What working hours exemptions are
Working hours exemptions are the cases in which the ceilings on working hours set by the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) do not apply in their ordinary form.
The first point to settle is that what is called an exemption in this area is three different mechanisms, each with a different Article behind it and a different reach. Mixing them up produces broad statements that no single Article supports.
Article 108 of the Labor Law: the standing exclusion among working hours exemptions
Article 108 of the Labor Law provides that Articles 98 and 101 of the Labor Law do not apply to four categories:
- Persons holding high positions of responsibility in management and direction, where those positions give their holders the employer’s powers over the workers.
- Preparatory or complementary works (الأعمال التجهيزية أو التكميلية) that must be completed before work begins or after it ends.
- Work that is necessarily intermittent (متقطعاً بالضرورة).
- Workers assigned to guarding and cleaning, except civil security guards (عمال الحراسة الأمنية المدنية).
The condition in the first category is part of the rule. What counts is whether the position gives its holder the employer’s powers over the workers, not what the position is called, so a job title alone brings nobody within the exclusion. Whether a particular position carries those powers is a question about that position, and the definition of working hours exemptions does not settle it for any named job.
The fourth category carries an exception within the exception: civil security guards remain inside Article 98 of the Labor Law. Necessarily intermittent work is distinguished from waiting for possible calls under on call time.
The replacement limits for working hours exemptions in the Implementing Regulation
Exclusion under Article 108 of the Labor Law is not the absence of any limit. Article 23 of the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية) sets replacement limits for three of the four excluded categories. The table gives the daily and weekly limits for two of them:
| Category | Actual hours a day | In Ramadan | A week | A week in Ramadan, for Muslims |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Necessarily intermittent work | 10 hours | 8 hours | 48 hours or fewer | 36 hours or fewer |
| Guarding and cleaning workers | 12 hours | 10 hours | 48 hours or fewer | 36 hours or fewer |
Four further provisions of Article 23 of the Implementing Regulation accompany the table:
- Hours beyond those limits are counted as overtime, and the employer must enable workers to perform their prayers at their times.
- Necessarily intermittent work carries a rest of not less than ten consecutive hours in every 24 hours.
- Preparatory and complementary works are limited to thirty minutes in total, added to working hours: no more than fifteen minutes for preparatory works and no more than fifteen for complementary works.
- A cleaning worker falls within the fourth category provided that the work does not require more than six consecutive hours of actual work.
What working hours exemptions take away: Articles 98 and 101 of the Labor Law
The weight of an exclusion is clear only once the excluded rules are known. Article 98 of the Labor Law sets a ceiling of eight hours of actual work a day or 48 hours a week, and reduces it for Muslims during Ramadan to six hours a day or 36 hours a week. Article 101 of the Labor Law contains three rules in one sentence, not one:
- The worker may not work more than five consecutive hours without a break.
- The period for rest, prayer and meals may not be less than half an hour on each occasion. It is a minimum for every break, not a daily allowance to be divided up.
- The worker may not remain at the workplace for more than twelve hours in one day. This is a ceiling on presence, not on work. It is separate from the ceiling of eight hours, and the two apply together.
The two Articles and the Ramadan hours are set out in more detail in our guide to working hours and the weekly rest.
A worked example of working hours exemptions under two ceilings
Take a worker assigned to guarding who falls within the fourth category of Article 108 of the Labor Law. For that worker, the replacement limits in Article 23 of the Implementing Regulation are twelve hours a day and no more than 48 hours a week. The two ceilings apply together, and whichever is reached first governs:
- Four days of twelve hours: 12 × 4 = 48 hours. That is exactly the weekly limit, so there is no overtime.
- A fifth day of the same length: 12 × 5 = 60 hours. The twelve hours above 48 are counted as overtime under the text of the Implementing Regulation, even though no single day exceeded its daily ceiling.
Staying within the daily ceiling alone therefore does not take an establishment out of overtime. Treating twelve hours a day as permission for a six day week applies one of the two ceilings and ignores the other.
For a Muslim worker in Ramadan, the two limits become ten hours a day and 36 hours a week. Three full days come to 30 hours, which leaves only six hours in the week before overtime begins.
What working hours exemptions under Article 108 of the Labor Law leave in place
Taking Article 108 of the Labor Law as a general exemption is an error. Three limits remain:
- The weekly rest. Article 104 of the Labor Law still applies, because the exclusion reaches Articles 98 and 101 of the Labor Law alone. Article 108 of the Labor Law is not a rule on pay for the rest day, and it does not address that subject at all.
