Can employers keep employee passports?
NO! Because holding a passport in the UAE is illegal. As a matter of fact, UAE employers detaining employees’ passports could be jailed and fined up to 20,000 AED!
The UAE government officials have repeatedly stated that employers should not retain an employee’s passport. A passport is technically the property of the government that issued it and there’s always wording to this that can be found written in each passport. Actually, the passport should be only in the custody of either the holder or of a person authorized by the holder, and each passport holder is responsible for its safekeeping. While we all have to hand our passports over to authorized persons in order to obtain visas, we are not supposed to hand them over to unauthorized people.