Arrears
Arrears are wages owed to an employee for an earlier pay period that were not paid at the time, because of a late salary change, a missed allowance or a deduction taken in error. In the UAE the original run has already been paid through WPS, so arrears are paid as a separate amount rather than by editing that run.
On this page
Where you meet it
On a payslip as a separate line, or in an off-cycle payment between runs. The construction payroll and WPS guide shows where corrections sit in the monthly cycle, and the answer on payroll corrections explains the settlement path.
How it works
Common causes on a construction payroll are a pay rise approved after the run closed, overtime approved late, an allowance missed for new joiners, and an unpaid leave deduction charged for days that were in fact paid leave. The correction should be worked out from what was actually recorded on the original payslip. If a deduction is refunded, the per-day rate used should be the one deducted on that payslip, not today's salary, so the employee gets back exactly what was taken.
The opposite case is an overpayment. Recovering it from later pay is a deduction under Article 25 of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, and all deductions together may not exceed half the wage. Arrears, by contrast, are owed to the worker and should be paid promptly: wages are due through WPS by the 1st of the following month under Ministerial Resolution No. 340 of 2026.
Where it appears in SupaJack Construct
A payroll correction records the original payslip, works out the difference and settles it as arrears or overpayment recovery through an off-cycle payment. The paid run is never edited, it cannot be deleted while corrections point to it, and a database constraint stops the same correction being settled twice. See payroll and WPS.
Related terms and answers
- WPS: how arrears reach the worker's account.
- Basic salary: the base most corrections are priced on.
- How much can an employer deduct from salary?
- Overtime: a frequent source of late approvals.