UAE employees looking to maximise their annual leave in 2026 have a useful opportunity around UAE National Day. By combining the official National Day public holidays with regular weekend days and three approved annual-leave days, employees on a standard Saturday-Sunday weekend can create nine consecutive days away from work.

The arrangement is based on the UAE’s official public-holiday framework rather than an additional or unofficial holiday.

The official National Day holidays

Under UAE Cabinet Resolution No. 27 of 2024 Concerning Public Holidays in the State, 2 and 3 December are designated as public holidays for National Day. The official UAE Government platform also confirms that UAE National Day is observed on December 2 and that December 2 and 3 are public holidays.

In 2026, December 2 falls on a Wednesday, while December 3 falls on a Thursday.

For employees covered by the UAE private-sector labour law, the UAE Government’s official guidance states that employees are entitled to paid leave on public holidays observed in the country.

This is what makes the National Day period particularly useful for annual-leave planning.

The three annual-leave days to request

An employee working a conventional Monday-to-Friday schedule can request annual leave for:

• Monday, November 30, 2026
• Tuesday, December 1, 2026
• Friday, December 4, 2026

The two days in between — Wednesday, December 2 and Thursday, December 3 — are the official National Day public holidays.

The weekends on either side then complete the break.

The full nine-day period

The result is nine consecutive calendar days away from work, from Saturday, November 28 through Sunday, December 6.

The employee would normally return to work on Monday, December 7.

How three days become nine

The calculation is straightforward:

November 28–29: 2 weekend days
November 30–December 1: 2 annual-leave days
December 2–3: 2 official public holidays
December 4: 1 annual-leave day
December 5–6: 2 weekend days

That gives:

4 non-working weekend days + 2 public holidays + 3 annual-leave days = 9 consecutive days off

In other words, an employee uses three days from their annual-leave balance to create a continuous nine-day break.

This is not an additional nine-day government holiday

It is important to distinguish between the official holidays and the annual-leave strategy.

The UAE Government has officially designated December 2 and 3 as the National Day public holidays. The government has not designated November 30, December 1 or December 4 as National Day holidays.

Those three days are simply annual leave requested by the employee and approved by their employer.

The nine-day period is therefore created by combining three different types of non-working days:

1. Official public holidays
2. The employee’s normal weekly rest days
3. Approved annual leave

This distinction is important when describing the arrangement as a “nine-day holiday.”

What the UAE labour rules say

The official UAE Government guidance on private-sector employment confirms that employees are entitled to paid leave on public holidays observed in the UAE.

The wider public-holiday framework is established by Cabinet Resolution No. 27 of 2024, which lists the official holidays and specifically provides for December 2 and 3 as National Day holidays. The resolution also gives the UAE Cabinet the ability, subject to the conditions in the resolution, to transfer certain public holidays to the beginning or end of a week.

Therefore, the two National Day dates should be treated as the official basis of this particular leave strategy.

Employees still need approval for the three leave days

There is an important practical point: the three annual-leave days are not automatically granted.

An employee must request annual leave through their employer’s normal process, and the employer needs to approve the requested dates.

This means employees should not book non-refundable flights or accommodation on the assumption that November 30, December 1 and December 4 will automatically be approved.

The arrangement works for employees whose employers approve those three annual-leave dates and whose normal weekly rest days fall on Saturday and Sunday.

Employees working shifts, alternative working weeks or different weekly rest arrangements would need to calculate the break according to their own schedules.

What about November 29 to December 6?

There is also a small date issue worth clarifying.

A period described as November 29 to December 6 contains eight calendar days.

The complete nine-day break starts one day earlier:

Saturday, November 28, 2026

So the accurate nine-day period is:

Saturday, November 28 → Sunday, December 6, 2026

The three annual-leave dates are:

Monday, November 30 + Tuesday, December 1 + Friday, December 4

The final calculation

For an employee with a standard Saturday-Sunday weekend, the 2026 National Day arrangement can therefore be summarised as:

3 days of annual leave

+ 2 official National Day holidays

+ 4 normal weekend days

= 9 consecutive days away from work

The official public holidays are Wednesday, December 2 and Thursday, December 3, 2026. The employee supplies the remaining three weekdays through approved annual leave.

