Employment of Women

What employment of women means in the Saudi Labor Law

Employment of women (عمل النساء) is Chapter Nine of the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل). The chapter runs from Article 149 to Article 160 of the Labor Law and holds the provisions addressed to the female worker as a worker: maternity leave, the nursing hour, protection against dismissal, iddah leave and childcare, together with medical care in pregnancy, seats and the forfeiture of the chapter’s entitlements.

What is written about this chapter can rest on text that no longer stands. Four of its Articles are marked repealed in the text in force, and the text in force does not republish what they used to say. So the definition starts with what was repealed, and only then turns to what remains.

Employment of women and the four repealed Articles

In the consolidated text published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, four Articles of the chapter carry the mark (repealed), and the footnotes record the instrument and the date behind each:

• Articles 149 and 150 of the Labor Law. Both were repealed by Royal Decree M/5 dated 7/1/1442H.
• Article 152 of the Labor Law. It was amended and then repealed after its rule was merged into Article 151 of the Labor Law, by Royal Decree M/46 dated 5/6/1436H.
• Article 156 of the Labor Law. It was amended and then repealed after its rule was merged into Article 155 of the Labor Law, by Royal Decree M/134 dated 27/11/1440H.

The dates are Hijri, as the source prints them, and none has been converted to the Gregorian calendar.

The text in force does not reproduce the wording of a repealed Article, so what Articles 149 and 150 of the Labor Law provided before repeal is not stated in it. We do not report that former content, and we do not infer it. A reader may meet the statement that the Labor Law bars women from night work or from hazardous industries. We found no basis for that statement in the text in force. The night work prohibition that does apply today comes from a ministerial decision rather than from the Labor Law: Ministerial Decision No. 18632 dated 30/01/1441H, on night work, prohibits night work for a pregnant worker for a period of at least twenty four weeks before delivery, and requires suitable work to be provided for her during normal working hours.

The decree that repealed the two Articles, Royal Decree M/5 dated 7/1/1442H, also added Article 131 bis to the Labor Law. Article 131 bis of the Labor Law leaves it to a decision of the Minister to determine the hazardous or harmful occupations, and the categories of worker barred from them permanently or temporarily, or admitted to them on special conditions. That both changes came from the same decree on the same date is recorded in the footnotes of the text. In the sources we reviewed, we found no ministerial decision issued under Article 131 bis of the Labor Law, so no list of occupations and no barred category is attributed to it, and it is not presented as a restatement of the repealed Articles.

Employment of women: the Articles in force today

After the repeals, eight Articles of the chapter remain in force: Articles 151, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158, 159 and 160 of the Labor Law. Maternity leave, the nursing hour and childcare have sections of their own below. The other five provide as follows:

• Medical care, Article 153 of the Labor Law. It requires the employer to provide the female worker with medical care during pregnancy and childbirth. The Article says nothing more: it sets no standard, no ceiling and no means of providing the care.
• Protection against dismissal, Article 155 of the Labor Law. It bars the employer from dismissing the female worker, or from giving her notice of dismissal, during her pregnancy or while she is on maternity leave. The protection extends to a period of illness arising from either, on two conditions stated in the Article: the illness is proved by an accredited medical certificate, and her total absence does not exceed 180 days in the year, whether continuous or intermittent.
• Forfeiture, Article 157 of the Labor Law. It provides that the female worker forfeits her entitlements under the provisions of Chapter Nine if she works for another employer during her authorised leave, and the original employer may then withhold her wage for the leave period or recover what it paid her. The scope words carry the rule: the forfeiture attaches to the entitlements of this chapter, not to her rights under the Labor Law at large.
• Seats, Article 158 of the Labor Law. It requires the employer to provide seats for women’s rest in all places where they work and in all professions, with no headcount threshold and no exception.
• Iddah leave, Article 160 of the Labor Law. A Muslim female worker whose husband dies is entitled to iddah leave on full pay for not less than four months and ten days from the date of death. If she is pregnant during that period, she may extend the leave without pay until she gives birth, and after the birth she may not use what remains of her iddah leave. A female worker who is not Muslim and whose husband dies is entitled to leave on full pay for fifteen days. In all cases, a female worker whose husband has died may not work for others during this period, and the employer may request the documents supporting these cases.

