How to Calculate Overtime in Qatar (2026)

To calculate overtime in Qatar, work out your hourly basic wage as monthly basic salary ÷ 30 ÷ your normal daily hours, then add the premium the law attaches to when you worked. Daytime overtime pays that hourly rate plus at least 25%. Hours between 9 PM and 3 AM pay it plus at least 50%. Public-holiday hours are ordinary overtime under Article 78, at the same 25% (or 50% at night). Work on your weekly rest day (Friday) brings a substitute rest day, and the higher of the two ways Article 75 allows the day to be paid is your basic wage plus at least 150%: 250% of the hourly rate.

Those rates come from Qatar's Labour Law No. 14 of 2004: Article 74 for overtime, Article 75 for the weekly rest day and Article 78 for public holidays, read here in the official Arabic text the Ministry of Justice publishes on Al Meezan. Two of them differ from the widely circulated English translation, which ends the night window at 6 AM and sends holiday work to Article 75; the sections below quote the Arabic wording. The rates are legal minimums, so a contract can pay more but never less, and the law does not require your consent before you can be asked to work them. Put your own numbers in below, then read on for exactly how each rate applies.

Qatar overtime rates at a glance

The last row is where this guide departs from the English translation of the law, and there's a section on exactly why further down.

How to calculate overtime pay in Qatar, step by step

Step 1: Start from the basic wage

Article 74 is explicit about the base: the employer must pay "the basic wage plus not less than 25%" for ordinary overtime, and the basic wage plus not less than 50% for hours worked between 9 PM and 3 AM. Both premiums attach to the basic wage, so housing, transport, and similar allowances sit outside the calculation unless your contract expressly folds them in.

Step 2: Convert the monthly wage into an hourly rate

Hourly basic wage = monthly basic wage ÷ 30 ÷ normal daily hours

On a standard 8-hour day, that's a divisor of 240. This is the same ÷30 basis Qatar already uses for gratuity (Article 54) and annual-leave encashment (Articles 79 and 72), so it isn't a convention invented for overtime; it's how the law treats a calendar month across the board.

The divisor matters more than it looks. Some published Qatari overtime guides use a 192-hour monthly figure instead (48 hours a week × 4 weeks), which understates the hourly rate and, with it, every overtime amount that follows. On a QAR 7,200 basic wage, ÷240 gives QAR 30.00 an hour; ÷192 gives QAR 37.50, which looks like the more generous number until you realize it's being applied backwards, effectively shrinking a worker's paid hours below what a calendar month actually contains. Our Qatar overtime calculator uses the ÷30 ÷ daily-hours method.

Step 3: Sort your hours by when you worked them

Article 74 states its night window directly, in the article itself. The official Arabic reads «كما يدفع للعمال الذين يعملون بين الساعة التاسعة مساءً والثالثة صباحاً الأجر الأساسي … مضافاً إليه زيادة لا تقل عن (50%)»: workers who work between 9 PM and 3 AM are paid the basic wage plus at least 50%, except shift workers. The widely circulated English translation says 6 AM, but the Arabic is the authoritative text. An hour between 3 AM and 6 AM is ordinary daytime overtime.

Public-holiday hours use these same two rates (Article 78 says so, covered below). Hours worked on the weekly rest day follow neither: Article 75 has its own rule.

Step 4: Apply the multiplier and add it up

Daytime and public-holiday hours × 1.25 × hourly rate, night hours × 1.50 × hourly rate, Friday rest-day hours × 2.50 × hourly rate. Add them together and that's your overtime pay for the period.

Worked examples

Every figure below follows the Qatar overtime calculator's own formula, so you can reproduce each one with your own numbers.

Example 1: Daytime overtime

A retail supervisor on a QAR 7,200 basic wage works a normal 8-hour day and puts in 9 extra daytime hours during the month.

Example 2: Night overtime

An IT support technician on a QAR 9,600 basic wage covers 6 hours from 9 PM to 3 AM, entirely inside the night window.

• Hourly rate: 9,600 ÷ 30 ÷ 8 = QAR 40.00
• Night rate: 40.00 × 1.50 = QAR 60.00/hr
• 6 × 60.00 = QAR 360.00

The same six hours worked in daylight would pay QAR 300.00 (6 × 40.00 × 1.25). A shift from 11 PM to 5 AM sits in between: four night hours and two day hours, QAR 340.00 (4 × 60.00 + 2 × 50.00). The gaps are exactly why sorting your hours by the clock, not just the calendar, matters before you add anything up.

Example 3: Mixed daytime and night overtime

An operations assistant on a QAR 8,400 basic wage works 10 daytime overtime hours and 5 night hours across the same pay period. Each category is calculated separately, then combined.