So, for someone planning their 2026 leave calendar, the key dates are:

• Annual leave: November 30, December 1 and December 4
• Official National Day holidays: December 2 and December 3
• Total break: November 28–December 6
• Total consecutive days off: 9
• Annual-leave days used: 3
• Normal return-to-work date: December 7

The UAE’s official public-holiday legislation and government guidance provide the legal basis for the two National Day holidays; the nine-day result comes from strategically placing three approved annual-leave days around those holidays and the employee’s normal weekend.

In 2001, a pilot project with the US Consulate in Mumbai saw three small visa centres being set up in western India. Twenty-five years on, that experiment has become VFS Global: a partner to 71 governments, operating over 4,200 application centres across 169 countries, with 17,500-plus staff and more than 557 million transactions processed.

Along the way, it created a new industry, moved millions of people across borders more securely, and made Dubai its home, where it now runs the largest visa application centre on the planet. Its founder and chief executive officer, Zubin Karkaria, built it from a humble start in a Mumbai travel firm to the global conglomerate it is today.

Sitting down with Gulf Business at the company’s Dubai head office, Karkaria is reflective about the milestone but focused on what comes next: a business expanding from visas into identity, education, medical and citizen services, all of it anchored, he insists, in trust.

In 2001, you created a category that didn’t exist before. What problem did you see that others had overlooked, and did you ever imagine it could grow into a global business?

It all started with identifying a genuine need and developing a solution which adds value to society, with clarity of purpose. In the 1990s, India’s economic reforms had triggered a sharp rise in demand for outbound travel and therefore for visas. At the time, applications could only be submitted at embassies and consulates, and applicants often had to journey long distances to major cities with restricted submission times.

In a country as vast as India, there was a clear opportunity to make the process simpler, more accessible and, above all, able to cope with the surge in demand. Governments and embassies wanted the same thing. That’s when I proposed a model where we could manage the entire administrative and non-judgmental part of the visa process while enabling governments to focus solely on decision-making. In 2001, we launched a pilot with the US Consulate in Mumbai, and that became the beginning of VFS Global, with three centres in western India.

Today, we are present in 169 countries, a trusted partner to 71 client governments, operating over 4,200 application centres with 17,500-plus employees. Since its inception, we have processed over 557 million transactions. Our exclusive partnership with Emirates Airline made the UAE one of our very first client governments.

VFS Global turns 25 this year. In the early days, what were the key moments that convinced you that you were building something with real potential?

Since day one, the mission has remained clear: to make secure cross-border mobility simple and convenient through innovative, reliable technology. In the early days, very positive feedback from applicants and government agencies reinforced the value of what we were doing. What gave me conviction was the belief that this model created value for everyone: travellers, through a smoother experience, and governments, by letting them focus fully on decision-making. Looking back, a small pilot didn’t just reduce queues; we enhanced how people experienced global mobility. We proved that trust, dignity and modern public service can go hand in hand.

The next major milestone was winning the first global contract for UK visas in 2007. We took on the UK Home Office mandate covering 33 countries with integrated biometrics and began UK–Australia joint visa application centres across 11 countries. That catapulted us into a truly global operation, and the mandate has since grown to span 142 countries. From those beginnings, it has been an extraordinary trust-building journey. We are also far more diversified than a decade ago, with a portfolio spanning visas, passports, identity, education, tourism and citizen services.

Headquartered in Zurich and Dubai and rooted in Swiss heritage, VFS Global is today majority-owned through investment funds managed by Blackstone, alongside Temasek, Kuoni and Hugentobler Foundation, and Dubai Holding.

VFS Global is headquartered in Dubai, home to your largest Visa Application Centre. What makes the UAE the right base?

My connection with the UAE goes back almost 30 years, to my time with the Kuoni Group, the first Indian tour operator to recognise the potential of Dubai as a tourism destination, with Emirates as a key partner. That foundation deepened in 2002 with the Dubai Visa Processing Centre, the first airline-specific visa platform of its kind, which has since processed over 3.7 million UAE visa applications and today runs 27 centres across 15 countries.

When we moved our global head office to Dubai in 2013, it was in recognition of the fact that the city was fast emerging as a global hub for business, technology and innovation. In synchronisation with the ‘We the UAE 2031’ vision, we have designed our long-term growth corridors to advance national talent competitiveness, and now employ more than 850 staff in the country. We have also replicated our model for UAE government entities.

In September 2024, we secured a landmark contract with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to expand attestation services — which have expanded to 43 countries as of March 2026, from a three-country pilot in 2023. In 2025, Dubai became home to the world’s largest Visa Application Centre, at Wafi Mall.

