Work Injury

What a work injury is

A work injury, also called a workplace injury, is an event to which the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) attaches rules that apply to it alone: treatment, financial aid and compensation. The Labor Law does not define the term in its text. Article 134 of the Labor Law provides that an injury is a work injury as defined in the Social Insurance Law (نظام التأمينات الاجتماعية), that occupational diseases rank as work injuries, and that the date of the first medical observation of the disease ranks as the date of injury. Article 135 of the Labor Law treats a relapse, or any complication arising from it, as the injury, and applies to it the rules on aid and treatment that govern the original injury.

Those two provisions also bear on how injuries are counted and measured, which is a separate subject. What follows is narrower: the obligations that a single work injury places on the employer under the text of the Labor Law.

Work injury rules and Article 132 of the Labor Law

Article 132 of the Labor Law provides that the chapter on work injuries, Articles 132 to 141 of the Labor Law, does not apply to establishments subject to the occupational hazards branch (فرع الأخطار المهنية) of the Social Insurance Law. The provisions set out below are therefore not a general answer for every establishment. Whether a particular establishment falls within that exclusion is a legal question, and the definition of a work injury does not settle it. The branch carries an employer contribution of 2% in the GOSI rate tables, which are set out under GOSI contributions.

Treatment of a work injury under Article 133 of the Labor Law

Where a worker suffers a work injury or an occupational disease, Article 133 of the Labor Law requires the employer to treat them and to bear all the necessary costs, directly or indirectly. Among those costs, the provision names:

• a stay in hospital;
• medical examinations and laboratory tests;
• radiology;
• prosthetic devices;
• the cost of transport to the places of treatment.

The governing words are “all the necessary costs”, and the items named after them are included within those words, not a closed list. Article 133 of the Labor Law states the duty to treat separately from the financial aid in Article 137 and the compensation in Article 138 of the Labor Law. In the chapter’s provisions we found no rule allowing treatment costs to be counted against either of them.

Financial aid for a work injury under Article 137 of the Labor Law

For temporary incapacity resulting from a work injury, Article 137 of the Labor Law sets out three rules in sequence:

• financial aid equal to the injured worker’s full wage for sixty days;
• then an amount equal to 75% of their wage for the whole period their treatment takes;
• and if the treatment period reaches one year, or it is medically determined that recovery is improbable and the worker’s health does not permit them to work, the injury is deemed a total disability, the contract is terminated, and the worker is compensated for the injury.

Article 137 of the Labor Law carries a fourth rule that a summary can omit: the employer has no right to recover what it paid the injured worker during that year. What has been paid as aid stays paid.

The wage in both limbs is the actual wage (الأجر الفعلي). Article 2 of the Labor Law provides that the wage, where the word stands without a qualifier, means the actual wage, and Article 137 of the Labor Law uses the word without one. The word “full” fixes the proportion, which is the whole wage; it does not change the base.

A worked example of work injury aid under Article 137 of the Labor Law

Take a worker whose actual wage is SAR 6,000 a month and whose treatment lasts five months before they recover. The treatment period does not reach a year, so the conversion to total disability does not occur. The example counts the sixty days as two months of wage. Article 2 of the Labor Law defines a month as thirty days unless the employment contract or the work regulation (لائحة تنظيم العمل) provides otherwise, so on that default the sixty days in Article 137 of the Labor Law are two months. Where the contract or the work regulation defines the month differently, the first limb follows that definition.

• The first limb, the full wage for the sixty days: 6,000 multiplied by 2, which is SAR 12,000.
• The second limb, 75% of the wage: SAR 4,500 a month.

If the second limb is taken to begin after the sixty days, as the word “then” (ثم) in Article 137 of the Labor Law suggests, it runs for the remaining three months: 4,500 multiplied by 3, which is SAR 13,500, for a total of SAR 25,500. If it is taken to cover the whole treatment period of five months, it is 4,500 multiplied by 5, which is SAR 22,500, and with the first limb the total is SAR 34,500. The difference between the two readings is SAR 9,000 in a single case.

