Employee Obligations

What employee obligations are

Employee obligations (التزامات العامل) are the duties that fall on the worker towards the employer by force of the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل), and not by the worker’s contract alone. Article 65 of the Saudi Labor Law lists six of them, and it opens by making them additional to the duties provided in the Labor Law, the regulations and the decisions issued in implementation of it.

That means they are duties that rest on every worker the Labor Law covers, even where the worker has not signed them in a contract. Some of them are repeated in employment contracts and in establishments’ work regulations (لوائح تنظيم العمل), and there the wording can become narrower or wider than the text, which is where error can arise.

The six items of Article 65 of the Labor Law and their qualifiers

The list below is a summary, not a quotation, but it keeps the order of the items and the qualifier of each:

• Item 1, performing the work. The worker completes the work according to the rules of the trade and the employer’s instructions, provided that the instructions do not conflict with the contract, the Labor Law or public decency, and that carrying them out does not expose anyone to danger.
• Item 2, care of equipment. The worker takes sufficient care of the machinery, tools, equipment and raw materials owned by the employer and placed at the worker’s disposal or in the worker’s custody, and returns the unused materials to the employer.
• Item 3, good conduct. The worker observes good conduct and morals during the work.
• Item 4, help in disasters. The worker gives every help and assistance without requiring extra pay for it in cases of disaster and hazards that threaten the safety of the workplace or the persons working in it.
• Item 5, medical examinations. The worker submits, at the employer’s request, to the medical examinations the employer wishes to carry out before joining work or during it, to verify freedom from occupational or communicable diseases.
• Item 6, secrets. The worker preserves the technical, commercial and industrial secrets of the materials the worker produces or contributes to producing, directly or indirectly, and all the professional secrets relating to the work or the establishment whose disclosure would harm the employer’s interest.

Royal Decree M/44, in force since 19 February 2025, did not amend Article 65 of the Labor Law. The text before that date and the text after it are the same.

The qualifiers that drop out when the Article is copied into a contract

Three qualifiers can be dropped when the Article is copied into a contract or a work regulation, and dropping them makes the duty wider than the text:

• The qualifier on instructions in item 1. The duty is not to carry out every instruction. It is to carry out an instruction that does not conflict with the contract, the Labor Law or public decency, and whose execution does not expose anyone to danger. A worker who is ordered to run a machine after its guard has been removed is not bound by item 1 to comply, because carrying out the order would expose the worker to danger.
• The condition of no extra pay in item 4. It is part of the duty, and its scope is confined to disasters and hazards that threaten the safety of the place or of those working in it. It does not turn into a general rule that extra pay is waived in every circumstance.
• The qualifier of harm in item 6. The professional secrets of the work or the establishment are not all covered, only those whose disclosure would harm the employer’s interest. Anyone who states the duty without this qualifier extends it to every piece of professional information without exception, which is a wider reading than the text.

Two further qualifiers sit in the text as well: custody is an element in the description of item 2, and the purpose stated for the examination in item 5 is freedom from occupational or communicable diseases. In the sources we reviewed, we found no text that addresses examinations for any other purpose, so we do not count them as covered.

Are the six everything the worker owes?

No. Article 65 of the Labor Law states that the six are in addition to what appears in the Labor Law and its regulations and in the decisions issued in implementation of it. Other duties are spread through other Articles. Article 83 of the Labor Law, for example, deals with secrecy and with restricting competition after the contract ends, subject to conditions specific to that Article; see non compete agreements.

Article 65 of the Labor Law is therefore not a closed list. Nor can a term taken from an establishment’s regulation or from a contract be attributed to Article 65 of the Labor Law when its text does not contain it.

How each item appears in daily work

Care of equipment and custody of assets

Item 2 of Article 65 of the Labor Law sets the duty of care for what is in the worker’s custody. The record of handover and the acknowledgement of receipt are covered under company assets custody. Deducting the cost of a repair from the wage is a different matter, governed by Article 91 of the Labor Law and covered under wage deduction.

Article 91 of the Labor Law has its conditions: the damage must arise from the worker’s fault or breach of the employer’s instructions, and it must not be the act of a third party or caused by force majeure. The ceiling on what is deducted for this purpose is the wage of five days in the month. On an assumed daily wage of SAR 200, the ceiling is SAR 1,000 in the month for this purpose (5 × 200). The figure is assumed to show the calculation.

Conduct and dealings

Item 3 of Article 65 of the Labor Law requires good conduct and morals during the work and does not set them out in detail. What an establishment sets out in an internal document, as code of conduct shows, remains a description of what it expects and does not by that fact become a penalty.

Secrets

Item 6 of Article 65 of the Labor Law has a counterpart in the model work regulation (النموذج الموحّد للائحة تنظيم العمل), where Article 48 of the model work regulation states the same duty with the same qualifier; see trade secret. The model names the beneficiary as the interest of the establishment, where the Labor Law says the interest of the employer. Only the noun differs, and the qualifier is the same in both instruments.