Hourly rate: 8,400 ÷ 30 ÷ 8 = QAR 35.00. Daytime: 35.00 × 1.25 × 10 = QAR 437.50. Night: 35.00 × 1.50 × 5 = QAR 262.50. Do not blend the two rates into an average; each bucket of hours is priced on its own multiplier.

Example 4: Weekly rest day (Friday)

A warehouse coordinator on a QAR 10,800 basic wage is called in for a full 8-hour day on their Friday rest day.

• Hourly rate: 10,800 ÷ 30 ÷ 8 = QAR 45.00
• Rest-day rate: 45.00 × 2.50 = QAR 112.50/hr
• 8 × 112.50 = QAR 900.00

Article 75 also requires a substitute rest day for the Friday worked. It then offers two ways to pay the day itself: what is paid for an ordinary weekly rest day, or the basic wage plus at least 150%. The QAR 900 above is the second, which is what the calculator prices; the first costs the employer less, so check which one your contract or payslip uses. And under the same article, a worker (other than shift workers) cannot be required to work more than two consecutive Fridays, a protection almost no published guide mentions.

Example 5: Public holiday

A hotel front-desk employee on a QAR 6,000 basic wage works a full 8-hour day during Eid Al-Fitr.

• Hourly rate: 6,000 ÷ 30 ÷ 8 = QAR 25.00
• Holiday rate: 25.00 × 1.25 = QAR 31.25/hr
• 8 × 31.25 = QAR 250.00

That's on top of the monthly salary, which already pays for the Eid day as paid leave. If the shift had run from 7 PM to 3 AM, the six hours after 9 PM would take the night rate instead (2 × 31.25 + 6 × 37.50 = QAR 287.50). It is not the 250% Friday rate of Example 4, and the next section explains why.

Example 6: Overtime during Ramadan

An accounts clerk on a QAR 7,200 basic wage works under Qatar's Ramadan schedule, when Article 73 reduces normal hours to 6 a day, and stays for 2 extra daytime hours.

• Hourly rate on the Ramadan day: 7,200 ÷ 30 ÷ 6 = QAR 40.00
• Daytime rate: 40.00 × 1.25 = QAR 50.00/hr
• 2 × 50.00 = QAR 100.00

If an employer instead divides by the ordinary 8-hour day even during Ramadan, the hourly rate drops to QAR 30.00 and the same 2 hours pay only QAR 75.00, a QAR 25 shortfall. Article 74 defines overtime as work beyond "the working hours specified in the preceding article," and Article 73 is where the Ramadan reduction to 6 hours lives, so the reasoned reading is that the Ramadan day, not the standard 8-hour day, is what the extra hours are measured against. This isn't spelled out as its own sentence anywhere in the law, so treat it as the logical reading of Articles 73 and 74 together rather than a separately codified rule, and raise it with your employer or the Ministry of Labour if the amounts involved are significant.

The public holiday rule: Article 78 points to Article 74

Article 78 lists Qatar's statutory paid public holidays: three days for Eid Al-Fitr, three for Eid Al-Adha, one for National/Independence Day, and three more days set by the employer, ten days in total as a floor. The Council of Ministers or Amiri Diwan often adds extra days on top in a given year (longer Eid breaks are common), but those additions come by annual decision, not by a change to Article 78 itself, so this article deliberately doesn't hard-code a current-year day count that will go stale.

The pay rule for working one of those days is one sentence. The official Arabic of Article 78 reads «وإذا استدعت ظروف العمل تشغيل العامل في أي من تلك الإجازات، طبقت بشأنه أحكام المادة (74) من هذا القانون»: if the work requires employing the worker on any of these holidays, Article 74 applies. Holiday hours are therefore ordinary overtime, 125% of the hourly rate, or 150% between 9 PM and 3 AM, paid on top of the monthly salary that already covers the holiday. Article 78 grants no substitute day.

The widely circulated English translation of the law points to Article 75 here, and an earlier version of this guide followed it and priced holidays at the 250% Friday rate. The Arabic is the authoritative text, published by the Ministry of Justice on Al Meezan, so the guide now follows it, and so does the calculator. If your employer pays holiday hours at 125%, that meets the law; a contract or company policy that pays more is allowed and binds the employer.

That puts Qatar's statutory holiday rate at the bottom of the Gulf on paper, and the guide to public holiday overtime across the GCC puts numbers on it.

Can your employer require you to work overtime in Qatar?

Article 74 opens with "the workers may be required to work additional hours," framed as something the employer can assign, not something the law conditions on the worker's agreement. There's no consent or written-agreement clause anywhere in the article. That's a genuine difference from some neighbouring Gulf jurisdictions, where the equivalent overtime provision does require the worker's consent, so don't assume the same rule applies here just because it applies elsewhere in the region.

