Saudization

What Saudization is

Saudization (السعودة) is the policy of localising jobs in the Kingdom: placing Saudi staff in private sector jobs and raising their share of the labour market. It is a national goal rather than a single procedure. In practice it is expressed through measurement instruments and through required localisation ratios that differ from one economic activity to another.

The instrument that measures Saudization is the Nitaqat programme (نطاقات), run by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development. In its current form it is the developed Nitaqat programme (نطاقات المطور), restructured by Ministerial Decision No. 182495 and in force since 1 December 2021. The decision states that the programme’s procedural guide (الدليل الإجرائي) forms an integral part of it, and the edition of that guide in force today is the 2026 edition.

How Saudization differs from Nitaqat

The two terms are easily confused, but the line between them is simple to draw.

• Saudization is the policy. It is the goal the state is pursuing: a larger share of Saudi nationals in private sector employment.
• Nitaqat is the measure. It is the programme that turns the policy into a classification for each entity, and attaches concrete services and restrictions to that classification.

Nitaqat places each entity in one of five bands. From lowest to highest they are Red, Low Green, Medium Green, High Green and Platinum. The band an entity falls into is what decides which services it can request from the ministry and which are withheld from it.

In short, Saudization is the goal, and Nitaqat is the yardstick it is measured with.

How the Saudization ratio is measured

The Saudization ratio (نسبة التوطين) is defined in the procedural guide as a simple proportion. It is the average number of Saudi employees, divided by the sum of the average number of Saudi employees and the average number of expatriate workers, multiplied by 100.

The term expatriate workers (العمالة الوافدة) has a specific meaning in that formula. In the guide, they are workers who are not nationals of the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council and who work for an employer in the Kingdom. Because the definition is framed on GCC nationality, a worker who is a national of a GCC state is outside the expatriate count.

Although the formula speaks of averages, the guide does not name the period over which those averages are taken. In the sources we reviewed, which are the guide itself, the ministry’s published questions and answers and its announcement of the programme, we found no definition of that averaging period. The programme does state that bands are updated weekly, and that a worker’s weight is counted as soon as the worker is registered, with the effect appearing in the weekly update. That weekly update is the schedule on which the classification changes, not the averaging period.

Measurement falls on the entity (الكيان), not on the branch. The ministry defines the entity as all the branches of the same economic activity that are owned by one establishment. An establishment that runs several branches in one activity is therefore measured once, as a single entity with a single band, and not once for each branch.

Saudization and headcount: the required ratio does not always rise

Secondary sources can state that the required Saudization ratio rises as the number of employees grows. The ministry’s own announcement of the programme describes a direct relationship between headcount and the required ratios, and in the annex to the procedural guide that relationship holds for the activities whose curve constant is positive. It does not hold for every activity.

The minimum ratio for each band is calculated with a formula. The guide expresses it as a curve constant multiplied by the natural logarithm of the entity’s total headcount, plus a second constant. Both constants are specific to each economic activity and to each band, and the second constant is also set for each year. For headcount, the formula takes the total actual workforce of the entity, not the number of Saudi employees alone.

The constants are published in Annex (1) of the procedural guide for the developed Nitaqat programme. It sets them for the four bands that have a formula, Low Green, Medium Green, High Green and Platinum, and for the years 2026, 2027 and 2028, which is how the required ratios are applied gradually. Red has no formula of its own. An entity is in the Red band when its ratio is below the minimum for Low Green.

The direction of the relationship depends on the sign of the curve constant, and that sign differs from one activity to another.

• A positive constant. It gives a required ratio that rises as headcount rises, which is the relationship the ministry’s announcement describes.
• A negative constant. It appears in activities that include construction and building contracting and cleaning and laundry contracting. In the Low Green and Medium Green bands of those activities, the required ratio falls as headcount rises. We state that direction for those two bands only, because the values for the High Green and Platinum bands in the same activities were not among those we extracted from the annex.
• A constant of zero. It appears in other activities, among them mining and building materials and telecommunications infrastructure. There the number of employees has no effect on the required ratio at all.

To find the required ratio for your own activity, use the Nitaqat calculator.

What links Saudization to employment contracts

Since 15 April 2026, Saudization ratios have been calculated from employment contracts documented electronically on the Qiwa platform (منصة قوى), under Council of Ministers Resolution No. 195.

The effect is direct. An entity that does not document its contracts on Qiwa puts its Nitaqat classification at risk, however many Saudi employees it actually has. How contracts are documented on the platform is set out in our guide to attesting employment contracts on Qiwa.

The effect of Saudization on the establishment

A Saudization ratio is not a figure in a report. The entity’s band in Nitaqat sets the ceiling on the work visas the establishment can be issued. In the Red and Low Green bands it goes further, and new visa requests are no longer accepted at all. The band also governs other services, among them changing the occupations of expatriate workers and transferring their services.

The procedural guide sets out the services band by band.

• Platinum, High Green and Medium Green. They carry the same list of five services: accepting recruitment requests for available occupations, changing expatriate workers’ occupations to available occupations, renewing expatriate workers’ work licences, transferring expatriate workers’ services, and immediate calculation in the programme.
• Low Green. It loses the first two of those services. New visa requests and requests to change expatriate workers’ occupations stop being accepted, while the other three services remain available.
• Red. It carries a list of prohibitions. They cover changing expatriate workers’ occupations, transferring workers’ services to the establishment, requesting new visas, and issuing and renewing work licences for the expatriate workers it employs.

The guide attaches a condition linked to the worker’s period of residence to the renewal of work licences, and we did not extract its wording with enough precision to state it. What each band grants and withholds is set out in more detail in our guide to what depends on an establishment’s Nitaqat band classification. The procedure for moving a worker who is not a Saudi national into another occupation is described under change of profession.

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