Repatriation

What repatriation means

Repatriation (ترحيل العامل), in the Qoyod glossary, means bearing the cost of a worker who is not a Saudi national returning to their home country when the employment relationship ends. The wording of the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) is more precise than the everyday term: it speaks of the worker’s ticket home after the relationship between the parties ends (تذكرة عودة العامل إلى موطنه بعد انتهاء العلاقة بين الطرفين).

Repatriation in the sense of administrative removal from the Kingdom is a separate matter. It falls to authorities other than the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, and in the sources we reviewed we found no provision setting out its rules. The two subjects are kept apart, and the rule of one is not carried over to the other.

Repatriation as a cost on the employer under Article 40 of the Labor Law

Article 40 of the Labor Law closes its list of what the employer bears with the ticket home. The ticket is therefore, as a starting point, a cost on the employer, and the position is the same whether the contract ran to the end of its term or was ended, unless one of two cases named in the same article applies.

The two cases in Article 40 of the Labor Law in which repatriation costs pass to the worker

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

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

A practical error can arise from the structure of the rule. The general rule is wide and the exceptions are named, so an employer that wants the worker to bear the cost of returning has to bring the worker’s situation within one of the two cases; it is not for the text to show that the general rule applies. Under Article 40 of the Labor Law, any situation outside the two stays under the general rule.

Article 11 of the model work regulation in Annex 1 of the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية) gives a list of its own. It states that the establishment does not bear the worker’s return costs where the worker is unfit for the work during the probation period, where the worker wishes to return without a legitimate reason, or 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. In the sources we reviewed, we found no text stating how it relates to Article 40(2) of the Labor Law where the two differ, so each is given as worded.

Repatriation on a worker’s death, and the place of social insurance

Article 40(4) of the Labor Law deals with the death of the worker separately. The employer bears the cost of preparing the worker’s body 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. The employer is relieved of this where the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) is bound to meet it. The scheme that article refers to is explained under social insurance.

The relief therefore depends on an obligation resting on another body, not on an agreement between the parties. A statement that the cost falls on the employer in every case leaves out the condition on which the relief turns.

Repatriation as a separate item at the end of service

Article 40 of the Labor Law is concerned with dividing costs between the two parties, not with settling end of service entitlements or the administrative steps that accompany them. The ticket home is an item in its own right. It is considered apart from the end of service award, from the final release (المخالصة النهائية) and from exit clearance (إخلاء الطرف), and each of those three has separate rules. How the three relate to each other is set out under settlement of entitlements.

Where repatriation sits in the list in Article 40 of the Labor Law

Article 40(1) of the Labor Law is a list of what the employer bears, and the ticket home is its last item. Taken alone, the item loses its context. The list runs: the fees for recruiting a worker who is not a Saudi national; the residence permit (iqama) 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.

Two points about repatriation follow from that list:

• The qualifier where the employer caused them attaches to the fines alone. It does not reach the ticket or any other item. The item cannot be shortened to say that the employer bears the fines, and it cannot be widened to make the ticket depend on the employer having caused anything.
• Exit and return is a separate item from the ticket home. It sits next to the ticket in the same list, but the two have different objects: the first is the permit on which the worker comes back to the Kingdom, the second is the ticket on which the worker goes home once the relationship has ended. Merging them turns two items in the text into a single item.

Two different words for repatriation costs in Article 40 of the Labor Law

The text does not use the same words in its two paragraphs. Article 40(1) of the Labor Law, which places the burden on the employer, speaks of the worker’s ticket home (تذكرة عودة العامل إلى موطنه). Article 40(2) of the Labor Law, which moves it to the worker in the two named cases, speaks of the costs of the worker’s return to their country (تكاليف عودته إلى بلده).

In the sources we reviewed, we found no statement that the two expressions mean the same thing, or that one is wider than the other. So no rule is drawn from the difference in either direction: the text says ticket in one place and costs in the other, and that is all that can be said of it. Building on either sameness or difference would add an obligation the text does not impose, or remove one that it does.

Repatriation after a death: two costs, not one

The wording of Article 40(4) of the Labor Law needs to be followed closely, because it binds the employer to the costs of preparing the body and of transporting it. These are two distinct obligations. Preparation is not transport, and shortening the two to transporting the remains drops one of them and understates what the employer owes.

The relief is tied, in the text, to GOSI being bound to meet those costs. When that obligation arises, and what it covers, are matters for the social insurance provisions that govern the worker, and no rule on them is drawn from the definition. The relief should also not be taken to apply merely because the worker is registered with GOSI.

