Continuous Operation

What continuous operation is

Continuous operation (التشغيل المتواصل) is the situation in which, for technical reasons or operating conditions, work must continue without a fixed rest period, in works that the Minister determines by a decision. Its basis is Article 103 of the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل). The phrase continuous operation does not appear in the text of Article 103 of the Labor Law. The wording used there is the continuation of work without a rest period, and the label gathers that situation under one name.

The main point is that Article 103 of the Labor Law lifts the fixed period and does not lift the entitlement. The employer remains bound to give a period for prayer, food and rest, and what changes is the way it is given.

The text of Article 103 of the Labor Law

Article 103 of the Labor Law provides that the Minister may determine by a decision the cases and works in which work must continue without a rest period, for technical reasons or operating conditions. In those cases and works, the employer is bound to give a period for prayer, food and rest, in a way the establishment’s management arranges during work.

Royal Decree M/44, in force since 19 February 2025, did not amend Article 103 of the Labor Law. It sits in the chapter on rest, after Articles 101 and 102 of the Labor Law and before Article 104 of the Labor Law, so it is examined alongside what precedes it. It has four elements:

• The authority. The Minister, by a decision. The text does not leave the determination to the employer.
• The subject matter. Cases and works in which work must continue, not a mere wish to continue.
• The reason. Technical reasons or operating conditions.
• The effect. The fixed period does not bind, while the obligation remains to give a period for prayer, food and rest that the establishment’s management arranges during work.

What Article 103 of the Labor Law takes out of the general rule

The general rule is in Article 101 of the Labor Law: a worker may not work more than five consecutive hours without a period of rest, prayer and food of not less than half an hour on each occasion, and may not remain at the workplace more than twelve hours in one day. The rule is set out under rest periods.

Article 103 of the Labor Law takes out of that rule the fixed period in particular works. Article 103 of the Labor Law does not mention the ceiling of twelve hours at the workplace in a day, and we found no text that lifts it for these works. We therefore stop at what Article 103 of the Labor Law wrote.

A comparison with the general rule in an eight hour shift

Under the general rule, a shift of eight hours of actual work needs at least one rest period, no later than the completion of five consecutive hours and of not less than half an hour. The worker’s stay at the workplace is then 8 + 0.5 = 8.5 hours, which is 3.5 hours under the ceiling of twelve hours.

In work covered by Article 103 of the Labor Law, no particular hour is fixed for the period, and it is arranged during the work as operations allow. What the text changes is the fixed timing, and the existence of the period remains as it was.

The period that remains: what we know and what we do not

Article 103 of the Labor Law provides for a period for prayer, food and rest, and it fixes no length for it. The half hour mentioned in Article 101 of the Labor Law is the floor for the general period, and we found no text that carries it over to the period in Article 103 of the Labor Law.

Article 102 of the Labor Law provides that the periods set aside for rest, prayer and food are not part of actual working hours, that the worker is not under the employer’s authority during them, and that the employer may not require the worker to remain at the workplace during them. The period of Article 103 of the Labor Law is arranged by the establishment’s management during work. In the sources we reviewed, we found no text that says whether Article 102 of the Labor Law governs that period with its three provisions, whether it counts within working hours, or whether the worker may leave the site during it. We therefore state none of those things.

Does the Article fix the longest stretch a worker may work without a break?

Article 103 of the Labor Law does not fix the longest stretch a worker may work continuously in these works, and in the sources we reviewed we found no text that sets a substitute for the five consecutive hours that Article 101 of the Labor Law lays down in the general rule. What remains is the arrangement the establishment’s management makes, together with the hour ceilings that the Article does not lift.

For that reason periods are better not left to be decided in the moment. The Article refers their arrangement to the establishment’s management, and an arrangement that is written down in the schedule is simpler for management and worker to rely on when there is a disagreement, and it shows that the period was in fact given.

What is the ministerial decision to which the Article refers?

Article 103 of the Labor Law rests on a ministerial decision that determines the cases and works. In the sources we reviewed, we did not find that decision or the list of works it covers, so we do not name any activity or sector as falling within continuous operation. The text shows that entry is by the decision and not by how the establishment is described.

This matters to anyone who assumes that every establishment that works around the clock falls under the Article automatically. The Article does not say so. An establishment that works day and night in successive shifts, covering all the hours of the day with workers who change over between shifts, has its workers governed by the general rule in Article 101 of the Labor Law unless the ministerial decision covers its work.