At nearly 150,000 square feet, it is designed to handle up to 10,000 applications a day and serves over 40 governments. It also pays tribute to Emirati culture, with commissioned artwork by Emirati women artists and a café owned and operated by six Emirati women entrepreneurs. By turning the centre into a platform for local art and community engagement, we show respect for the UAE’s culture while offering a richer experience
to applicants.

AI and biometrics are reshaping how borders operate. How close are we to a seamless, near-borderless visa experience?

One of the most exciting developments in our journey has been our AI-led transformation, which made us the first in our industry to integrate AI across visa, consular and identity services. VFS Global has evolved into a responsible-AI-led organisation where AI is an article of faith, embedded with strong guardrails, human oversight and government-grade security.

We have a team of 22 data scientists building the secure infrastructure behind it. Globally, technology is transforming how governments manage mobility, through digital visa programmes, AI-enabled platforms and advanced biometrics. But in my view, the future of mobility will continue to be shaped by striking the balance between seamlessness and security.

More of the journey will move online, but supervised biometric enrolment in controlled environments will remain important for the foreseeable future, as governments prioritise border integrity and identity assurance.

We support both models: eight active eVisa programmes and custom digital solutions for 15 client governments, alongside secure biometric enrolment where high identity assurance is required.

How do you address concerns around compliance, data privacy, security and government trust?

The very first thing we did at the start of our AI journey was to put the right guardrails in place, partnering with the Responsible AI Institute, because we work in a very sensitive environment. We now invest in future technologies, and protecting applicant data is central to how we design them.

A prime example is our generative-AI chatbot for UK visa customers across 142 countries, built by teams in Dubai, Mumbai and Berlin. It is trained only on publicly available data and hosted entirely on our secure infrastructure, using data masking and personally identifiable information (PII) detection so no sensitive data is ever stored or shared externally.

In 2025, we became the first in our sector to earn the ‘Dubai AI Seal’ as a ‘Trusted AI Enterprise’, with operations adhering to standards including ISO 27001:2022, UK Cyber Essentials Plus and Germany’s IT Grundschutz.

You’ve made a strategic push into global talent and education. How do these fit your broader plans?

With VFS Global Academy, we are building the next generation of global talent with the belief that creating opportunities is as important as enabling mobility. Launched in 2022, it prepares young people for sectors such as travel, tourism, hospitality, logistics and international business. Since inception, we have trained more than 2,800 students, with 100 per cent internships and a 95 per cent placement rate, many of them the first in their families to access international careers. We expect up to 20 centres by the end of 2026 and aim to train 10,000 young people by 2030.

In partnership with the Government of India, the academy has also trained 35,000-plus candidates through the Pre-Departure Orientation Training programme.

VFS Education Services simplifies cross-border admissions for students and universities. Our breakthrough partnership with Austria’s leading public technical universities creates a merit-based pathway for engineering graduates into world-class master’s programmes, using blockchain-based authentication to protect academic credibility. The goal is to bridge global talent shortages and transform student mobility into
a seamless, dignified experience.

The pandemic was an unprecedented test for the travel industry. What was the most difficult decision you had to take during that time?

The pandemic was structurally the most disruptive event in the history of global mobility, forcing the temporary closure of roughly 3,300 visa application centres across 150 countries.

We took swift, decisive action, implementing sweeping cost-control measures while restructuring to become a more resilient organisation. Balancing immediate crisis management with keeping the organisation ready for recovery was the toughest leadership mandate of my career. We also used the disruption to transform the business through digitalisation, launching pre-travel testing solutions, expanding Visa At Your Doorstep and pivoting toward passport services.

Crucially, we prioritised our workforce, engaging over 6,000 employees in eLearning to keep our culture and entrepreneurial spirit intact.

How is VFS Global contributing to Emiratisation and to women’s leadership in the region?

Our commitment to Emiratisation drives long-term sustainability, aligned with the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation and the ‘We the UAE 2031’ vision. We have a roadmap to scale our national workforce to 76 by 2031; our Emirati headcount has already grown from six in 2022 to 29 by June 2026. Through our Empowerment and Inclusion department, we upskill local colleagues across 24 corporate domains including AI and cybersecurity, and partner with the Higher Colleges of Technology on apprenticeships.

Women are actively shaping our regional executive footprint, including leading critical operational rollouts for the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

How important is diversity to operating at scale?