Repatriation and administrative removal: separate in both directions

As noted at the start, repatriation in the sense of administrative removal from the Kingdom falls outside the definition. Keeping the two apart has an effect in two directions, not one:

• The employer is not charged with the costs of a procedure that Article 40 of the Labor Law does not mention, and for which we found no provision placing the cost on the employer.
• The employer is not released from the ticket home merely because the events were accompanied by a step taken by another authority. Release from an item the text states requires a provision granting that release, not simply a different setting. Article 11 of the model work regulation is such a provision for one case, a deportation that follows a violation by the worker under an administrative decision or a court judgment.

Running the two subjects together leads to one error or the other, depending on which party is looking, and each error either adds to the text or takes something away from it.

What else falls due when the relationship ends, outside repatriation

Other obligations fall due at the same moment, each under a different provision. The ticket home is one of them, and it does not subsume the others:

• The service certificate and returned documents (Article 64 of the Labor Law). The employer must give the worker, at the worker’s request and free of charge, a service certificate stating the date the worker joined, the date the relationship ended, the worker’s occupation and the amount of the last wage, containing nothing that could harm the worker’s reputation or reduce the worker’s chances of finding work. The employer must also return to the worker all the certificates and documents the worker deposited with it.
• Payment of the wage and settlement of entitlements (Article 88 of the Labor Law). When a worker’s service ends, the employer must pay the wage and settle the worker’s entitlements within one week at most of the date the contractual relationship ended, whatever the reason the service ended. Where the worker is the one who ended the contract, the entitlements must be settled in full within a period of no more than two weeks. The employer may deduct any debt owed to it that arose from the work. How the deadline is counted is set out in our guide to wage payment dates and the final settlement.
• Pay for accrued leave not taken (Article 111 of the Labor Law). The worker is paid for accrued leave not taken, and for parts of a year in proportion to the time worked in them. The entitlement is calculated on the period served and has no connection with how the worker leaves or with what leaving costs.
• Documents the employer may not hold at all. Article 6 of the Implementing Regulation requires the employer not to keep the passport, the residence permit or the medical insurance card of a worker who is not a Saudi national. The rule applies throughout the relationship, not only at its end, and it is mentioned because its effect shows when the worker leaves.

These obligations rest on different provisions. None of them takes the place of another, and none may be delayed on account of another. Tying them all to a single date or a single document creates a condition the text does not impose.

The point is clearest in the exception. Article 40(2) of the Labor Law moves the costs of return to the worker in the two cases it names, and that is the full extent of what it says. In the sources we reviewed, we found no provision under which either case suspends an obligation in Article 64 of the Labor Law or a deadline in Article 88 of the Labor Law, or gives the employer a right to hold back a service certificate or a document the worker deposited. The text moves one particular item and says nothing about anything else, and the definition goes no further than the text.

Repatriation on a transfer of services within the Kingdom

The item is tied, in its wording, to the end of the relationship between the parties. When the relationship ends because the worker’s services are transferred to another employer in the Kingdom, the worker has not gone home and has not left. In the text we found nothing settling how the item applies in that case: whether it takes effect when the first relationship ends, or whether it depends on an actual departure. The answer is not inferred from neighbouring provisions, because the text allows both readings and prefers neither.

That marks the limit of what our sources support. The text refers to the end of the relationship, not to departure, and does not mention a transfer of services at that point at all. The conditions and steps of a transfer are set out in our guide to transferring an expatriate worker’s services. A decision on a particular transfer falls to the competent authority, not to a glossary definition.

The practical details of repatriation

In the sources we reviewed, we found no provision settling the following points, and none should be derived from a neighbouring provision:

• when the ticket home is bought, its class, its route and who books it;
• what counts as returning without a legitimate reason;
• what counts as being unfit for the work, and which body decides it;
• what effect the worker’s resignation has on the ticket home.

We also found no provision setting out the procedure for administrative removal. On the cost of the worker’s return, the one case we found is the deportation case in Article 11 of the model work regulation, set out above. The resignation procedure itself is set out in our guide to resignation.

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 cost of return, and the costs on a worker’s death), Article 64 (the service certificate and returned documents), Article 88 (the settlement deadline and set off) 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 further list of cases in which the establishment does not bear return costs is in Article 11 of the model work regulation in Annex 1 of that Implementing Regulation. Royal Decree M/44 of 8/2/1446H, in force since 19 February 2025, amended Article 40 of the Labor Law. That decree did not amend Article 111 of the Labor Law.

Where a ruling is needed on a particular set of facts, the reference is the competent authority.

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