Misreadings of Article 103 of the Labor Law

• “There is no rest in continuous works.” This reading is wrong, because the text binds the employer to a period for prayer, food and rest. What falls away is the fixed period, and the entitlement to a period does not.
• “The establishment decides that its work is continuous.” This is wrong as well, because the Minister determines the cases and works by a decision. What the establishment arranges is the way the period is given, and not whether it falls under the Article.
• “The weekly rest day falls away with it.” Article 103 of the Labor Law does not deal with the weekly rest. The rules of Article 104 of the Labor Law remain, and the accumulation of weekly rests is for Article 105 of the Labor Law, on conditions specific to it.

Example: arranging the periods of workers on a line that does not stop

Suppose the Minister’s decision covers an operation whose line may not stop, and that four workers are on the shift. Because the line does not stop, no single rest period can be taken by everyone together. The periods are arranged in rotation, so that one worker is away at a time and three remain.

If each worker were given half an hour, by analogy with Article 101 of the Labor Law and not by the text of Article 103 of the Labor Law, the total of the periods in the shift would be 4 × 30 = 120 minutes, which is two hours of rotating cover. The period is arranged during work, as the Article says. The example is assumed to show how an arrangement is built, and it does not decide whether the work in it falls within the Minister’s decision.

What remains in force in an establishment the decision covers

• The weekly rest. Article 103 of the Labor Law speaks of the daily rest period only. The weekly rest day under Article 104 of the Labor Law is Friday, or another day that the employer substitutes after notifying the competent labour office, on full pay and of not less than twenty four consecutive hours, and it may not be compensated by a cash payment.
• The ceiling on hours. Article 98 of the Labor Law sets 8 hours a day or 48 a week according to the standard the employer has adopted. Article 103 of the Labor Law does not mention it.
• Pay for overtime. What exceeds the hours adopted for the standard is examined under Article 107 of the Labor Law, and nothing in Article 103 of the Labor Law touches that.

What resembles continuous operation and is not it

• Accumulating the weekly rest. Article 105 of the Labor Law allows, in places remote from urban areas and in works whose nature requires work to continue, the weekly rests to be accumulated over a period not exceeding eight weeks, by agreement of the employer and the workers and with the approval of the Ministry. Its subject is the weekly rest, whereas the subject of Article 103 of the Labor Law is the daily period.
• Necessarily intermittent work. Article 108 of the Labor Law excludes it from Articles 98 and 101 of the Labor Law, and the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية) defines it as work that is not continuous by its nature (غير المستمر بطبيعته). That description differs from continuous work, and each rests on a separate text and has a separate effect. Article 108 of the Labor Law is set out under working hours exemptions.
• Shift work. Organising work in successive shifts to cover hours longer than one working day, which is the subject of shift work. Article 100 of the Labor Law deals with exceeding the hours in establishments that work by rotation, with the approval of the Ministry, provided that average working hours over a period of three weeks or less do not exceed eight a day or 48 a week. An operation may be both continuous and run in shifts, or it may be only one of the two.
• The four cases of exception. Article 106 of the Labor Law allows the employer not to be bound by Articles 98 and 101 of the Labor Law and by paragraph 1 of Article 104 of the Labor Law in four cases that the Labor Law states, with a limit of ten hours a day and sixty a week. That is a different route from Article 103 of the Labor Law, which passes through the Minister’s decision and keeps the period.
• On call time. A period in which the worker is at the call of the employer without actually working, which is examined under on call time. It is a different concept: the worker in it is waiting to be called, and is not in work that does not stop by a decision of the Minister.

Night work in continuous works

Continuous work may fall partly in the hours of the night. Night work has a separate ruling whose source is a ministerial decision, Decision No. 18632, and not the Labor Law, and neither takes the place of the other. The period of night work, the definition of the night worker and the obligations of the decision are presented under night shift.

What to document

This is a practical recommendation and not a set of conditions in the Article:

• The basis for entry under the Article. Keep the ministerial decision on which the establishment relies, and note in the schedule what ties the work to it.
• A schedule of periods. Write down the period for each worker and its timing, so that it shows the period was given during work.
• Prayer and food. Take prayer times into account in the arrangement, because the Article names prayer expressly.

Provisions relied on for continuous operation

The provisions relied on are those of the Saudi Labor Law as published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development: Article 103 (continuous operation by a ministerial decision, and the period that remains), Article 101 (the five consecutive hours, the half hour and the twelve hour presence ceiling), Article 102 (rest periods outside working hours), Article 104 (the weekly rest), Article 105 (accumulating weekly rests), Article 100 (work by rotation), Article 106 (the four cases and the ten and sixty hour bound), Article 98 (the daily and weekly ceilings), Article 107 (overtime) and Article 108 (the excluded categories). From the Implementing Regulation, in the edition published by the same Ministry in April 2025: Article 23, the definition of work that is necessarily intermittent. Royal Decree M/44 of 1446H, in force since 19 February 2025, did not amend Articles 98, 100 to 106 or 108 of the Labor Law, and it amended Article 107 of the Labor Law.

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