Diversity is one of our greatest strengths. Operating across 169 countries with a workforce representing 169 nationalities, and a global women-to-men ratio of 60:40 as of June this year, our daily reality demands cultural and linguistic adaptation with consistent global standards. It is why we are recognised as a Great Place to Work in several markets. That diversity gives us an unparalleled repository of local knowledge and hyper-local perspective, which lets us understand the distinct needs of both applicants and client governments, even in the world’s most complex markets.

What do client governments look for and how have you earned their trust?

When awarding contracts through competitive tenders, governments evaluate providers over 12 to 18 months against historical experience, network reach, financial strength, compliance, security infrastructure and price. These are security-critical operations involving national border integrity and highly sensitive personal data, so the bar is high. We believe in the power of trusted public-private partnerships, and have built our track record by delivering reliability, service quality and security for 25 years. We have a 100 per cent win rate on existing client-government renewals and 99.4 per cent on new contracts.

We are a trusted partner to 71 governments, managing secure biometric facilities for virtually all Schengen states and the Migration Five alliance: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US. Today we hold exclusive contracts with 41 of our client governments, accounting for roughly 60 per cent of our total global application volume.

One thing we must constantly clarify: VFS Global has absolutely no influence over visa decisions, timelines or appointment capacities, which remain the sole prerogative of individual embassies.

Where do you see the next phase of growth?

Our ambition is to be a full-spectrum, technology-led public-service partner. Visas will always remain our core anchor, but our role is expanding into adjacent government-to-citizen services: identity management, verification and attestation, passports, education and medical services. This lets governments modernise faster and avoid fragmented systems or duplicated investment.

A major driver is our majority acquisition of CiX Citizen Experience in Brazil, which operates over 250 citizen service centres delivering more than 200 types of service, from IDs and passports to driving licences and social assistance — an estimated $4bn market opportunity.

Combining CiX’s platforms with our footprint across 169 countries, we are uniquely positioned to scale next-generation public services worldwide. Ultimately, we are building a global backbone that supports the entire cross-border and citizen journey, with the highest standards of dignity, security and scale.

Artificial intelligence has become the travel industry’s favourite talking point, but the harder question is where it actually changes the journey, and how soon. Amadeus, the travel-technology group whose systems sit behind much of the world’s flight search, booking and airline operations, has made AI a central focus, from acquisitions to a push into so-called agentic tools that can act on a traveller’s behalf rather than simply answer questions.

The Middle East is a natural test bed. Carriers across the region are expanding fast and investing hard in digital experience, even as the fundamentals of personalisation, clean data, connected systems, and trusted infrastructure remain a work in progress everywhere.

We spoke with Maher Koubaa, executive vice president, Travel Unit and MD EMEA at Amadeus IT Group, about how AI will reshape search, booking and disruption management first; why “personalisation at scale” is still so difficult; what happens to airlines, OTAs and booking platforms when the interface becomes conversational; how digitally native travellers are shifting expectations; and where AI and analytics fit into aviation’s tightening sustainability goals.

Amadeus has been investing heavily in AI, including acquisitions like SkyLink and broader AI-powered travel capabilities. How do you see AI reshaping the travel experience over the next three to five years, and which parts of the journey, search, booking, disruption management, or in-trip services, will feel the impact first in a meaningful way?

AI is expected to reshape the travel experience by making it more conversational, personalised and responsive across the journey. In the near term, the biggest impact will likely be felt in areas where travellers need faster support and where airlines manage high volumes of repetitive or complex interactions.

Search and trip planning will be one of the first areas to change meaningfully. Instead of using fixed search boxes and filters, travellers will increasingly be able to describe what they want in natural language and receive more relevant options based on their intent, preferences and context.

Booking and servicing will also evolve. Agentic AI can help airlines move from basic chatbots that answer questions to AI agents that can act within airline-defined boundaries, for example helping a traveller change a flight, identify the booking, propose alternatives, explain fare differences and initiate payment.

Disruption management is another immediate use case. During delays, cancellations or major operational events, airlines need to respond to large numbers of passengers quickly and personally. AI agents can help scale that response while escalating more complex or sensitive cases to human teams.

Over the next three to five years, the travel experience should feel less fragmented. AI will support a more connected journey across inspiration, booking, servicing, disruption support and post-trip engagement, but this will depend on strong data foundations, trusted systems and responsible governance.

