Work Permit

Work permit: a definition

A work permit (رخصة العمل) is the authorisation that the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development grants to a worker who is not a Saudi national to practise a recorded profession at a registered establishment. The Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) and the Ministry’s service page both name the document رخصة العمل, which renders literally as work licence; work permit and work licence refer to the same document.

What sets a work permit apart from a general permission to work is that it carries the name of one profession. That profession is a binding particular, not a descriptive label, and the rules set out below turn on it.

The profession on a work permit binds both parties, in two different ways

Article 38 of the Labor Law places two prohibitions in a single sentence, and each falls on a different party:

• The employer’s prohibition. It bars employing the worker in any profession other than the one recorded on the work permit, and it carries no time qualifier.
• The worker’s prohibition. It bars work outside the profession before the statutory procedures for changing the profession have been taken. That time qualifier is the point of the provision: the bar lifts once the procedure has been completed.

So a sentence saying that such a worker may not work outside the profession on the permit, and stopping there, drops the qualifier that Article 38 of the Labor Law attaches to the worker’s limb. The procedure itself is delegated: Article 41 of the Labor Law leaves the conditions and procedures for changing a profession to the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية), which sets them in Article 14 of the Implementing Regulation.

Work permit fees are a cost the employer bears

Paragraph 1 of Article 40 of the Labor Law lists costs that fall on the employer, and among them are the fees for the work permit and its renewal, alongside the fees for the residence permit (iqama) and its renewal. A work permit is therefore a financial obligation of the establishment, not an expense to be passed to the worker.

The same paragraph of Article 40 of the Labor Law carries a qualified item: the employer bears the fines arising from delay in those fees where the employer caused them. The qualifier is part of the rule, so it is not accurate to shorten it to a statement that the employer pays every fine.

Issuing and renewing a work permit, as the Ministry publishes it

The service for issuing and renewing work permits is provided through the Qiwa platform. The Ministry’s service page states the following:

• A fee of SAR 100, paid through local banks via SADAD, with the status of the request updated roughly one hour after payment.
• The establishment must issue the work permit within the first 90 days of the worker’s entry into the Kingdom.
• Renewal becomes available when 180 days or fewer remain before the permit expires.
• A work permit cannot be cancelled once it has been issued or renewed.

Two conditions outside the service itself govern whether it is available. First, a work permit is a prerequisite for the passports authority (الجوازات) to issue or renew the worker’s iqama, so a problem at the Ministry becomes a problem with the residence permit. Second, a work permit is not issued while the establishment is in the Red band of the Nitaqat classification; the band in question is the entity’s classification in that programme, not a band of supervision or of pay. The renewal window and the steps around it are worked through in our guide to renewing the work permit for expat workers.

We state no validity period for a work permit. The service page gives a figure that does not reconcile with the renewal window stated on the same page, so we have not relied on it. We also do not state the documents required for issue, the grounds on which a request may be refused, or any fee other than the SAR 100 published on the service page.

The work permit term is not the contract term, and that rule changed

A statement about the work permit that has outlived the law is that the permit sets the term of a foreign worker’s contract. It described an earlier text accurately, and it no longer does.

Article 37 of the Labor Law, in its current form, provides that the contract of a worker who is not a Saudi national must be written and for a fixed term. Where the contract does not state its term, the term is one year from the date the worker actually starts work, and if the parties continue to perform the contract after that year, it is deemed renewed for a like period. The fallback term today is one year from actual commencement, not the term of the permit.

Before 19 February 2025 the fallback term was the term of the work permit. Any model contract, internal guide or answer that still says the contract term is the permit term is repeating a superseded text, not offering a different reading of the current one. The risk lies in how familiar the old wording sounds to anyone who applied it for years. How fixed term contracts end and renew is covered in our guide to fixed term and indefinite term contracts.

A related rule in the Implementing Regulation does not depend on the length of the term. Article 12 of the Implementing Regulation treats the contract of a worker who is not a Saudi national as fixed term however long its term or its renewals, and provides that it does not become an indefinite contract even if the parties agree that it should.

A work permit belongs to one worker at one establishment

A work permit is issued for a named worker at a named establishment, which is why it does not travel with the worker. Two practical consequences follow:

• Moving to another employer. It is not a transfer of the permit but a transfer of services, a separate procedure with conditions set for it. Under paragraph 3 of Article 40 of the Labor Law its fee falls on the employer receiving the worker, not on the current employer. The receiving establishment’s conditions are set out in our guide to transferring expat worker services.
• Changing the profession. It is not an edit to a line on a document but a new licence. Article 14 of the Implementing Regulation defines it as licensing a worker who is not a Saudi national to practise a profession other than the one the worker is licensed to practise. On that definition the procedure concerns such workers alone, and it does not apply to a change in the job title of a Saudi employee.