We do not prefer either reading. Article 137 of the Labor Law does not separate them in express words, and in the sources we reviewed we found nothing that settles the point. The two totals show that the question is open before any payment rests on it; neither is offered as the answer.

When work injury duties fall away: Article 139 of the Labor Law

Article 139 of the Labor Law releases the employer from Articles 133, 137 and 138 of the Labor Law if any of the following is proved:

1. the worker deliberately injured themselves;
2. the injury occurred because of deliberate misconduct on the worker’s part;
3. the worker refused, without legitimate reason, to present themselves to a doctor, or to accept treatment by the doctor the employer assigned.

Ordinary negligence by the worker is not on the list. The threshold in the first two cases is intent, and the third depends on the absence of a legitimate reason. Releasing the employer for any fault of the worker would widen three defined cases into a general rule that the text does not carry.

Occupational disease as a work injury and earlier employers: Article 140 of the Labor Law

Where a worker has an occupational disease, Article 140 of the Labor Law provides that the liability of the previous employers they worked for is determined in the light of the treating physician’s report. Those employers are bound to pay the compensation under Article 138 of the Labor Law, each in proportion to the period the worker spent in their service, provided that the industries or professions they carry on are ones that give rise to the disease the worker contracted.

That last condition limits the division; it is not a detail within it. Dividing by periods of service alone, without regard to what each establishment does, places the obligation on an employer whom the Labor Law does not name for it.

Prevention duties that come before a work injury

The injury provisions apply once an injury has occurred. Before them, the Labor Law sets out a chapter on prevention whose duties apply whether or not an injury ever occurs:

• Article 122 of the Labor Law. It requires the employer to take the necessary precautions to protect workers from the hazards and diseases arising from the work and from the machinery used, and to post in a visible place the instructions on work and worker safety, in Arabic and, where needed, in another language the workers understand. It ends with a sentence that a summary can drop: the employer may not charge workers, or deduct any sum from their wages, for providing this protection.
• Article 123 of the Labor Law. It is written in two sentences. In the first, before the worker begins work, the employer must inform them of the hazards of their occupation and oblige them to use the protective means prescribed for it. The second carries no such timing qualifier: the employer must provide suitable personal protective equipment to the workers and train them in its use. Training in that equipment is a duty in the text, not merely good practice.
• Article 124 of the Labor Law. It requires the worker to use and preserve the protective means, to carry out the instructions laid down to protect their health and guard against injury and disease, and to refrain from any act or omission that prevents those instructions being carried out, or that misuses or disables the means provided.
• Article 125 of the Labor Law. It requires precautions against fire and the technical means to fight it, including escape exits secured and kept usable at all times, with detailed instructions posted in a visible place.

Roles that an establishment can create to follow up these duties are described under safety committee and health and safety officer.

The link between the prevention chapter and dismissal is a point at which errors can arise. Article 80 of the Labor Law lists, among the cases in which the employer may end the contract without an award, notice or compensation, the worker’s deliberate failure to observe safety instructions. The same text ties that case to two conditions: the instructions must have been posted by the employer in a visible place, and the failure must occur despite a written warning. Article 80 of the Labor Law also requires the employer to give the worker the opportunity to state their objections to the termination. An employer that never posted the instructions cannot rely on that case, so the posting duty in Article 122 of the Labor Law is what makes it available. The conditions are set out in our guide to dismissal under Articles 80 and 81 of the Labor Law.

How work injury rules differ for people who are not the employer’s workers

Article 126 of the Labor Law makes the employer responsible for emergencies and accidents befalling persons other than its workers who enter the workplace by virtue of their office, or with the consent of the employer or its agents, where these arise from neglect of the technical precautions that the type of work requires. The employer must compensate them for the loss and damage they suffer in accordance with the general laws (الأنظمة العامة).

That reference carries the practical point. Compensation in this case is not measured by Articles 137 and 138 of the Labor Law, which apply to the establishment’s workers, not to everyone injured on its premises.

