Disciplinary Action

Definition of disciplinary action

Disciplinary action (الإجراءات التأديبية) means the penalties an employer imposes on a worker for breaching their obligations. The Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) does three things with those penalties: it confines them to a closed list, it limits their size, and it requires a procedure to be followed before any of them is imposed.

The penalties that disciplinary action may take

Article 66 of the Labor Law confines disciplinary penalties to six:

1. A warning. Its written form is explained under written warning.
2. A fine. Its ceilings and the wage they are measured on are examined under disciplinary fine.
3. Withholding a raise, or deferring it, for a period of no more than one year, where the raise has been established by the employer.
4. Deferring a promotion for a period of no more than one year, where the promotion has been established by the employer.
5. Suspension from work without pay. How the limit on its duration works is set out under suspension.
6. Dismissal, in the cases the Labor Law provides for.

Article 67 of the Labor Law then closes the door on any addition: the employer may not impose any penalty that is not provided for in the Labor Law or in the work regulation (لائحة تنظيم العمل). The test has two limbs, the Labor Law or the work regulation, and a penalty that appears in neither has no basis in Article 67 of the Labor Law. How the work regulation is prepared, and what the Labor Law delegates to it, is covered in our guide to the work organisation regulation.

Article 8 of the Labor Law completes the picture. Under Article 8 of the Labor Law, any term that conflicts with the Labor Law is void, and so is any release of a right the Labor Law gives the worker, made while the contract is in force, unless it is more favourable to the worker. Article 67 of the Labor Law states the prohibition on the employer; the nullity of a term agreeing to a penalty outside the two sources comes from Article 8 of the Labor Law, and the worker’s consent does not change that.

The limits Article 70 of the Labor Law places on disciplinary action

Article 70 of the Labor Law contains five rules. The first bars a penalty altogether in one situation, the second limits the number of penalties, and the last three limit their size or duration:

• Conduct outside the workplace: no disciplinary penalty may be imposed on a worker for something they did outside the workplace, unless it is connected with the work, with the employer or with the responsible manager.
• One penalty only for a single violation: it reaches every penalty on the list, suspension included, so two penalties may not be imposed for the same violation.
• The fine for a single violation: it may not exceed five days’ wage.
• The total deducted for fines: no more than five days’ wage in one month may be deducted from the worker’s wage to settle fines.
• Suspension without pay: it may not exceed five days in a month.

The last three rules are not one rule stated three times. The two rules on fines are limits on money, while the rule on suspension limits time. Article 70 of the Labor Law does not qualify the wage in either fine ceiling, and Article 2 of the Labor Law provides that the wage, where unqualified, means the actual wage (الأجر الفعلي), so both fine ceilings are measured on the actual wage.

The procedure required before any disciplinary action

Article 71 of the Labor Law requires four steps before any penalty is imposed:

1. Notifying the worker in writing of what is alleged against them.
2. Questioning the worker.
3. Investigating and establishing the worker’s defence.
4. Recording all of this in a minute placed in the worker’s own file, the employee file.

The third step asks for more than listening. Article 71 of the Labor Law requires the defence to be investigated and established, so what the worker puts forward is examined before a decision is taken on it. How those steps are carried out in practice is examined under internal investigation.

Oral questioning is allowed by Article 71 of the Labor Law in minor violations whose penalty goes no further than a warning or a fine deducting no more than one day’s wage, provided it is recorded in the minute. The exception concerns the form of the questioning only. It does not reach suspension, a fine above one day’s wage, the withholding or deferral of a raise, the deferral of a promotion, or dismissal, and the minute is required on the oral route as well. How the exception works for a warning given by word of mouth is examined under verbal warning.

What Article 71 of the Labor Law states is a duty that the employer must meet before a penalty is imposed. The article does not state what follows where a penalty is imposed without those steps, and no rule on that question is drawn from the definition of disciplinary action.

The grievance route against disciplinary action

Once a penalty is decided, Article 72 of the Labor Law requires the worker to be notified in writing of the decision imposing the penalty. If the worker refuses to take delivery, or is absent, the notice is sent by registered letter to the address shown in their file. The route that follows has two steps:

1. A written grievance inside the organisation. The worker may lodge a grievance in writing with the competent body at the employer within thirty days, excluding official holidays, from the date they were notified of the decision.
2. An objection before the labour courts. The employer has fifteen days from the submission of the grievance to decide it in writing. If the grievance is rejected, or is not decided in writing within those fifteen days, the worker may object to the penalty decision before the labour courts (المحاكم العمالية) within thirty days, excluding official holidays, from the date of rejection or the expiry of the period set for deciding the grievance, whichever is earlier.

The words “whichever is earlier” decide where the last period starts. It has two possible starting points, and Article 72 of the Labor Law takes the earlier of them, so a rejection that arrives after the employer’s fifteen days have run out does not open a fresh period.

The exclusion of official holidays attaches to the two periods of thirty days. Article 72 of the Labor Law does not attach it to the employer’s fifteen days. The three periods belong to different parties: the first thirty days are the worker’s period to lodge the grievance, the fifteen days are the employer’s period to decide it, and the last thirty days are the worker’s period to object before the courts.

The model work regulation (النموذج الموحّد), the model on which each establishment’s work regulation is prepared, goes further than Article 72 of the Labor Law. It allows the worker to lodge a grievance against any act, measure or penalty taken against them by the establishment, and it provides that the worker is not to be harmed for lodging a grievance.

Royal Decree M/44, in force since 19 February 2025, amended Article 72 of the Labor Law, and the route set out above is that article as amended. That decree did not amend Articles 66, 67, 70 or 71 of the Labor Law.

How disciplinary action differs from dismissal under Article 80 of the Labor Law

Disciplinary action is a graduated scale of penalties under which the employment relationship continues. Article 80 of the Labor Law, by contrast, ends the relationship without an end of service award, without notice and without compensation, in nine cases that the article sets out, and it too carries a condition: the employer must give the worker the opportunity to state their objections to the rescission. The nine cases and that condition are set out in our guide to dismissal under Articles 80 and 81 of the Labor Law.

Article 80 of the Labor Law is not unfair dismissal. It is the employer’s lawful route out of the end of service award, the notice and the compensation, and an employer who ends the relationship outside its cases, or without meeting its conditions, is no longer acting within Article 80 of the Labor Law.

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