Definition of a written warning
A written warning (الإنذار الكتابي), also called a warning letter, is a disciplinary penalty in writing that an employer addresses to an employee for a violation the employee has committed, and that is kept in the employee’s file.
Where a written warning sits among the penalties
A warning is one of the penalties provided for in the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل). Article 66 of the Labor Law confines disciplinary penalties to a closed list, and the warning is the first item on it. The others are a fine, withholding or deferring a raise, deferring a promotion, suspension from work without pay, and dismissal in the cases the Labor Law provides. The neighbouring penalties are explained under disciplinary fine and suspension.
Article 67 of the Labor Law bars the employer from imposing any penalty not provided for in the Labor Law or in the establishment’s approved work regulation (لائحة تنظيم العمل). The restriction has two limbs: the Labor Law or the work regulation. Dropping either limb leaves any account of disciplinary penalties incomplete. How the work regulation is prepared, and what the Labor Law delegates to it, is covered in our guide to the work organisation regulation.
The procedure before a written warning
No penalty may be imposed, a warning included, until the employer has taken four steps. Article 71 of the Labor Law sets them out:
- Notifying the employee in writing of what is alleged against them.
- Questioning the employee.
- Investigating and establishing their defence.
- Recording all of this in a minute placed in the employee’s own file, the employee file.
The third step asks for more than listening. Article 71 of the Labor Law requires the defence to be investigated and established, so what the employee says has to be examined and checked before any decision is taken on it.
These steps make up the procedure itself rather than guidance on it, and every one of them comes before the penalty. A warning issued before the defence has been investigated has been issued without meeting the condition that Article 71 of the Labor Law places on imposing it. Article 71 of the Labor Law states that duty; in the sources we reviewed, we found nothing that settles what follows when a penalty is imposed without those steps, and we draw no consequence from that in either direction.
Article 71 of the Labor Law also allows the questioning to be oral in minor violations whose penalty goes no further than a warning or a fine deducting no more than one day’s wage, provided this is recorded in the minute. The exception concerns the questioning, not the warning. The minute is still required, and the warning remains a letter. A notice given only by word of mouth is examined under verbal warning.
What a written warning contains when it is properly drafted
- The violation, described as an event: what happened and when, not a general description of the employee’s behaviour.
- The provision it rests on: a reference to the clause of the establishment’s approved work regulation under which the violation falls.
- What is required after the warning: what the employee is expected to do from then on, and within what period.
- The right to a grievance: a statement that the employee may lodge a grievance against the warning, and of the route that grievance takes.
- The employee’s signature acknowledging receipt: if the employee refuses to sign, the refusal is recorded. Delivery of the penalty decision itself is governed by Article 72 of the Labor Law.
The grievance against a written warning
Article 72 of the Labor Law requires the employee to be notified in writing of the decision imposing the penalty. If the employee refuses to take delivery, or is absent, the notice is sent by registered letter to the address shown in their file. After notification, the route has two steps:
- An internal grievance. The employee may file a written grievance with the competent body at the employer within thirty days, excluding official holidays, from the date they were notified of the decision. At this stage the grievance goes to the employer’s own competent body, not to the labour office and not to a court.
- An objection before the labour courts. The employer has fifteen days from the submission of the grievance to decide it in writing. If the grievance is rejected, or is not decided within that period, the employee may object to the penalty decision before the labour courts (المحاكم العمالية) within thirty days, excluding official holidays, from the date of rejection or the expiry of the period set for deciding the grievance, whichever is earlier.
The words “whichever is earlier” decide where the last period starts. It has two possible starting points, and Article 72 of the Labor Law takes the earlier of them. A rejection that arrives after the employer’s fifteen days have run out therefore does not open a fresh period, because the period has already been running since those fifteen days expired.
The exclusion of official holidays attaches to the two periods of thirty days. Article 72 of the Labor Law does not attach it to the employer’s fifteen days.
The three periods cannot stand in for one another. The first thirty days are the employee’s period to lodge the grievance; the fifteen days are the employer’s period to reply; the last thirty days are the employee’s period to object before the courts. Setting this route out in the text of the warning itself serves both parties.
Royal Decree M/44, in force since 19 February 2025, amended Article 72 of the Labor Law, and the route set out above is that article as amended. That decree did not amend Articles 66, 67 or 71 of the Labor Law.
What a written warning is not
A written warning is a disciplinary penalty, and it is not a performance improvement plan. The plan addresses a shortfall in performance through a management tool, whereas the warning addresses a violation through the track of penalties, with the procedure and the limits that track carries. How a management tool of that kind differs from a disciplinary decision is examined under corrective action. Using one in the place of the other defeats the purpose of both.
This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.
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