Annual Air Ticket

What an annual air ticket is

An annual air ticket (تذاكر السفر السنوية), sometimes called a ticket allowance, is a benefit an employer commits to giving a worker who is not a Saudi national: the employer pays for a ticket to the worker’s home country once a year, or pays its value in cash. The ticket may be tied to the worker’s annual leave, so that the journey home and the leave fall together.

The annual air ticket is not set out in the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل). In the Labor Law, we found no article requiring an employer to provide a ticket every year, and none fixing its class, the people it covers or what happens when it is not used. An annual air ticket is a contractual obligation. Its source is the employment contract or the establishment’s work regulation (لائحة تنظيم العمل), and the terms of the benefit are whatever that document says.

The Labor Law does mention a ticket, but it is a different ticket altogether. Confusing the two is at the root of the annual air ticket question, so the statutory ticket comes first.

The annual air ticket and the ticket home under Article 40 of the Labor Law

Article 40(1) of the Labor Law places on the employer the worker’s ticket home after the relationship between the parties ends. That is the part of the provision that matters for the annual air ticket. The same paragraph places other fees on the employer as well, and what follows from them has no bearing on the annual air ticket question, so they are not considered further.

The statutory ticket is a single ticket, due when the relationship ends, to the worker’s home country. It is not an annual ticket, it does not recur, and it is not linked to leave. Taking Article 40 of the Labor Law as the basis of the annual air ticket turns an obligation that arises once, at the end of the relationship, into an obligation that arises every year while the relationship lasts.

Article 40(2) of the Labor Law makes an exception, limited to two cases. The worker bears the costs of returning to their country where the worker is unfit for the work, or where the worker wishes to return without a legitimate reason. The words without a legitimate reason are part of the rule, so not every ending at the worker’s initiative falls within the second case. How the ticket home fits among the other items due when a relationship ends is set out under settlement of entitlements.

When an annual air ticket becomes part of the actual wage

Once the annual air ticket is a written obligation, the question changes. It is no longer whether the ticket is owed, but whether it forms part of the actual wage (الأجر الفعلي). The answer has a financial effect. Article 84 of the Labor Law computes the end of service award on the last wage, with no qualifier, and Article 2 of the Labor Law provides that an unqualified wage means the actual wage, not the basic wage (الأجر الأساسي). How the award itself is worked out is shown under end of service calculation.

The item of the actual wage against which an annual air ticket is tested is the fifth of the five items Article 2 of the Labor Law lists: benefits in kind. The text attaches two conditions to that item:

• Commitment. A benefit in kind counts only where the employer is bound to provide it by the employment contract or the work regulation. Giving the benefit once or twice as a gesture is not a commitment.
• Valuation. A benefit in kind is valued at a maximum equal to two months’ basic wage a year, unless the employment contract or the work regulation values it higher.

These two conditions are what make the annual air ticket a question that can be answered, rather than an open one. A written commitment settles the first condition. For the second, the text supplies the valuation rule itself: a ceiling, which the contract or the work regulation may raise. The other items of the actual wage, and how an increase can sit inside one of them, are explained under cost of living allowance.

How the annual air ticket differs from a communication allowance

The two benefits can look alike on a payslip, but the difference between them lies in the item of Article 2 of the Labor Law under which each is examined.

• The annual air ticket is a benefit in kind. It is tested under the fifth item, with its two conditions: the commitment, and the valuation subject to the ceiling of two months’ basic wage.
• A communication allowance is a cash sum. It is tested under the allowances item, whose condition is that the allowance is due for energy the worker expends or risks the worker meets in performing the work. In the sources we reviewed, we found no settled answer on whether allowances of this kind meet that condition, so the question remains open for the communication allowance, whereas the benefits in kind item has a text to apply.

The rule for one cannot be carried over to the other, because one is paid in cash and the other is given in kind, and Article 2 of the Labor Law gives each a separate item.

An annual air ticket paid in cash

Where the employer pays a cash sum in place of the ticket, we found no answer in the text. On its face, a cash payment takes the benefit out of the benefits in kind item, and the commitment condition and the ceiling of two months’ basic wage are written into that item and no other. We did not find a provision in the Labor Law that places a cash sum paid instead of an annual air ticket under any particular item of the actual wage, and the definition does not settle where it falls.

Rather than choosing between readings, it is more useful for the contract or the work regulation to state the position expressly. Four points can be written down:

• whether the benefit is a ticket or a cash sum;
• who it covers;
• what happens if the ticket is not used in the year;
• whether the benefit enters the base of the end of service award.

A single clause covering these points can spare both parties a dispute that would otherwise open when the worker’s entitlements are settled. What an employment contract has to contain in general is set out in our guide to Saudi employment contract requirements.

Writing the annual air ticket into the contract

The commitment condition names two documents, the employment contract and the work regulation, so the commitment is written into one of them. A clause in the employment contract or an article in the work regulation gives the first condition of the benefits in kind item a written basis that can be produced when the question arises.

The link between the annual air ticket and annual leave is also a contractual choice. Where the contract ties the ticket to the leave, the timing of the journey follows the timing of the leave, and how the leave accrues and is carried over is explained in our guide to the annual leave balance. Where the contract does not tie the two, the ticket stands as a benefit on its own terms.

The annual air ticket in the books

Three practical points follow for the employer’s records:

• The source of the commitment. It is set out in the employment contract or the work regulation, not in correspondence.
• The cost. It is recorded in its proper place in the accounting for employee benefits, according to whether the benefit is given in kind or paid in cash. The annual air ticket is one of the costs that appear when the full cost of an employee is built up, as shown under cost to company.
• The effect on the end of service base. It is decided in advance, so that it is not reopened when the relationship ends.

The ticket home at the end of the relationship stays a separate item from all of this, because its source is Article 40 of the Labor Law and not the contract.

The statutory provisions behind the annual air ticket

The provisions relied on are those of the Saudi Labor Law as published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development: Article 2 (the definitions of the basic wage and the actual wage, the five items of the actual wage including benefits in kind and their valuation, and the rule that an unqualified wage means the actual wage), Article 40 (the ticket home at the end of the relationship and the two cases in which the worker bears the costs of return) and Article 84 (the end of service award computed on the last wage). Royal Decree M/44 of 8/2/1446H, in force since 19 February 2025, amended Article 40 of the Labor Law, and amended Article 2 of the Labor Law by adding definitions. That decree did not change the definitions of the basic wage and the actual wage in Article 2 of the Labor Law, and did not amend Article 84 of the Labor Law.

Where a ruling is needed on a particular set of facts, including a question the text leaves open, the reference is a qualified specialist.

This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.