What on call time is
On call time, also called standby time, is a period in which an employee is not actually performing their work but is required to stay reachable and able to attend if they are called during it. It is not work in the visible sense, and it is not free time that the employee can spend as they wish.
The dispute over on call time turns on one question: does this period count as actual work, and so fall within working hours, or not? In the sources we reviewed, we found no provision that names this arrangement and states how it is to be counted, and we draw no conclusion in either direction from that absence. Article 2 of the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) defines work (العمل) as the effort exerted in any human activity in execution of an employment contract, but we found no definition of actual work among its definitions, or in its Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية). What can be done is to set out the provisions that govern the surrounding ground, because any answer, if one comes, will come from them.
Actual work: the standard on call time is measured against
Article 98 of the Labor Law provides that a worker may not be employed in actual work (تشغيلاً فعلياً) for more than eight hours a day where the employer has adopted the daily standard, or for more than 48 hours a week where the employer has adopted the weekly standard. During Ramadan, actual working hours are reduced for Muslims so that they do not exceed six hours a day or 36 hours a week.
Three points follow from that wording. There is one standard, not two: the ceiling attaches to the standard the employer adopted, not to both at once. The word actual is what the ceiling turns on, so the question about on call time is a question about that word and nothing else. And the Ramadan reduction is written for Muslims. The two standards and the Ramadan hours are set out in more detail in our guide to working hours and the weekly rest.
On call time and the rest periods in Article 102 of the Labor Law
Article 102 of the Labor Law provides that the periods set aside for rest, prayer and meals do not enter actual working hours. It then adds two rules that complete it and that a summary can drop: during these periods the worker is not under the employer’s authority, and the employer may not require the worker to remain at the workplace during them.
So the article does more than take the period out of the count. It describes the worker’s position during it: no authority over them, and no obligation to stay. It follows that a period in which the worker must stay at the workplace and remain available to be called is not a rest period in the sense that Article 102 of the Labor Law describes, and that rests on the article’s own words rather than on an inference drawn from them.
That is as far as the text can be taken with confidence. It moves such time out of rest, but it does not say expressly that it moves it into actual work. The gap between excluding the time from one and including it in the other is exactly where the open question sits, and we found nothing in our sources that closes it.
On call time and the presence ceiling in Article 101 of the Labor Law
Article 101 of the Labor Law organises working hours and rest periods within the day through three rules contained in a single sentence:
- The worker may not work more than five consecutive hours without a period for rest, prayer and meals.
- That period may not be less than half an hour on each occasion within the total working hours. The half hour is a minimum for every break, not a daily allowance to be split into pieces.
- The worker may not remain at the workplace for more than twelve hours in a day.
The third rule bears directly on on call time, because it limits presence, not work. Where on call time requires the worker to stay at the workplace, it therefore counts towards those twelve hours whether the question of actual work is answered yes or no, since this ceiling turns on being present rather than on being employed. On call time in which the worker is away from the workplace and only needs to be reachable does not fall under the wording of this ceiling.
On call time under rotation: the two conditions in Article 100 of the Labor Law
Establishments that work by rotation are one setting in which on call arrangements can arise, and the Labor Law makes a specific provision for them.
Under Article 100 of the Labor Law, in establishments where the nature of the work requires it to be performed by rotation, the employer may, with the approval of the Ministry, employ a worker for more than eight hours a day or 48 hours a week, provided that the average working hours, calculated over a period of three weeks or less, do not exceed eight hours a day or 48 hours a week.
Both conditions are required, and neither displaces the other. Ministry approval alone is not enough if the average does not hold, and an average that holds is not enough without the approval. A summary that keeps only the average turns the article into a permission that applies itself, and one that keeps only the approval lifts a ceiling that the text keeps in place. Who takes which shift within a rotation is a separate question, discussed under shift bidding.
On call time in a three week average: a worked example
Take an establishment that works by rotation, has adopted the weekly standard, and calculates its average over a period of three weeks. The schedules below are assumed for the example. The total allowed across the period is 48 multiplied by 3, which is 144 hours, and the required average is 48 hours a week. Two schedules can look close and still not stand in the same position:
| Schedule | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Total | Average | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First | 54 | 50 | 40 | 144 | 48 | Meets the average condition |
| Second | 54 | 54 | 44 | 152 | 50.67 | Does not meet it |
The second schedule carries eight more hours across the three weeks than the first, and that difference moves the average from 48 to 50.67. If on call time of two hours a week were counted, the first schedule would become 56, 52 and 42 hours, with a total of 150 and an average of 50, and it would move from meeting the condition to failing it. So the question left open at the start is not a theoretical one: its answer changes the result for a schedule that is already in place.
