WPSSIF fileUAE payrollMOHRE compliancepayroll software

Understanding the WPS SIF file format

14 September 20269 min readAxion ERP Team — GCC Finance & Compliance

A field-by-field guide to the WPS SIF file format for UAE payroll teams, covering EDR and SCR records, filenames, IBAN rules and common rejection causes.

A WPS SIF file is the plain-text salary file that UAE employers upload to their bank or exchange house each month to pay staff through the Wages Protection System. The wps sif file format has no header row and consists of one or more Employee Detail Records (EDR), one per employee, followed by a single Salary Control Record (SCR) that totals the file, all comma-separated on their own lines, as Zoho's SIF format guide and two live bank specifications confirm. Get one field wrong, whether it is a mistyped IBAN or a total that does not match, and the whole file bounces, not just the affected row.

Each EDR and SCR field, the filename pattern your bank expects, and the errors that most often cause a rejected upload are covered below. For the payment deadline itself and what happens if you miss it, see our separate piece on the WPS salary deadline under Resolution 340.

What WPS actually requires

WPS is the electronic system through which the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE) and its banking partners confirm that private-sector wages have actually reached employees, paid via approved banks, exchange houses and other financial institutions rather than in cash or by hand, as set out on MOHRE's WPS guideline page. MOHRE's Guidance and Awareness Portal is the ministry's own reference for the rules, including coverage extensions such as Ministerial Resolution No. 675 of 2022 for certain domestic work professions.

The SIF file is the mechanism, not the rule. It is how your payroll data gets from your system to the bank in a format the bank's own WPS processing engine can read.

The structure of the WPS SIF file format: EDR and SCR records

A SIF file is a comma-separated text file with no header row, containing exactly two mandatory record types, as confirmed independently by Zoho and by HRMantra's SIF guide. A file paying three employees therefore contains exactly four lines: three EDR rows followed by one SCR row.

EDR: the employee detail record

Each employee gets one EDR line. Dubai Islamic Bank's own reference guide gives a real sample line that confirms the field order used across UAE banks:

Record type, always the literal text "EDR"
A 14-digit Person ID (also called the labour card number), zero-padded if shorter, issued by the Ministry of Labour, as Emirates Islamic's businessONLINE guide confirms
A 9-digit bank/agent routing code
The employee's IBAN
Pay period start date
Pay period end date
Number of days in the period
Fixed salary amount
Variable amount (allowances, overtime and similar)
A leave or deduction indicator

DIB's WPS SIF specification shows a working example of this line: EDR,00915012345663,802420101,AE160240043520123456701,2016-01-01,2016-01-31,31,4000.00,2500.00,0. Emirates Islamic's guide independently confirms that an EDR is mandatory for every employee paid in the file, with no exceptions.

SCR: the salary control record

The SCR is a single summary line and, per Emirates Islamic's guide, it must always be the last line of the file. DIB's sample SCR line runs: SCR,0000000123456,802420101,2016-01-26,1130,012016,01,6500.00,AED,abc company only 35 characters, covering the employer ID, bank routing code, file creation date, file creation time, salary month and year, record count, total amount, currency, and an optional 35-character employer description.

Two fields in the SCR are the most common cause of rejection. Emirates Islamic's guide confirms the total-amount field must equal the exact sum of every EDR's fixed and variable components in the file, and the currency field must always read "AED".

The optional EVP record

Some bank specifications, including DIB's, allow a third record type, the Employee Variable Pay (EVP) record, to break variable pay into components such as overtime, allowances and bonuses rather than a single figure. This record is optional and not every bank supports it, so confirm with your own bank before using it.

One note on delimiters: a small number of secondary guides, including HR Chronicle, describe the SIF file as pipe-delimited. Every primary bank specification reviewed for this article, DIB and Emirates Islamic alike, shows comma-separated fields, so treat comma as the format unless your specific bank's own guide says otherwise.

How to create a WPS SIF file

Most payroll teams still start in a spreadsheet. Building the underlying data in the wps file format excel layout first, with one row per employee and columns matching the EDR field order above, makes it easier to spot a missing IBAN or a blank routing code before you export to plain text.

HRMantra's build checklist is a useful pre-flight list before you export: verify employer and employee identifiers, routing and account details, pay-period dates, fixed and variable amounts, unpaid-leave figures, and that your record count and control totals in the SCR match the EDR rows exactly, as described in HRMantra's guide.

