Bassem Fawzy

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Gratuity in the UAE is calculated on basic salary only, not the number on your offer letter.Most UAE packages split a la...
17/09/2026

Gratuity in the UAE is calculated on basic salary only, not the number on your offer letter.

Most UAE packages split a large share of total pay into housing and transport allowances. Gratuity ignores all of that. It's calculated purely on the basic wage line, which is often less than half of gross pay.

That means two people earning the same total salary can retire with very different gratuity payouts, depending entirely on how their package was structured on day one.

For a Canadian who left a defined structure back home, that's a second surprise stacked on the first: no CPP contributions accruing here, and the one UAE benefit that resembles a pension is smaller than the payslip suggests.

Neither problem gets solved by reading the fine print after the fact. It gets solved by building savings and protection outside the employer relationship, structured to hold its value regardless of how any one contract is written.

Do you actually know your basic wage versus your total package, and what that split means for your eventual payout?

Want to dig deeper into this? Join me and Glory Xavier on September 29 for Cross-Border Income, Protection & Legacy: A Master Class for Canadian Expats in the Gulf. Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/1217893784761/WN_52YKMFORhmtPev6z1T9HQ

Twenty-five years on the job in the UAE caps out at two years of basic salary in gratuity.That's the formula, not a shor...
16/09/2026

Twenty-five years on the job in the UAE caps out at two years of basic salary in gratuity.

That's the formula, not a shortfall. Twenty-one days' basic wage for each of the first five years, thirty days per year after that, and the total is capped at two years' wage no matter how long someone stays.

Most Canadians build a UAE package assuming CPP is off the table but some kind of employer-backed retirement is still coming. Gratuity is neither. It's a single lump sum tied to one employer and one contract, and it stops growing the moment the cap is hit.

Retirement planners generally point to something closer to twelve times final salary as the number that actually funds a comfortable retirement. Two years' basic wage doesn't close that gap, even after decades of service.

The honest fix is treating gratuity as one line item, not the plan. A portable structure that keeps compounding independent of any single job is what actually covers the distance.

If gratuity is the only number in your retirement plan right now, what's covering the other ten years?

Want to dig deeper into this? Join me and Glory Xavier on September 29 for Cross-Border Income, Protection & Legacy: A Master Class for Canadian Expats in the Gulf. Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/1217893784761/WN_52YKMFORhmtPev6z1T9HQ

Most Canadians here build one habit well and let the other go unchecked.Some people focus almost entirely on growth: inv...
16/09/2026

Most Canadians here build one habit well and let the other go unchecked.

Some people focus almost entirely on growth: investing consistently, riding the tax position, watching the number climb. Far fewer put the same energy into protection — income replacement, and closing the gaps that show up if something goes wrong.

An HSBC study on expat finances found 74% of expats report being financially better off since relocating, and 68% report increased savings. That's real progress, and it's also exactly the group most likely to assume the protection side is already handled.

Growing wealth and protecting it aren't the same project. Skipping one because the other is going well is usually how the gap forms in the first place.

Want to learn more? Join me and Glory Xavier on September 29 for Cross-Border Income, Protection & Legacy: A Master Class for Canadian Expats in the Gulf.

Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/1217893784761/WN_m52YKMFORhmtPev6z1T9HQ

A serious diagnosis doesn't ask what your health insurance actually covers.Most UAE health plans are strong on treatment...
14/09/2026

A serious diagnosis doesn't ask what your health insurance actually covers.

Most UAE health plans are strong on treatment: surgery, hospital stays, the clinical costs. What they're not built for is the months after, when you're not working and the bills at home don't pause.

Employer sick pay here is limited by law, not indefinite. There's no long-term disability floor the way some people assume from back home.

That gap tends to get discovered mid-crisis, not before it. That's the worst possible time to learn where your coverage actually stops.

If you haven't checked where yours stops, send me a DM and I'll walk you through what to look for.

