Final Exit Visa

What a final exit visa is

A final exit visa (تأشيرة الخروج النهائي) is the visa on which a resident who is not a Saudi national leaves the Kingdom in a departure that ends their residence. It differs from the exit and return visa (تأشيرة الخروج والعودة), on which the resident leaves and comes back on the same residence.

The difference between the two visas is where confusion on this subject starts, and it is a difference of cost, not of wording, because the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) names one of them among the employer’s costs and does not name the other. The procedure for issuing a final exit visa lies outside the Labor Law and falls to the authority responsible for residence. The definition does not describe its steps, conditions, duration or fee, and it names no electronic portal or form through which it is requested. What the definition covers is the effect of a final exit visa on the employment relationship: who bears which cost, and what comes before the departure.

What Article 40 of the Labor Law names for a final exit visa, and what it does not

Article 40(1) of the Labor Law places on the employer the following: the fees for recruiting a worker who is not a Saudi national; the residence permit and work permit fees and their renewals; fines arising from delay in those, where the employer caused them; the fees for changing the profession; exit and return; and the worker’s ticket home after the relationship between the parties ends.

The qualifier on causation attaches to the fines alone, and it may not be dropped. Royal Decree M/44 of 8/2/1446H, in force since 19 February 2025, amended Article 40 of the Labor Law, and the only change it made was to add the words where the employer caused them to the fines item in paragraph 1. That decree left paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 of Article 40 of the Labor Law unchanged. A summary that has the employer bearing every delay fine describes the text as it stood before 2025.

The item named in the list is exit and return, which is the other visa. Article 40(1) of the Labor Law does not name final exit. Two readings go further than the text, in opposite directions. One applies the paragraph to final exit as though the name were there. The other treats the missing name as proof that the employer owes nothing. Neither is supported. We found no provision in the Labor Law settling who bears the fee for a final exit visa, so the definition does not settle it either.

The ticket home that accompanies a final exit visa

What Article 40(1) of the Labor Law does settle in express terms sits next to the visa and matters more in practice: the ticket home. The worker’s ticket home after the relationship ends is placed on the employer by the words of paragraph 1. It is an obligation in its own right, and it does not fall away because the final exit visa itself is missing from the list.

Article 11 of the model work regulation in Annex 1 of the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية) points the same way for the journey at the end of service: it settles that journey in accordance with Article 40(1) of the Labor Law. How the ticket home sits among the other items due at the end of the relationship is set out under settlement of entitlements.

When the worker on a final exit visa bears the cost of returning home

Article 40(2) of the Labor Law moves the costs of return to the worker in two cases, and the paragraph names only these two:

• Where the worker is unfit for the work.
• Where the worker wishes to return without a legitimate reason.

The two cases in Article 40(2) of the Labor Law are an exception to the general rule in paragraph 1, not a parallel rule beside it. Not every ending at the worker’s initiative falls within the second case, because the text limits it with the words without a legitimate reason, and that limit is part of the rule. Ending the contract by mutual agreement and dismissal without a legitimate reason each have rules of their own, and neither is inferred from the other. Compensation for a dismissal of that kind is explained under unlawful termination compensation.

Article 40(2) of the Labor Law is not the only list on this point. Item 4 of Article 11 of the model work regulation states that the establishment does not bear the worker’s return costs in three cases: where the worker is unfit for the work during the probation period, where the worker wishes to return without a legitimate reason, and where the worker has committed a violation that led to their deportation under an administrative decision or a court judgment. That list confines unfitness to the probation period and adds the deportation case. The model regulation binds an establishment that adopts it, and it is not a provision of the Labor Law. The regulation an establishment adopts is explained in our guide to the work organisation regulation. In the sources we reviewed, we found no text stating how the model article relates to Article 40(2) of the Labor Law where the two differ, so each is given as worded and the two are not merged.