The industry has been talking about personalised retailing and NDC for several years, but adoption remains uneven. What progress are you seeing among airlines in the Middle East specifically, and what is still holding back true scale when it comes to dynamic, personalised travel offers?

The direction of travel is clear: airlines want to move from generic offers and broad segmentation towards more dynamic, personalised retailing. The Middle East is particularly relevant because airlines in the region are investing heavily in growth, customer experience and digital transformation.

However, true personalisation at scale remains difficult. One of the biggest barriers is data fragmentation. Traveller information often sits across multiple systems, including CRM, loyalty, digital, passenger service and order management platforms. Without a unified view of the traveller, it is difficult to personalise offers in a meaningful and consistent way.

Another challenge is operational complexity. As airline retailing becomes more sophisticated, rules-based approaches can become difficult to manage. The report notes that one airline customer would have needed to manage 17,000 unique rules to match product bundles to customer segments. AI can help by using data and machine learning to propose more relevant offers or actions in real time, rather than relying only on manual rules.

NDC and new retailing systems are important foundations, but technology alone is not enough. Airlines also need high-quality data, system compatibility, governance, and the ability to connect AI with trusted systems of record. In the Middle East, the opportunity is significant because the region is building for scale, but the same fundamentals apply: personalisation depends on the strength of the underlying data and technology architecture.

As AI evolves from recommendation tools to more autonomous agents, do you see a future where travellers delegate full trip planning and booking to AI systems? How might that reshape the role of airlines, OTAs, and GDS platforms?

Yes, we do see a future where travellers delegate more of the planning and booking process to AI systems, but it will happen gradually rather than overnight. The report shows that AI is already mainstream in travel planning, but usage today is still mainly assistive. Only a small share of travellers currently rely on AI to handle most of their travel planning, which shows that trust, control and reliability still matter.

As agentic AI matures, travellers may increasingly ask AI assistants to plan an entire trip, compare options, recommend flights, hotels and services, and eventually help complete bookings. This changes the role of airlines, OTAs and travel technology platforms. Airlines will need to make sure their offers are visible, accurate and bookable through AI channels, while also protecting their brand, customer relationship and commercial strategy.

OTAs and travel sellers will need to think about how they add value when the interface becomes conversational and intent-led. GDS and travel technology platforms will remain important because AI still needs access to trusted, dynamic travel data and reliable transaction infrastructure. AI may recommend or orchestrate the journey, but the underlying booking, payment and servicing processes still need to be executed securely and accurately through trusted systems.

So the future is not about AI replacing the travel ecosystem. It is about AI becoming a new interface and orchestration layer on top of the ecosystem.

Amadeus’ travel trends research points to rising demand for hyper-personalisation and AI-assisted trip planning. How are expectations changing among younger, digitally native travellers, and what does that mean for how airlines, hotels, and destinations design and package travel?

Younger, digitally native travellers expect travel to feel more intuitive, relevant and responsive. They are used to digital experiences that understand context and reduce friction, so they are less tolerant of generic offers, static information and complicated processes.

The reports point to a broader shift: travellers want experiences and products that are tailored to the specific trip, not simply added as a generic extra. In travel protection, for example, younger travellers show stronger interest when coverage is personalised and relevant to the nature of the trip. The same principle applies more broadly across travel retailing.

For airlines, hotels and destinations, this means packaging needs to become more contextual. Travellers may not just want a flight or a hotel room; they want a trip that fits their purpose, budget, timing, preferences and risk profile. AI can help by interpreting intent, bringing together data from different systems, and creating offers that are more relevant to the individual traveller.

This also means communication needs to be clearer. Travellers expect plain-language explanations, real-time support and transparent options. Whether it is a flight bundle, an upgrade, a hotel offer or travel protection, the value needs to be easy to understand at the moment of decision.

Sustainability targets are tightening across aviation. How is technology, particularly AI and advanced analytics, helping airlines optimise operations such as routing, fuel efficiency, and load factors while maintaining commercial performance?

Technology can support sustainability by helping airlines make better, faster and more data-driven operational and commercial decisions. While the report does not focus specifically on sustainability, it does show how agentic AI and advanced analytics can help airlines optimise complex workflows and improve efficiency.

For example, AI can support operational teams by monitoring performance, simulating scenarios, recommending actions and helping coordinate decisions across traditionally siloed functions. This is relevant to areas such as disruption management, turnaround, capacity planning and operational control.

