Nafis is getting its biggest overhaul since it launched in 2021, and the new rules take effect this month. If you employ UAE nationals — or you’re building out Emiratisation hiring plans for the rest of this year — the UAE Nafis changes September 2026 brings aren’t cosmetic. They touch what you pay, what the government subsidises, and who’s on the hook for pension contributions. Here’s what actually changed, sourced directly from the official announcement and the coverage around it.
Why this is happening now
The Emirati Talent Competitiveness Council (ETCC), which runs Nafis, announced in April 2026 that the programme is being extended out to 2040, with a revised benefits framework starting in September 2026 for new beneficiaries. ETCC Secretary-General Ghannam Al Mazrouei confirmed the new structure directly, in comments carried by Sharjah24 via the UAE’s official news agency WAM (Sharjah24/WAM). Since its 2021 launch, Nafis has supported more than 176,000 Emiratis, with around 152,000 currently employed through participating private companies (KPMG — GMS Flash Alert 2026-118), so this isn’t a minor pilot programme getting adjusted — it’s the mechanism a large share of your Emirati hires are already plugged into, or will be.
The new salary support tiers
From September 2026, the maximum monthly salary support a new Nafis beneficiary can receive depends on their education level (Sharjah24/WAM; KPMG; Morgan Lewis):
- Bachelor’s degree holders: up to AED 6,000 a month
- Diploma holders: up to AED 5,000 a month
- Secondary-school graduates: up to AED 4,000 a month
- Below secondary level, married or with dependants: up to AED 4,000 a month
- Below secondary level, unmarried with no dependants: up to AED 3,000 a month
A standardised minimum salary threshold of AED 6,000 a month now applies across all these eligibility categories (Sharjah24/WAM; Morgan Lewis). That’s not a coincidence: MOHRE separately raised the minimum private-sector wage for Emirati nationals to AED 6,000 a month, effective 1 January 2026 (MOHRE; KPMG), and the new Nafis eligibility floor lines up with it. On the upper end, salary support phases out for employees earning above AED 20,000 a month (Morgan Lewis).
If you’re currently paying an Emirati employee support above these new levels, don’t panic and don’t touch existing payroll unilaterally — the transition is phased. Existing beneficiaries see their support reduced by AED 500 every six months until it reaches the new approved level, over a period of up to three years (Sharjah24/WAM; KPMG).
Child allowance: the cap is gone, but the numbers don’t fully agree
The old scheme capped the child allowance at four children. That cap has been removed entirely (Sharjah24/WAM; Gulf News; Morgan Lewis) — a genuine expansion for larger Emirati families.
A figure sources disagree on: Gulf News and KPMG describe the new child allowance as up to AED 3,000 a month in total, with no limit on how many children that covers. Morgan Lewis describes it instead as AED 600 a month per child, uncapped. Both agree the four-child cap is gone; they don’t agree on the mechanics of the payout. If an employee asks what this means for their household, point them to Nafis directly for the exact figure rather than relying on either number here.
Two new support schemes
The update also introduces two schemes that didn’t exist before, both still described by sources as having some details pending: salary support of up to AED 3,000 a month for children of Emirati mothers working in the private sector, and up to AED 3,000 a month for wives of Emirati men working in the private sector, each subject to salary-band eligibility conditions (KPMG; Sharjah24/WAM). Nationals working in free zones who earn below AED 6,000 a month can also receive salary support, capped at a 15-month period (Morgan Lewis). If either applies to someone on your team, it’s worth flagging to them directly — this is new eligibility, not something they’d already know to check for.
The part that actually lands on employers: pension contributions
This is the change most likely to hit your budget rather than your employees’ paychecks. From September 2026, private-sector employers must take on their full statutory share of GPSSA pension contributions for Nafis-enrolled Emirati employees, rather than the phased, partly government-supported arrangement Nafis previously offered (Gulf News; Gulf Business; reaphr). The underlying employer/employee/government contribution split (12.5% employer, 5% employee, 2.5% government) comes from the UAE’s general pension law, Federal Decree-Law No. 57 of 2023, not from this Nafis update (reaphr) — what’s changing under Nafis is that employers now cover their share in full for enrolled staff, rather than receiving the subsidised phase-in they had before. If your finance team has been budgeting Emirati headcount costs against the old, partially-subsidised number, this is worth a recalculation before September payroll runs.
What this means for your hiring plans
None of this changes your underlying Emiratisation obligation — the general MOHRE requirement that private-sector companies with 50 or more employees grow their skilled Emirati headcount by 2% a year still stands, alongside sector-specific targets like the ones CBUAE sets for banks (MOHRE — Emiratisation Targets). What’s changing is the cost and structure of employing the Emirati nationals you hire against that quota. A Nafis-supported hire in 2026 costs your organisation differently than one hired under the old framework — lower salary-support ceilings in some cases, a real pension-contribution obligation you didn’t carry before, but also a genuinely wider pool of eligible candidates now that the child-cap and spousal restrictions are gone.
Getting ahead of that means two things: budgeting Emirati hires against the real, post-September numbers rather than last year’s, and sourcing candidates deliberately rather than reactively so you’re not scrambling to fill a quota gap under the new cost structure.
That’s the problem JFN’s National Talent Activation plan is built to solve — putting your open roles in front of qualified, registered UAE nationals with enough lead time to plan the hire properly, budget and all.
Talk to JobsForNationals.com