Transfer fees and death costs beside the final exit visa in Article 40 of the Labor Law

Article 40(3) of the Labor Law contains a further rule that can be confused with paragraph 1. It places the fees for transferring the services of a worker on the employer to which the worker wishes to transfer, that is, on the receiving establishment and not on the current one. Paragraphs 1 and 3 of Article 40 of the Labor Law are therefore two different charges on two different establishments. Merging them produces the rule that the employer bears every fee, which is wrong in the case of a transfer.

Article 40(4) of the Labor Law binds the employer to the cost of preparing the body of a worker who dies and of transporting it to the place where the contract was concluded or from which the worker was recruited, unless the worker is buried in the Kingdom with the family’s consent. These are two obligations, not one. The employer is relieved of them where the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) is bound to meet them.

What comes before departure on a final exit visa

A final exit is an event in the worker’s residence. What comes before it in the employment relationship is separate from it and rests on separate provisions:

• The end of the contract on its statutory ground. It is the basis for everything that falls due. Article 74 of the Labor Law lists the ways a contract ends, among them mutual agreement (with the worker’s consent in writing), the expiry of a fixed term and resignation.
• The notice period, where one is due. It turns on the type of contract and how it ends: Article 75 of the Labor Law applies to an indefinite contract ended for a legitimate reason, and a fixed term contract has no Article 75 notice period. The periods are set out in our guide to the notice period and terminating a contract.
• The end of service award and the leave balance. The award is computed under Article 84 of the Labor Law on the last wage, and Article 111 of the Labor Law requires accrued leave not taken to be paid, with parts of a year in proportion to the time worked in them. How the balance is settled is explained in our guide to the annual leave balance.
• Exit clearance (إخلاء الطرف). It is the internal procedure for returning property in the employee’s custody and closing their ties to the establishment. In the sources we reviewed, we found no provision of the Labor Law that sets it out.
• The employee’s documents. They rest on statute. Article 64 of the Labor Law requires the employer to return the certificates and documents the worker deposited and to give a service certificate free of charge at the worker’s request, and Article 6 of the Implementing Regulation bars the employer from keeping the passport, residence permit or medical insurance card of a worker who is not a Saudi national. The current documents held in the employee file are closed at the same stage.

Entitlements are calculated on the reason the relationship ended and the date it ended, not on the date the final exit visa is issued. When they fall due for payment is set out in our guide to wage payment dates and the final settlement.

How a final exit visa differs from exit and return and from a work visa

The single word visa covers three things that the law deals with differently:

• Exit and return. It is named in Article 40(1) of the Labor Law as a cost on the employer.
• Final exit. It is the subject of the definition, and Article 40 of the Labor Law does not name it.
• The work visa. It is the visa on which the worker is recruited in the first place, and Article 40(1) of the Labor Law names the fees for recruiting the worker in the same list.

Writing the word visa alone, without saying which visa is meant, leaves the rule impossible to identify, because the three are treated differently and sit in different places in Article 40 of the Labor Law, or outside it.

A final exit visa in the accounts

What is recorded when the relationship ends is the worker’s entitlements: the end of service award, the leave balance, any wage still owed for the last days worked, and the ticket home where the establishment owes it. The fees for the visa itself are a cost on whichever party bears them under the text and the contract. They are not recorded as a deduction from the worker’s entitlements unless there is a basis for it.

Anyone who needs the issuing procedure or the fee for a final exit visa should refer to the authority responsible for residence.

The provisions relied on are those of the Saudi Labor Law as published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development: Article 40 (the costs the employer bears, the two cases in which the worker bears the costs of return, transfer fees and the costs on a worker’s death), Article 64 (the service certificate and returned documents), Article 74 (how a contract ends), Article 75 (the notice period), Article 84 (the end of service award) and Article 111 (pay for accrued leave not taken). The rule on documents the employer may not keep is in Article 6 of the Implementing Regulation issued by Ministerial Decision No. 115921 of 19/8/1446H, and the journey and return cost rules of the model work regulation are in Article 11 of the model in Annex 1 of that Implementing Regulation. Royal Decree M/44 of 8/2/1446H amended Article 40, Article 74 and Article 75 of the Labor Law. That decree did not amend Article 84 or Article 111 of the Labor Law.

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