On the commercial side, AI can help revenue management and marketing teams understand demand signals more quickly and optimise route promotion and load factors. The report highlights AI-powered marketing tools that can identify which routes to promote, link commercial KPIs to market signals such as hotel occupancy and competition, and optimise campaign execution.

The sustainability link is that more efficient operations can reduce waste, improve resource utilisation and support better planning. At the same time, airlines need to maintain commercial performance, so the opportunity is not simply to reduce activity, but to use data and AI to make smarter decisions across operations, capacity and demand.

Kuwait’s Ministry of Health has banned psychotherapists and psychological counselors from offering or promoting treatments that lack established scientific evidence, as part of a new regulatory framework governing the profession in the government and private sectors.

The rules, issued under Ministerial Decision 225 of 2026 by Health Minister Dr Ahmad Al-Awadhi, also establish requirements covering professional licensing, qualifications, clinical training, workplace standards and advertising.

Read more-MoHRE clarifies health insurance rules for work permits: What employers need to know

Offices already undergoing the licensing process will have six months to comply with the new requirements, while practitioners working in the government sector will have 18 months to regularize their status.

According to a Kuwait Times report, the decision is intended to protect clients and prevent the use of practices that do not have a recognized scientific basis.

Broad ban on alternative practices

The decision introduces an outright ban on providing or promoting therapeutic services that are not supported by established scientific evidence. The prohibited practices are divided into four broad categories.

The first covers energy and spiritual therapies, including energy healing, Reiki, pranic healing, treatment involving stones and crystals, spiritual and cosmic healing, “star seeds,” astral projection, and the activation of chakras, the aura or energy field.

The second category includes programming and mental guidance practices that are not evidence-based. These include neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), cognitive programming, mental and psychological engineering, positive affirmations, psychological genetic activation, and psychological or neuro-spiritual preparation.

The third group covers suggestive and performative practices, including stage or fake hypnosis, law of attraction therapy, handwriting analysis, or graphology, body language analysis and time line therapy.

The fourth category concerns relaxation and frequency techniques, including psychological yoga, breath control for meditation, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), color therapy, treatment using frequencies and sound vibrations, tapping and thought field techniques.

The regulations also bring life coaching and self-development activities under the licensing framework, stating that they cannot be practiced outside an approved professional license.

New rules for qualifications

The decision defines regulated professional titles in the sector as senior psychotherapist, psychotherapist and psychological specialist. It also establishes a specialised applied behavior analysis track, covering senior applied behavior analysts, behavior analysts and assistant analysts.

Applicants must hold qualifications from recognized educational institutions, with official equivalency where required. Their studies must also have been completed through regular, in-person attendance.

The rules require directly supervised clinical training and documentation of a specified number of face-to-face therapy sessions carried out inside licensed health facilities.

A psychological specialist with a bachelor’s degree will have a limited role. Such practitioners may conduct preliminary interviews, collect data and administer psychological scales under the direct supervision of a senior psychotherapist.

They may not independently provide therapy, conduct independent sessions, develop treatment plans or present themselves to the public as psychotherapists.

Psychotherapists, meanwhile, may conduct clinical assessments, formulate cases and make diagnoses under approved systems, including the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). Such diagnoses must be linked to assessment and treatment planning and cannot carry medical or pharmacological consequences.

Restrictions on medication and emergency cases

The regulations prohibit non-physician practitioners from prescribing or adjusting drugs, medicines or supplements.

Electroconvulsive therapy, along with magnetic and nerve stimulation techniques of all kinds, is restricted to specialist doctors.

Practitioners must also make an urgent referral to a psychiatrist or specialised hospital when clients present with active suicidal thoughts, severe agitation or acute symptoms related to psychoactive substance use.

Stricter standards for private centers

Private psychological centers and complexes must have examination rooms measuring at least nine square meters and designed to ensure privacy and isolation. Rooms must also have an alarm system to summon assistance when necessary.

Surveillance cameras are limited to corridors and waiting areas, with recordings retained for three months. Recording sessions is prohibited without the client’s prior written consent.

Each complex must appoint a full-time senior psychotherapist to serve as its technical director.

The decision also prohibits misleading advertising and the promotion of psychological services through unlicensed platforms or centers.

Offices and companies that had already begun licensing procedures before the decision was issued will have six months to bring their operations into compliance. Those that had not started the licensing process must stop operating immediately.

Government-sector practitioners have 18 months to adjust their professional status and meet the requirements under the new regulatory framework.