Either way, neither schedule is permitted without the approval of the Ministry, because each of them exceeds 48 hours in at least one of its weeks.
How on call time differs from necessarily intermittent work
Article 108 of the Labor Law takes four categories outside Articles 98 and 101, and one of them is work that is necessarily intermittent (متقطعاً بالضرورة). On its face this description comes close to on call time, because in both there are periods in which the worker is not performing continuous work. The difference lies in where the interruption sits. Necessarily intermittent work describes the work itself, whose tasks arrive at intervals by their nature. On call time describes an obligation placed on the worker outside the performance of the work.
Article 23 of the Implementing Regulation defines necessarily intermittent work as work that is not continuous by its nature: work with periods in which workers exert no activity or sustained attention, or stay at their posts only to answer requests that may come, and work that requires workers to come to the workplace at intervals to do their job, with examples that include technicians and mechanics employed to repair or operate machines. The reference to staying at a post to answer possible requests comes close to on call time spent at the workplace, but the definition is written about work that is not continuous by its nature. In the sources we reviewed, we found nothing that makes an on call obligation, by itself, a reason to place work in this category.
The category carries replacement limits rather than an open exemption. Article 23 of the Implementing Regulation sets ten hours of actual work a day for it, reduced to eight in Ramadan, with the working week not exceeding 48 hours, or 36 hours in Ramadan for Muslims, and anything beyond that is counted as overtime. For this category the same article adds a rest of not less than ten consecutive hours in every 24. Describing work as necessarily intermittent in order to justify an on call arrangement moves the arrangement into a category that has limits of its own, not into one without limits.
What on call time is not
The line that separates on call time from its neighbours is whether the employee is performing work or waiting to be asked to.
A night shift is work that is performed. What places it is the hour of the day, not the fact of waiting.
Core hours are a window in which the employee must be working. On call time is the reverse in description: by default the employee is not working, and the obligation is only to be able to attend.
Overtime is a consequence rather than a description. The entitlement under Article 107 of the Labor Law attaches to hours above the ceiling. If on call time is counted and the total passes the ceiling, the consequence follows; if it is not counted, it does not, and the premise is the same open question. Since the amendments made by Royal Decree M/44, Article 107 of the Labor Law also allows paid compensatory leave in place of overtime pay, with the worker’s consent and on the terms the Implementing Regulation sets. The rate and that alternative are covered in our guide to compensatory rest and the basis for computing overtime. For the waiting period as such, we found no rate, amount or rule in our sources setting any payment for it.
A call that is answered sits on the other side of the line. An hour in which the employee is called, attends and performs work is an hour of work. The question concerns only the hours spent waiting without being called.
Writing on call time into the contract
What the text leaves open, the two parties can settle between themselves. Four points can be written into the employment contract or the work organisation regulation: when the obligation starts and when it ends; where the employee must be while it lasts; how long they have to attend after being called; and how the time is entered in the records. The fourth matters most when the arrangement is reviewed, because time that was never recorded cannot later be measured against any ceiling or entitlement. We also found no limit in our sources on the number of nights or days for which an employee may be placed on call, so the frequency is another point to settle in writing.
Some things do not change by agreement: the ceiling on actual work in Article 98 of the Labor Law, the ceiling on presence at the workplace in Article 101 of the Labor Law, and the two conditions for rotation in Article 100 of the Labor Law.
The provisions relied on are those of the Saudi Labor Law as published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development: Article 98 (the ceilings on actual work), Article 100 (work by rotation), Article 101 (the daily break and the presence ceiling), Article 102 (rest periods outside actual working hours), Article 107 (overtime) and Article 108 (the categories outside Articles 98 and 101), together with Article 23 of the Implementing Regulation in the Ministry’s April 2025 edition (the definition of necessarily intermittent work and its limits). Royal Decree M/44 of 1446H, in force since 19 February 2025, amended Article 107 of the Labor Law and did not amend Articles 98, 100, 101, 102 or 108; Article 101 of the Labor Law was last amended by Royal Decree M/46 of 1436H.
This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.
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