Two absolute limits on the profession a work permit records

Not every profession can be recorded on a work permit or moved to. Article 14 of the Implementing Regulation sets two prohibitions without exception:

• No change to a profession restricted to Saudi nationals.
• No change of a profession for which instructions have been issued barring a change.

The second prohibition is open by design. The barred set is whatever the instructions in force at the time say, and the Implementing Regulation contains no such list but refers to those instructions. For that reason we publish neither a list of professions that cannot be changed nor a list of professions restricted to Saudi nationals. Both lists are issued by decisions outside the Labor Law and the Implementing Regulation, and whether a given profession falls inside or outside either list needs the reference in force on the day the question is asked.

Under the Implementing Regulation, a request to change a profession is submitted through the Ministry’s approved platform. Where the target profession requires a licence, approval or practice certificate from another authority, that authority’s approval is needed first; the Implementing Regulation names the Saudi Council of Engineers and the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties as examples, not as a closed list. The four conditions for a change of profession, and the two exemptions that attach to one of them, are set in Article 14 of the Implementing Regulation.

Work permit services by Nitaqat band

The Nitaqat programme guide grants and withholds services by band, and the work permit sits in it at two levels, not one. The difference between them is the part that can be missed:

• Platinum, High Green and Medium Green. The ability to renew work permits for expatriate workers is listed among the services available in these bands.
• Low Green. Two services are withdrawn in this band: accepting new visa requests and accepting requests to change the professions of expatriate workers. Renewing work permits remains available.
• Red. Issuing and renewing work permits for the expatriate workers employed at the establishment is not allowed, as one of five prohibitions the guide lists for this band.

The guide attaches a condition tied to the worker’s period of residence to the renewal item, and we did not transcribe its wording precisely enough to state it. Confusing Low Green with Red in this area is not a slip in classification but a different practical result: an establishment in Low Green can keep its existing workers on valid permits while new recruitment is stopped, whereas an establishment in Red cannot.

The band is measured at the level of the entity, meaning all branches in the same economic activity owned by one establishment, so five branches in one activity are measured as a single band. The classification is updated weekly. A figure taken from one branch alone is therefore not a figure the programme uses.

Work permit, work visa, iqama and contract: four documents, four questions

• The work visa. May the worker enter? It comes before entry, and under paragraph 1 of Article 40 of the Labor Law the employer bears the recruitment fees.
• The work permit. May the worker practise this profession at this establishment?
• The iqama. Is the worker’s presence in the Kingdom lawful? It follows the work permit rather than preceding it, because the permit is a condition for issuing or renewing it.
• The employment contract. What is the relationship between the parties, how long does it last and what does each owe? Its source is Article 37 of the Labor Law and the provisions after it, not any of the three documents above.

The effect of this order is that a fault in the work permit does not stay where it started. It is first a fault at the Ministry, and then it becomes a fault in the iqama at the passports authority, two bodies and two tracks. The contract stands on its own, and we do not state what effect the expiry of a work permit has on it.

Statutory sources on the work permit

The provisions relied on are those of the Saudi Labor Law as published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development: Article 37 (the written fixed term contract and its fallback term), Article 38 (the profession recorded on the permit), Article 40 (the fees the employer bears, and the transfer fee on the receiving employer) and Article 41 (the delegation to the Implementing Regulation). From the Implementing Regulation: Article 12 (the contract stays fixed term) and Article 14 (the definition of a change of profession, its two prohibitions, the channel and the approval of other authorities). Royal Decree M/44 of 1446H, in force since 19 February 2025, amended Articles 37 and 40 of the Labor Law. That decree did not amend Articles 38 and 41 of the Labor Law.

Before a work permit question is answered

Each question about a work permit has a different source. The binding profession and who pays come from the statute; the profession limits and the change procedure come from the Implementing Regulation; the fee, the deadlines and the renewal window come from the Ministry’s service page; and what a band allows comes from the Nitaqat guide. An answer that mixes the four, or that carries an old rule about the contract term, can look correct and still be wrong. Where a specific case is in question, the reference is the competent authority.

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

Related terms

• Employee File
• Contingent Workforce
• Schedule of Violations and Penalties
• Settlement of Entitlements
• Employment Status