Two points of drafting change how these provisions are applied. The first concerns dismissal. Article 155 of the Labor Law bars dismissal and notice of dismissal in two defined periods, and it does not say that the contract cannot end by any other route. The expiry of a fixed term, a resignation and the cases in Article 80 of the Labor Law are each governed by a separate Article, and the Article 80 cases are covered in our guide to dismissal under Articles 80 and 81. Article 155 of the Labor Law also sets a condition on how far the protection extends, not a consequence that follows once the 180 days are exceeded, so we state no outcome for the period after them.

The second concerns iddah leave. The two paragraphs of Article 160 of the Labor Law are worded differently: the first sets a floor, in the words “not less than”, and the second states a fixed figure. Presenting them side by side as two fixed periods turns the floor into a ceiling. Both Articles are set out in our guide to dismissal protection and iddah leave.

Maternity leave in the employment of women provisions: twelve weeks

The statutory term is إجازة الوضع, leave for giving birth, translated as maternity leave. It is the term Article 151 of the Labor Law uses, and the everyday Arabic expression إجازة الأمومة does not appear in the text.

Under Article 151 of the Labor Law, as amended by Royal Decree M/44, the female worker is entitled to maternity leave on full pay for twelve weeks. Six of them, the weeks following the birth, are compulsory. She may distribute the remaining six as she sees fit, starting no more than four weeks before the expected date of birth, which is fixed by a medical certificate attested by a health authority. If the leave remaining falls below six weeks because the birth came later than the expected date, the completing period counts as leave without pay. In all cases she may extend the leave by one month without pay. Where the child is ill or has a disability and the child’s condition requires a constant companion, she is entitled to a further month on full pay beginning when the maternity leave ends, which may itself be extended by one month without pay.

A worked case shows how the late birth rule operates. Assume a female worker starts her leave four weeks before the expected date, and the birth comes three weeks after that date. By the day of the birth she has used seven weeks, so five of the twelve remain, one week short of the six that follow the birth. That one week, completing the six, counts as leave without pay, and the paid leave stays at twelve weeks.

The figure of ten weeks still circulates, and it is out of date. Before 19 February 2025, Article 151 of the Labor Law gave maternity leave on full pay for ten weeks, and the six weeks after the birth sat in a separate paragraph as a prohibition on the employer employing her during them, not as an entitlement within the leave. The amendment moved the figure from ten weeks to twelve and recast the six weeks from a prohibition into an entitlement. A policy written on the earlier figure carries a text that is no longer in force.

Article 151 of the Labor Law is the only Article between Article 121 and Article 167 of the Labor Law that Royal Decree M/44 amended, on both the consolidated text and the Ministry’s before and after table. So describing the employment of women chapter as something the 2025 amendments rewrote describes a chapter in which a single Article changed.

The nursing hour in the employment of women provisions

Article 154 of the Labor Law gives the female worker, on returning to work after maternity leave, a rest period or periods for nursing her infant, not exceeding one hour in total a day. The hour is in addition to the rest periods granted to all workers, it counts as actual working hours, and it entails no reduction in wage.

Article 31 of the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية), and not the Labor Law itself, adds the detail of how the hour works:

• The hour is paid and runs for twenty four months from the date of the birth, whether the nursing is natural or otherwise.
• The hour is not counted within the official rest periods allotted to all workers.
• How the hour is taken depends on whether there is a nursery inside the establishment. Without one, she may take it at the start or the end of the working day, as suits the interest of the work; with one, she may choose a period or periods totalling one hour.
• On returning from maternity leave, she must notify the employer in writing of the time she has set for the period or periods, and of any later change to it.

The twenty four months and the written notice therefore come from the Implementing Regulation. Attributing them to the text of the Labor Law cites the wrong instrument, even where the content is right.

