Ramadan 2026 in the UAE and Saudi Arabia: Compliance, Consumer Peaks, and Strategic Timing for Foreign Businesses

February 16, 2026 Posted by Middle East Briefing Written by Giulia Interesse

Ramadan 2026 in the UAE and Saudi Arabia should be treated as both a compliance-sensitive period and a predictable commercial peak, requiring early alignment on reduced working hours, overtime rules, staffing models, and regulatory timelines.

For foreign companies operating in the Gulf, Ramadan is often treated as a temporary shift in working hours and consumer rhythms. In practice, it has become a recurring stress test for business continuity, labor compliance, service-level resilience, and brand relevance, particularly in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, where regulatory modernization and competitive consumer markets are moving quickly.

In both countries, Ramadan planning now sits at the intersection of three realities.

First, labor and immigration compliance has tightened in recent years, and operational slippage during Ramadan (misapplied working hours, unclear overtime practices, inconsistent scheduling, or gaps in documentation) can expose employers to disputes and scrutiny at precisely the time when leadership attention is often split across operational and commercial priorities.

Second, Ramadan and Eid increasingly function as a “peak” commercial season, with measurable surges in search intent and spending across categories such as groceries, fashion, gifting, and hospitality.

Third, governments and large platforms have become more sophisticated in programming the Ramadan economy, from citywide festivals to retail campaigns and digital commerce acceleration.

For companies that plan early, Ramadan can support revenue growth, stronger talent retention, and improved operational performance. For those that treat it as a short-term disruption, it can create compliance exposure, staffing friction, and missed seasonal demand.

Ramadan 2026 timing and planning assumptions

Ramadan follows the Islamic lunar calendar and begins with the sighting of the new crescent moon, meaning dates can vary slightly across jurisdictions. For planning purposes across the Gulf, credible regional reporting and official moon-sighting announcements indicate Ramadan 2026 is expected to begin around Thursday, 19 February 2026, with countries in the region calling for crescent sighting attempts around Tuesday, 17 February 2026.

For businesses, the operational takeaway is simple: assume an early-to-mid week start and prepare internal scheduling, customer communications, and supply readiness accordingly. If your model depends heavily on retail traffic, hospitality volumes, logistics throughput, customer support, or public-sector processing timelines, you should treat the period from the last week of Sha’ban through Eid as a single continuous operational cycle, not separate weeks.

Workforce and compliance: Reduced hours, overtime risk, and enforcement pressure

UAE: private sector reduced hours are not optional

For the UAE private sector, the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) has confirmed that normal working hours are reduced by two hours per day during Ramadan. This matters for foreign employers because misalignment between policy and practice tends to surface during Ramadan: some teams continue operating on non-Ramadan schedules, some managers apply reductions inconsistently, and some companies mistakenly treat the reduction as discretionary or limited to fasting employees.

A second compliance issue is overtime. If an employer expects output levels similar to non-Ramadan months while reducing scheduled hours, managers may rely on informal “just stay longer” practices. That creates wage-and-hour risk if additional hours qualify as overtime and are not compensated or recorded properly. UAE reporting on the 2026 announcement has explicitly highlighted that additional hours beyond the reduced schedule may be treated as overtime.

In parallel, companies should remember that Ramadan does not pause broader MoHRE compliance expectations. As regulatory systems become more digitized and enforcement mechanisms more immediate (for example, service restrictions and administrative actions), operating “loosely” during Ramadan is a growing risk.

Saudi Arabia: Ramadan hours are reduced for Muslim employees under labor law

In Saudi Arabia, official guidance from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (HRSD) restates that actual working hours during Ramadan are reduced for Muslims so they do not exceed six hours per day or 36 hours per week, linked to Saudi Labor Law provisions.

For multinational employers, this creates practical questions that should be resolved before Ramadan begins:

How will you structure mixed teams where some employees are Muslim and others are not?
Will you adopt a uniform Ramadan schedule for all staff to avoid internal friction and scheduling complexity?
How will you maintain customer coverage across extended evening activity, especially in consumer-facing sectors?

In both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, Ramadan is also a period when employee expectations around flexibility rise sharply, particularly for parents, shift workers, and customer-facing roles. Companies that set clear schedules, document arrangements, and train line managers on compliance and communication tend to see fewer disputes and better continuity.

Peak demand is predictable: What the data says about when consumers spend

The consumer economy during Ramadan is not uniform. It moves in phases—and the data shows the peaks are consistent enough to plan around.

A Google and Visa study focused on the UAE and Saudi Arabia describes “peaks” of heightened consumer activity and notes that the final two weeks of Ramadan leading up to Eid al-Fitr are typically the peak shopping period, as households prepare for celebrations and gifting.

Visa’s own economic analysis on Ramadan spending patterns similarly emphasizes a shift over the month: early Ramadan tends to see stronger grocery and supermarket spending as households stock up, while the final period shifts toward categories such as clothing and department stores in the run-up to Eid.