A business partner dies without a buy-sell agreement, and the shares don't wait for grief.They pass immediately. No nego...
11/09/2026

A business partner dies without a buy-sell agreement, and the shares don't wait for grief.

They pass immediately. No negotiation window, no waiting period. In the UAE or KSA, forced heirship can widen the heir pool well past a spouse and children — meaning the surviving partner may find themselves in business with people they've never met.

The partner left standing is grieving a friend and keeping the company solvent in the same week. Payroll doesn't pause for probate, and the bank doesn't wait either.

A funded buy-sell agreement fixes this ahead of time — an agreed value, and the cash set aside to buy the shares the day it's needed. It doesn't take a death to trigger the same vacuum; a critical illness or disability can do it too.

If you're in business with a partner here, the question worth asking is simple: do you have an answer for what happens to their shares tomorrow?

A partner's shares don't wait for anyone's permission to change hands.I've seen it happen without warning: a partner die...
10/09/2026

A partner's shares don't wait for anyone's permission to change hands.

I've seen it happen without warning: a partner dies, and by the time the funeral is over, their shares already belong to whoever inherits them. A spouse, children, and in the UAE or KSA, sometimes more than that.

None of them built the company or agreed to run it, but they're shareholders anyway, with a vote on decisions they've never sat in the room for.

If you're in business with a partner here, send me a DM and I'll share the questions worth asking each other before this becomes urgent.

09/09/2026

Most Canadian expats in the Gulf have never actually tested what their income looks like at retirement, or at death.

You know money is still tied to Canada in some form. What you may not know is how it's treated once you're a non-resident, or what happens to it if you die while living in the UAE or KSA.

Few people have modelled either scenario against their actual residency status.

A smoke detector gets tested. Retirement income rarely does.

If you haven't run that math for your own household, it's worth twenty minutes to find out where you stand.

Link to book a complimentary meeting: https://calendly.com/bassem-fawzy/30min

Three things can stop a paycheck here, and only one of them comes with anything automatic attached.Job loss ends it imme...
07/09/2026

Three things can stop a paycheck here, and only one of them comes with anything automatic attached.

Job loss ends it immediately: there's no unemployment insurance in the UAE the way Canada has it, and end-of-service gratuity is capped regardless of tenure.

A serious disability can end it just as fast, since employer sick pay is limited by law, not indefinite.

Death ends it completely. There's no employer pension or CPP/OAS accrual on income earned here unless you've arranged that separately.

None of these are rare. They're just the ones nobody prices out until they're already living through one.

I look at all three the same way: what replaces the income, for how long, and starting how fast.

30 years doing this — and one thing still makes me pause every time: a trust for a Canadian client without a Canadian ta...
04/09/2026

30 years doing this — and one thing still makes me pause every time: a trust for a Canadian client without a Canadian tax lawyer in the room.

Trusts are powerful planning tools. They are also, for Canadians specifically, a category where the CRA pays close attention.

The risk is this: if a trust is set up offshore without a clear understanding of how it will be classified under Canadian tax law, the CRA can catch it as a foreign trust. A foreign trust classification carries significant and unpleasant tax consequences. Getting there without proper advice does not just create a problem — it can undo the planning entirely.

I covered this directly at our recent webinar: "the last thing you want, the CRA catches this — the CRA is the Canada Revenue Agency — catches this as a foreign trust, where things get pretty unpleasant. From a taxes standpoint... when it comes to trusts for Canadians, you need to run to your Canadian tax lawyer, to get their blessings on whatever it is that we're going to do."

This applies regardless of the structure being considered — Cayman, portfolio bond, trust, or any combination. If you are Canadian, or if there are any Canadian tax threads in your situation, a qualified Canadian tax lawyer needs to be involved before anything is signed.

Offshore planning and Canadian tax position cannot be designed independently of each other.

This is education, not advice.

Bassem Fawzy, LL.B., PFP
Fellow, Canadian Securities Institute
Vice President (MENA) Elixir Wealth DIFC

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Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC)
Dubai

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