR |
| Leaving | Notice, and we move the people across | Liquidation |
When to set up your own entity instead. When you need a trade licence to invoice UAE clients, or when the team is large enough that our monthly fee costs more than doing all of it in-house — PRO work, visa renewals and cancellations, payroll, end-of-service calculations, not just HR. We will tell you when you reach that point, and we will move your people across when you do. Clients who outgrow us are not a problem — most of them keep us for the next country.
Switching from another EOR? We cover the visa costs.
If your people are already employed in the UAE through a different provider, moving them to us means new visas. The visa is tied to the employer and there is no way around that. We take that cost on, so you are not paying for the same visas twice.
How the move works, step by step: EOR transfer to Connect Resources.
Five thousand people in the UAE are employed through Connect Resources today, for clients ranging from startups with their first Dubai hire to global brands running whole teams here. We have been doing this since 2016.
VeChain came to us with no UAE entity and two people to hire: their CEO and their CTO. We employed both and had them on UAE visas while the entity question was still open, so the leadership could be on the ground months before an incorporation would have allowed it. They have since moved their whole team to the UAE.
We are also an alliance partner of Randstad, one of the world's largest HR services groups.
We are a direct entity. We hold our own MOHRE on-demand labour supply licence, number 773036, and our name is on your employee's contract, visa and Emirates ID. Nothing is passed to a third party. Ask any provider for their licence number — if they cannot give you one, they are not the employer. Our 12-point checklist for choosing an EOR covers what else to ask.
7 to 10 working days from signed offer to first day. They can work legally from the moment the e-visa is issued. The Emirates ID takes another 10 to 20 working days, but it does not hold up their start date.
Our fee starts from USD 200 per employee per month. On top of that you pay visa and work permit costs, quoted by visa type, health insurance from AED 1,000 a year, and a refundable deposit of one month's salary. We do not mark up currency conversion. Full breakdown above.
It changes the job title printed on their Emirates ID, and very little else. A skilled visa needs an attested university degree. Without one, or if attestation has not come through in time, the visa is issued in the unskilled category and the designation on the Emirates ID is taken from that category — a senior engineer can end up reading as "Telecommunication Assistant". The card never says "unskilled". There is no problem at immigration, no effect on the work they do, and no effect on what you pay them. But senior people do notice the designation, so tell us at quote stage and we will confirm which applies before you make the offer.
Yes. One month of the employee's salary. Offset it against a future invoice or against salaries, or ask for it back in cash and you have it within 30 days.
We do. We are the legal employer, so we handle the defence and the process. Legal costs are billed to you, because the commercial decision that led there was yours. You will not be standing in front of MOHRE on your own.
No. People employed through us sit on our MOHRE quota, not yours, and we carry the Emiratisation obligations that come with them. That is one of the main reasons companies use an EOR for their first UAE hires.
They still need a work permit to work for you legally, and we issue it. But you skip the visa and medical costs entirely, so your cost drops to the government work permit fee plus our monthly fee.
You do. Clients add their own IP and NDA clauses to the employment contract, and we issue it that way. Send us your wording. One limit: extra entitlements such as bonuses or commission cannot sit inside our offer, so those you agree directly with the employee.
No. We cover the visa costs when you move people to us from another EOR, because you should not pay twice for the same visas. A first-time hire follows the standard process, with visa costs quoted by visa type.
Yes, and we will not make it difficult. It takes two to three weeks. You pay the government cancellation fees for the visas and work permits, plus our final service charges, and we walk you through it.
Tell us the role, the salary and the start date. We send back the full monthly cost — not an estimate that changes once the visa process starts.
If you already employ people in the UAE through another EOR, say so and we will quote the move, visa costs included.