This phased pattern matters operationally:

If you are in FMCG, grocery, food service, or logistics, the “stock-up” period before and just after Ramadan begins is where inventory and delivery capacity can break.
If you are in fashion, gifting, beauty, electronics, or marketplaces, the last 10–14 days often determine the season’s performance.
If you are in hospitality, demand can be split: quieter daytime volumes but stronger evening and late-night activity, plus citywide festival programming and Eid travel effects.

A separate example of how sharply Ramadan can affect e-commerce and gifting demand comes from marketplace reporting in the region: one platform’s Ramadan 2025 performance showed large year-on-year increases in gifting activity and gross merchandise value during the season. While platform-specific, it reinforces the broader pattern that Ramadan and Eid are now core digital commerce moments in the Gulf.

The practical implication for foreign companies is that “Ramadan marketing” is no longer a creative theme. It is a calendar-driven commercial cycle where search intent, spend concentration, and category-level shifts are measurable, and increasingly expected by consumers.

Sector playbook for foreign companies in the UAE and Saudi Arabia

Retail, FMCG, and consumer brands: Plan for two peaks, not one

You should treat Ramadan as two operational peaks:

Pre-Ramadan and early Ramadan stock-up (grocery and essentials heavy); and
Late Ramadan to Eid (gifting, fashion, beauty, discretionary spend).

This affects everything from inbound freight scheduling to warehouse staffing, marketplace promotions, pricing governance, and customer support capacity. For UAE and Saudi operations, align your promotions calendar to the “final two weeks” reality highlighted by Google/Visa, while ensuring your supply chain is ready earlier for pantry-loading behavior.

E-commerce and platforms: Re-forecast staffing for late-night demand

Ramadan shifts daily life later, which in turn affects browsing, ordering, and customer service patterns. If you rely on performance marketing, seasonality planning should include:

Evening conversion windows;
Remarketing intensity; and
Faster creative iteration before the last two weeks.

Hospitality and tourism: anticipate “night economy” uplift

In both markets, Ramadan is tightly connected to evening social activity, hotel iftars, and city programming. Saudi Arabia also experiences religious tourism dynamics that can intensify operational needs in certain regions and travel corridors. The key risk for foreign operators is under-staffing late-night service windows while over-staffing daytime windows.

B2B, professional services, and project-based industries: adjust expectations, not just hours

Many businesses reduce meeting density during Ramadan, and government-related processing can slow depending on office schedules. The right approach is to compress decision-making earlier (two to three weeks before Ramadan), maintain lean execution capacity during Ramadan, and plan for a post-Eid surge in approvals and commercial reactivation.

Strategic planning checklist for Ramadan 2026

Workforce and compliance

Companies operating in the United Arab Emirates should formally confirm Ramadan working schedules in writing for each local entity, reflecting the two-hour daily reduction for private sector employees announced by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE). In Saudi Arabia, employers must ensure alignment with Labor Law provisions limiting working hours for Muslim employees during Ramadan to six hours per day or 36 hours per week.

Timekeeping systems and overtime policies should be reviewed in advance of Ramadan. Where reduced daily hours apply, any extension beyond the adjusted schedule may qualify as overtime, depending on the circumstances and applicable labor law. Clear internal guidance and manager-level training are essential to prevent informal scheduling practices that could expose the company to wage-and-hour disputes.

For organizations with mixed Muslim and non-Muslim teams, management should determine in advance whether a uniform Ramadan schedule will be applied across the workforce or whether differentiated schedules will be maintained. A clearly articulated policy reduces operational ambiguity and minimizes potential employee friction.

Operations and customer coverage

Operational planning should reflect the structural shift in daily rhythms during Ramadan, particularly in consumer-facing sectors. Staffing allocations may need to be adjusted toward evening and late-night coverage, especially in retail, hospitality, logistics, and customer service functions.

Supply chain resilience should be stress-tested for two critical windows: the first week of Ramadan, when grocery and essentials demand typically increases, and the final two weeks leading to Eid al-Fitr, when discretionary and gifting-related spending peaks. Customer support capacity should also be evaluated to manage higher inquiry volumes during promotional campaigns and post-Eid returns.

Commercial planning

Ramadan and Eid should be treated as a defined commercial peak season rather than a general marketing theme. Inventory planning and promotional timing should align with the well-documented late-Ramadan surge in search activity and consumer spending observed in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Post-peak dynamics also require planning. Returns, exchanges, and after-sales service demand frequently rise following Eid celebrations. Allocating resources for post-holiday service continuity can prevent customer dissatisfaction and reputational risk.

Stakeholder communication

Revised operating hours and service windows should be communicated clearly to customers, suppliers, and logistics partners, particularly where cross-border supply chains are involved. Advance coordination helps mitigate delays and mismatched expectations during reduced public-sector and private-sector hours.

Where business models depend on regulatory approvals, licensing, customs processing, or court procedures, companies should reduce reliance on last-minute filings during Ramadan. Front-loading submissions and building in additional buffer time can help manage the potential slowdown in administrative processing.

For tailored support on workforce compliance, operational structuring, and regulatory planning in the UAE during Ramadan, contact our advisors to ensure your business remains both compliant and commercially positioned throughout the season.

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