Work injury benefits, reporting and the figures that sit outside the Labor Law

The benefits of the occupational hazards branch on a work injury or an occupational disease, with their conditions, amounts, claim deadlines and the body that decides them, come from the Social Insurance Law and the decisions issued under it. Those benefits have their own sources, and no rule on them is drawn from the definition of work injury. What is set out above is what the Labor Law attaches to a work injury, and a question about the benefits goes to the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) directly. An establishment that Article 132 of the Labor Law removes from the chapter is asking about a different set of rules altogether.

Reporting. Article 141 of the Labor Law provides that the procedures for reporting work injuries are set by a decision of the Minister, and the Labor Law sets no deadline in its text. In the sources we reviewed, we did not find a standalone ministerial decision under Article 141 of the Labor Law. Article 28 of the Implementing Regulation implements Article 141 of the Labor Law for an establishment that is not subject to the occupational hazards branch, which is the establishment that Article 132 of the Labor Law leaves inside the chapter. For that establishment, Article 28 of the Implementing Regulation provides that:

• the employer reports the injury of one of its workers to the competent labour office within a week of learning of it;
• the labour office considers whether the injury is a work injury on the basis of the official reports;
• where there is no medical report setting the percentage of disability, or either party contests the report, the office refers the injured worker to a government hospital for one;
• the office sets the compensation due according to the percentage of disability in the medical report;
• if either party rejects what the office has set, the matter is referred to the competent labour courts.

For an establishment within the occupational hazards branch, the reporting route is the one in the social insurance rules, not the report to the labour office within a week under Article 28 of the Implementing Regulation, and we state no reporting period for it.

The compensation minimum. Article 138 of the Labor Law sets compensation for permanent total disability or death at the worker’s wage for three years, with a minimum of SAR 54,000, the figure printed in the consolidated text of the Labor Law published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, in the edition that incorporates the amendments of Royal Decree M/44 of 1446H, as read in September 2026. For permanent partial disability, it sets compensation at the assessed percentage of disability, under the approved schedule of disability percentages, multiplied by the value of the permanent total disability compensation. The wage in both limbs is the actual wage. The consolidated text carries no amendment note on that provision, and we have not established whether any later instrument has revised the figure.

The two schedules. Article 136 of the Labor Law refers to two schedules in the Social Insurance Law: the schedule of occupational diseases (جدول الأمراض المهنية) and the schedule of disability percentages (جدول دليل نسب العجز). Neither schedule is in the Labor Law, and we do not reproduce them.

The provisions relied on are those of the Saudi Labor Law as published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development: Article 2 (the actual wage as the meaning of an unqualified wage), Article 80 (dismissal for deliberately disregarding posted safety instructions), Articles 122 to 125 (prevention duties), Article 126 (persons other than the employer’s workers), Article 132 (the exclusion of establishments in the occupational hazards branch), Articles 133 to 140 (treatment, definition, relapse, schedules, aid, compensation, the exceptions and earlier employers) and Article 141 (reporting), together with Article 28 of the Implementing Regulation (the reporting procedure outside the branch). Royal Decree M/44 of 1446H, in force since 19 February 2025, did not amend Articles 122 to 126 or Articles 132 to 141 of the Labor Law, and did not change the two wage definitions in Article 2 of the Labor Law. Article 137 of the Labor Law was last amended by Royal Decree M/46 dated 5/6/1436H. Article 80 of the Labor Law was last amended by Royal Decree M/46, and Royal Decree M/44 did not amend it.

Before a procedure is built on the work injury rules

The practical order is to establish first where the establishment stands in relation to the occupational hazards branch; then to apply the provisions that bind it, taken from their text rather than from a general summary; and then to record the date of the injury or, for a disease, the date of its first medical observation, which stands in its place.

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

Related terms

• Safety Committee
• Health and Safety Officer
• Hazard Pay
• Social Insurance (GOSI)
• GOSI Contributions