Examples of the qualifier on instructions

The qualifier in item 1 has four conditions: the instruction must not conflict with the contract, must not conflict with the Labor Law, must not conflict with public decency, and its execution must not expose anyone to danger. Three assumed examples show how it reads:

• An instruction that conflicts with the contract. An accountant is asked to take on tasks that have no connection with what was agreed. Article 60 of the Labor Law is examined here, because item 1 of Article 65 of the Labor Law does not require the worker to carry out what conflicts with the contract.
• An instruction that carries danger. A warehouse worker is asked to lift a load without the prescribed handling equipment. The qualifier on danger takes this instruction out of the duty, even though it comes from someone with authority to instruct.
• An ordinary instruction. The worker is asked to hand in work at a set time or in a particular way within the scope of the job. That is what the item intends, and a refusal falls to be examined under the disciplinary Articles.

In each example, assessing the facts is left to the competent authority, because the Article contains no list of lawful and unlawful instructions.

Whom these obligations bind

Article 65 of the Labor Law applies to a worker whom the Labor Law covers, but the Labor Law excludes some categories and limits others:

• Casual, seasonal and temporary workers. Article 6 of the Labor Law applies to them the provisions on duties and on rules of discipline, so their obligations are covered.
• Excluded categories. Article 7 of the Labor Law excludes from the Labor Law the members of the employer’s family in an establishment that includes only them, players and coaches of sports clubs, domestic workers and those in a like position, farm workers and private shepherds, and non Saudi workers who come for a specific task of not more than two months. The Ministry issues separate regulations for four of these five categories.
• Part time workers. Article 5 of the Labor Law applies the Labor Law to them within the limits of occupational safety and health, work injuries and what the Minister decides. In the sources we reviewed, we found no text that says whether Article 65 of the Labor Law falls within that scope.

Anyone who wants to apply Article 65 of the Labor Law to a category other than the ordinary worker should first verify that the category is within the scope of the Labor Law.

What Article 65 of the Labor Law does not provide

Article 65 of the Labor Law states a duty and does not state a penalty for breaching it. The penalty comes from the disciplinary Articles, not from Article 65 of the Labor Law.

• The closed list of penalties. Article 66 of the Labor Law lists the disciplinary penalties exhaustively, and Article 67 of the Labor Law bars the employer from imposing a penalty that is not stated in the Labor Law or in the work regulation. The penalties are covered under disciplinary action.
• The procedure. Article 71 of the Labor Law bars imposing a penalty until the worker has been notified in writing of what is alleged, questioned, and had their defence investigated, and the minutes recording this have been placed in the worker’s file. Questioning may be oral for minor violations whose penalty does not go beyond a warning or a fine of not more than one day’s wage, provided it is recorded in the minutes.
• Rescission without award, notice or compensation. Article 80 of the Labor Law lists cases in which the employer may rescind the contract without award, notice or compensation. They include failure to obey lawful orders and disclosure of industrial or commercial secrets, on condition that the employer gives the worker the opportunity to state their objections to the rescission. Each item of Article 80 of the Labor Law carries conditions that differ from item to item, so the Article is studied in full before any decision, and its wording is not matched against the wording of Article 65 of the Labor Law without checking.

The counterpart: the employer’s duties

Article 65 of the Labor Law is matched by Article 61 of the Labor Law, which sets out the employer’s duties. After the amendment by Royal Decree M/44, they include the duty to refrain from discrimination and the duty to provide suitable housing or a cash allowance in its place, and suitable transport or a cash allowance in its place. The two sets of duties are matched in kind and not in their conditions, so neither is inferred from the other.

When the obligations are written into a contract or a regulation

This is a practical recommendation, not a condition of the Article:

• Carry the item with its qualifier. If item 1 is carried over, it goes with the qualifier on instructions. If item 6 is carried over, it goes with the qualifier of harm, and if item 4 is carried over, it goes confined to disasters.
• Name the instrument. When referring to the Article, write “Article 65 of the Labor Law”, to distinguish it from an Article with the same number in the models.
• Keep the duty apart from the penalty. No penalty is written into a contract for breaching an item unless the penalty appears in the Labor Law or in the work regulation.

Provisions relied on for employee obligations

The provisions relied on are those of the Saudi Labor Law as published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development: Article 65 (the six items and their qualifiers), Article 60 (assignment to work that differs materially from the contract, examined where an instruction conflicts with it), Articles 5, 6 and 7 (who the Labor Law covers), Article 61 (the employer’s duties), Articles 66 and 67 (the closed list of penalties and the bar on others), Article 71 (the procedure before a penalty), Article 80 (rescission without award, notice or compensation), Article 83 (secrecy and non competition, as a pointer only) and Article 91 (deduction for damage). From the model work regulation (النموذج الموحّد) annexed to the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية): Article 48 of the model work regulation, item 6. Royal Decree M/44 of 1446H, in force since 19 February 2025, amended Article 61 of the Labor Law and did not amend Article 65 of the Labor Law.

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