Childcare in the employment of women provisions

The care of female workers’ children sits in Article 159 of the Labor Law, whose two paragraphs differ in kind. Article 159(1) of the Labor Law is a duty that applies by force of the text: every employer employing fifty or more female workers must prepare a suitable place, with a sufficient number of nannies (مربيات), to care for the children of its female workers who are under six years of age, where those children number ten or more. Both conditions apply together, so an employer of sixty female workers whose children under six number eight is outside the duty.

Article 159(2) of the Labor Law is a power rather than a duty. The Minister may require an employer employing one hundred or more female workers in a single city to establish a nursery, alone or jointly with other employers in the same city, or to contract with an existing nursery, and in that case sets its conditions and the share of the costs borne by the female workers who use it. The paragraph creates no obligation until the Minister exercises the power, and in the sources we reviewed we found no decision doing so. The thresholds, worked cases and the effect of a nursery inside the establishment on the nursing hour are set out under workplace childcare.

Women’s participation in the labour force is a separate subject from the provisions of this chapter, and it is covered under women’s labour force participation.

Penalties for breaching the employment of women provisions

Penalties sit in the Schedule of Violations and Penalties (جدول المخالفات والعقوبات) for the Labor Law and its Implementing Regulation, issued by Ministerial Decision No. 112377 dated 21/8/1447H (9 February 2026). The categories of the Schedule that hold the two rows below set their fines in three columns by the size of the establishment: 20 workers or fewer, 21 to 49 workers, and 50 workers or more. The size is taken from the total number of workers registered with the Ministry under the unified number (الرقم الموحد) to which the establishment belongs. Two rows bear directly on this chapter, and each is given with all three columns:

• Not granting the maternity leave set by Article 151 of the Labor Law. It is classed as grave, with a fine of SAR 1,000 in each of the three columns, multiplied by the number of female workers concerned.
• Not preparing a childcare place or nursery at an establishment employing fifty or more female workers whose children under six number ten or more. Its fine is SAR 3,000 in the column for 50 workers or more, and the two smaller columns read “not applicable”, because an establishment with fifty or more female workers has fifty or more workers in total.

A fine amount holds only as at the date of the decision that sets it, which is why the decision number and date stand beside the figures. The other rows, with their classes and multipliers, are set out under the Schedule of Violations and Penalties.

The provisions relied on are those of the Saudi Labor Law as published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development: Articles 149, 150, 152 and 156 (cited as repealed), Article 80 (cited only as a separate route by which a contract ends), Article 131 bis (the Minister’s power to designate hazardous occupations), Article 151 (maternity leave), Article 153 (medical care), Article 154 (the nursing hour), Article 155 (protection against dismissal), Article 157 (forfeiture), Article 158 (seats), Article 159 (childcare) and Article 160 (iddah leave); together with Article 31 of the Implementing Regulation (how the nursing hour is taken), Ministerial Decision No. 18632 (night work during pregnancy) and the Schedule of Violations and Penalties (the two fines). Royal Decree M/44 of 1446H, in force since 19 February 2025, amended Article 151 of the Labor Law. That decree did not amend Articles 131 bis, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158, 159 or 160 of the Labor Law, on both the consolidated text and the Ministry’s before and after table. Article 155 of the Labor Law was last amended by Royal Decree M/134 dated 27/11/1440H, Article 160 of the Labor Law by Royal Decree M/46 dated 5/6/1436H, and Article 131 bis of the Labor Law was added by Royal Decree M/5 dated 7/1/1442H.

How the employment of women provisions appear in an establishment’s records

The effect of the chapter on the records is limited and clear. Days of maternity leave on full pay, and days of any extension without pay, enter the calculation of the wage for the month in which they fall; leave without pay in general is covered under unpaid leave. The nursing hour counts as actual working hours, so it is not treated as absence and no deduction is built on it.

Two documents belong in the employee file: the medical certificate fixing the expected date of birth, and the written notice of when the nursing hour is taken, together with any change to it.

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