- Overtime. Article 107 of the Labor Law still applies, and the Implementing Regulation itself states that hours above the replacement limits are counted as overtime. The overtime rate under Article 107 of the Labor Law is set out in our guide to compensatory rest. How overtime is priced falls outside the definition of working hours exemptions, which concerns limits on hours rather than the calculation of pay.
- Ministerial Decision No. 18632 on night work. Article 108 of the Labor Law excludes two Articles of the Law; it does not reach an instrument issued by the Minister. Ministerial Decision No. 18632 dated 30/01/1441H, in force since 1 January 2020, is general in scope, so its obligations continue to bind these categories as they bind other workers where they do night work. Among them are a rest of not less than twelve hours between the end of one working day and the start of the next, health services, and compensation under the conditions that decision sets for it.
Article 106 of the Labor Law: temporary working hours exemptions in four cases
Article 106 of the Labor Law allows the employer to disregard Articles 98 and 101 of the Labor Law and paragraph (1) of Article 104 of the Labor Law in four cases:
- Annual stocktaking, preparing the budget, liquidation, closing the accounts, preparing for sales at reduced prices, and preparing for the seasons, provided that the number of days on which the workers are so employed does not exceed thirty days in the year.
- Work to prevent a dangerous accident, to repair what it caused, or to avert a certain loss of perishable materials.
- Employment to meet an abnormal pressure of work.
- Eids, seasons, other occasions and seasonal works determined by a decision of the Minister.
In all of these cases, actual working hours may not exceed ten hours a day or sixty hours a week. The limit of thirty days is written into the first case alone. It does not extend to the other three, but the limit that binds all four is the ten and the sixty. In the sources we reviewed, we found no copy of the Minister’s decision under the fourth case, so no Eid, season or occasion is named as qualifying under it.
In addition, Article 22 of the Implementing Regulation, issued to implement Article 106 of the Labor Law, sets an annual ceiling: overtime hours in a year may not exceed seven hundred and twenty hours, and with the worker’s consent they may exceed that number. Both limbs sit in one sentence, so quoting the figure without its exception states half of the rule.
Articles 99 and 100 of the Labor Law: adjustments rather than working hours exemptions
- Article 99 of the Labor Law allows the hours in Article 98 of the Labor Law to be increased to nine hours a day for certain categories of worker, or in certain industries and works in which the worker is not continuously occupied. It also allows them to be reduced to seven hours a day for certain categories of worker, or in certain hazardous or harmful industries and works. The categories, industries and works are set by a decision of the Minister. In the sources we reviewed, we found no copy of that decision, so we name no occupation as falling within the nine hour group or the seven hour group.
- Article 100 of the Labor Law provides that in establishments where the nature of the work requires it to be done 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. The condition is that average working hours, calculated over three weeks or less, do not exceed eight hours a day or 48 hours a week. Both conditions apply together.
The weekly standard and working hours exemptions
Article 98 of the Labor Law sets two alternative standards, not one: eight hours of actual work a day where the employer adopts the daily standard, or 48 hours a week where it adopts the weekly standard. Paragraph (2) of Article 107 of the Labor Law provides that where work in the establishment is organised on the weekly standard, the hours above those adopted for that standard are overtime hours.
That paragraph is written for the weekly standard only. It is not worded in general terms, such as “whichever standard the employer has adopted”. Widening it carries more risk than narrowing it, because it attributes a general rule to a text that names one of the two standards.
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 and the Ramadan hours), Article 99 (the nine hour and seven hour variations), Article 100 (work by rotation), Article 101 (the daily break and the presence ceiling), Article 104 (the weekly rest), Article 106 (the four cases), Article 107 (overtime and the weekly standard) and Article 108 (the four excluded categories). From the Implementing Regulation, in the edition published by the same Ministry in April 2025: Article 22 (the annual overtime ceiling) and Article 23 (the replacement limits). Royal Decree M/44 of 1446H, in force since 19 February 2025, amended Article 107 of the Labor Law. That decree did not amend Articles 98, 99, 100, 101, 104, 106 or 108 of the Labor Law, and Article 101 of the Labor Law was last amended by Royal Decree M/46 of 1436H.
Before a working hours schedule relies on working hours exemptions
An establishment building its schedule starts by asking which of the two standards it has adopted, daily or weekly. The answer comes before everything else, and it changes where any single hour falls in the schedule.
This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.
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