What the law does limit is the total: actual working hours, including overtime, cannot exceed 10 a day. The one exception is work "necessary for the prevention of gross loss or dangerous accident, or for the repair or alleviation of the consequences of the said loss or accident," and the statute does not put a separate hour limit on that emergency work itself.

Working hours under Article 73, breaks and the 10-hour ceiling

Article 73 sets the baseline: normal hours are 8 a day and 48 a week, reduced to 6 a day and 36 a week during Ramadan. Time spent travelling to and from work does not count toward those hours. The law also requires a rest, prayer, and meal interval of between one and three hours during the working day, and a worker may not be kept working more than five consecutive hours without one.

Article 74 then sets the ceiling for a day that includes overtime: total actual working hours may not exceed 10, except in the gross-loss or dangerous-accident scenario above. On a standard 8-hour day, that leaves room for up to 2 hours of ordinary overtime before the 10-hour cap is reached, more if the emergency exception applies.

Who's exempt from these rules

Two separate carve-outs sit inside the working-hours chapter itself, and they're often blended into one blanket statement online when they shouldn't be.

• Shift workers (عمال المناوبة) are excluded from Article 74's night rate, and Article 75 neither fixes their rest day on Friday nor limits them to two consecutive Fridays. The day-rate overtime and the paid weekly rest still apply to them.
• Full exemption from Articles 73, 74 and 75 applies to workers in "responsible positions" that carry the same authority over other staff that the employer itself holds (Article 76). That's a test about genuine decision-making power, not simply having a senior-sounding job title.
• A narrower exemption from Article 73 only (the normal-hours cap, not the overtime pay rules) applies to workers doing preparatory or complementary work before or after normal hours, guarding and cleaning staff, and any other category the Minister designates by decision.

Separately, Article 3 removes several categories from the Labour Law entirely, not just its working-hours chapter: government and public-authority employees, staff of Qatar Petroleum-established entities, the armed forces and police, workers at sea, casual workers, domestic workers (and similar household roles), family members living with and dependent on the employer, and most agricultural and grazing workers. Domestic workers are covered instead by the separate Law No. 15 of 2017, which sets its own working-hours limits but does not state a specific overtime percentage the way Article 74 does, so no numeric overtime rate for domestic work is stated here; if that's your situation, confirm the current position with the Ministry of Labour rather than applying this calculator to it.

Common mistakes on Qatar overtime

• Using a 192-hour (or similar) monthly divisor. The correct basis is basic wage ÷ 30 ÷ daily hours, the same method Qatar's own gratuity and leave rules use.
• Expecting the Friday rate for public-holiday work. Article 78 applies Article 74, so holiday hours are ordinary overtime at 125%, or 150% at night. The 250% rate belongs to the weekly rest day.
• Ending the night window at 6 AM. The official Arabic text of Article 74 says 9 PM to 3 AM; the 6 AM figure comes from an English translation.
• Assuming the law requires your written consent for overtime. Article 74 doesn't condition it on agreement, unlike some other Gulf jurisdictions.
• Treating the substitute Friday rest day as optional. Article 75 requires it whenever you work your rest day, alongside the pay for the day.
• Losing track of the two-consecutive-Fridays limit. Non-shift workers cannot be required to work more than two Fridays in a row.
• Applying the standard 8-hour divisor during Ramadan. Article 73's 6-hour Ramadan day is the more defensible basis for the hourly rate that month.
• Calculating overtime on the total salary. Article 74 attaches the premium to the basic wage only.

That last mistake travels. Qatar applies the same basic-wage rule to annual leave under Article 72, so if your overtime was worked out on the total salary, your leave payout probably was too. The leave salary calculation in Qatar page sets out both halves of that formula: Article 79 for how many days you have accrued, Article 72 for what each day is worth.

Check your own numbers

Three figures off your payslip decide the whole calculation: your basic wage, your normal daily hours, and how your extra hours split between daytime, night, Friday, and public holidays.

Run them through the Qatar overtime calculator, then check the rest of your entitlements while you're there. The annual leave and leave salary calculators cover the leave side (also on the basic wage, under Articles 79 and 72), the notice period calculator covers your exit, and the Qatar end-of-service gratuity calculator prices the Article 54 award. If you want the formula behind that last one explained the same way this article explains overtime, see how to calculate gratuity in Qatar. Every tool is listed on the calculators hub.

Qatar Labour Law No. 14 of 2004 is published on the Al Meezan legal portal: Law No. 14 of 2004. Articles 73 to 78 are the ones covering working hours, overtime, the weekly rest day, exemptions, and public holidays. These calculations are estimates for guidance: for a disputed amount, the Ministry of Labour or a qualified labour lawyer should see your actual contract and timesheets.

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