Once the data is correct, most wps payroll software uae systems, and a number of independent, browser-based sif file generator uae tools, will assemble the comma-separated file and the correctly named .sif file for you. These client-side tools build or check the file locally without any stated bank or government integration; they are independent utilities, not MOHRE or Central Bank systems, as one such generator's own documentation makes clear.

The filename pattern

The SIF filename itself carries data. Per Zoho's guide, it must be exactly 25 characters plus the .sif extension, built from your 13-digit MOHRE employer ID followed by the file creation date in YYMMDD format and the file creation time in hhmmss format. A file created a second apart from another run will therefore never have the same filename, which is by design.

UAE IBAN format: 23 characters

Every IBAN in an EDR line must follow the UAE's fixed format. A UAE IBAN is always 23 characters long and always begins with the country code "AE", as confirmed on bank.codes' IBAN structure page and, more authoritatively, by the Central Bank of the UAE's own IBAN standards page, which states that all UAE IBANs have a fixed length of 23 characters made up of the country code, check digits and the Basic Bank Account Number. Any IBAN shorter, longer, or missing the AE prefix will fail validation before the file even reaches the bank's processing engine.

Common SIF file validation errors

Beyond a malformed IBAN, most rejections trace back to a small set of recurring mistakes:

SCR-to-EDR mismatch. The SCR's record count and total amount must exactly equal the number of EDR rows and the sum of their fixed and variable fields. Even a one-dirham rounding difference is enough to bounce the entire file, not just the affected line.
Labour card or establishment ID errors. An extra leading zero, a stray space, or a labour card number that was not updated after a status change will fail MOHRE's registry match on submission.
Wrong or stale routing codes, particularly after an employee moves banks or exchange houses.
Date formatting slips in the pay-period fields, which some banks reject outright rather than attempting to interpret.

MOHRE's own December 2025 system upgrade, built with Al Etihad Payments, added real-time validation of SIF salary amounts against filed employment contracts, so a figure that does not match the contract on record is now flagged before payment rather than discovered afterwards, according to MOHRE's news release and Zoho's account of the same upgrade. That same MOHRE release notes that WPS already covers more than 99 percent of private-sector workers, with monthly transfers through the system exceeding AED 35 billion.

You can run a candidate file through Axion's WPS SIF validator before submission to catch structural issues such as record-count mismatches and malformed IBANs. It is a checking tool, not a MOHRE or Central Bank system, and it does not submit anything on your behalf.

When wages are due

Under Ministerial Decision No. 340 of 2026, the first day of each Gregorian month is the unified due date for paying the previous month's wages, and any payment made after that date is treated as a delay, per the official text on Lexis Middle East. We cover the deadline mechanics, the grace period and the escalation consequences separately in our guide to the WPS salary deadline under Resolution 340, and in our broader GCC payroll compliance guide.

Getting the SIF file format right every month is one part of a broader compliance workload that also covers GOSI, gratuity and multi-entity payroll. Axion's Finance and People boxes handle the WPS-formatted salary file, a live GOSI estimate for Saudi staff and end of service gratuity for all six GCC states, alongside VAT per country, in Arabic and English, as detailed on the features page.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between an EDR and an SCR in a WPS file?

An EDR (Employee Detail Record) is one line per employee, carrying their Person ID, IBAN and pay amounts. The SCR (Salary Control Record) is a single summary line at the end of the file that totals the record count and payment amount across all EDR rows.

Why does my SIF file keep getting rejected?

The two most common causes are an SCR total that does not exactly match the sum of the EDR rows, and a labour card or establishment ID with an extra digit, missing zero or stray space that fails the bank's registry match. Both stop the entire file, not just the affected employee's line.

What length should a UAE IBAN be in a SIF file?

A UAE IBAN is always 23 characters and always starts with the country code AE, as confirmed by the Central Bank of the UAE's own IBAN standards. Any IBAN of a different length or without the AE prefix will fail validation.

Can I build a WPS SIF file in Excel?

Yes, most payroll teams draft the employee data in a spreadsheet layout matching the EDR field order first, then export it to the comma-separated plain-text .sif format their bank expects. The spreadsheet stage is useful for spotting missing fields before export.

When are wages due under the new WPS rules?

Ministerial Decision No. 340 of 2026 sets the first day of each Gregorian month as the unified due date for the previous month's wages. See our separate guide on the WPS salary deadline for what counts as a delay and what follows it.

Sources

Axion ERP brings finance, people, sales, commerce and supply chain into one system built for GCC compliance: VAT per country, ZATCA and UAE e-invoicing, WPS files, GOSI, gratuity, Arabic and English, unlimited users, priced per box. See the features and pricing pages, or contact us about a pilot.

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