Engineering Professions Saudization: The 30%, Its Scope and the Wage Floor

Engineering professions saudization is set by Ministerial Decision 93483, issued on 11/7/1447 AH corresponding to 31/12/2025. The percentage is 30%, and its wording in the guide is: 30% of the total workers in the targeted professions, at entity level. The grace period is 6 months, the application date is 30/6/2026, and the decision carries a minimum counting wage of SAR 8,000.

Two fields in this decision are worth reading closely before any calculation. The first is the denominator phrase, “the total workers in the targeted professions”, which is not the establishment’s total workers. The second is the scope sentence, which carries no worker-count trigger. Alongside it sits a decision for a neighbouring family: the technical engineering professions decision, with its own procedural guide, its own date and its own wage floor.

1. What Decision 93483 provides

This is what was read from the procedural guide for the localisation of engineering professions and from its page at the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development:

Dates are shown as the documents print them, Hijri and Gregorian together where both appear. No conversion was made between the two calendars in either direction, so what is in the table is what is printed and not what is computed.

2. The denominator: “the total workers in the targeted professions”

The percentage sentence in the guide for Decision 93483 carries the word total, and the totality in it is bounded by the targeted professions. The denominator is the workers in the professions the decision names, not the establishment’s total workers.

So an entity with a hundred workers of whom twenty are in the professions the decision targets enters the calculation with twenty, not a hundred. Dropping the qualifier “in the targeted professions” from the phrase inverts the figure and shows a compliance that is not there. The qualifier is inside the wording itself, and it is the first thing lost when the phrase is abbreviated.

This holds for the decisions that cut across activities. It is not a rule about every localisation decision, and stating it without its scope is how a wrong number gets built. Decision 208819, on the sales outlets of seven economic activities, sets its 70% on the total workers at the outlet. Decision 212535, on real-estate activities and professions, sets its 70% on the total number of workers at establishments operating in those activities. The denominator is read off each decision’s own guide, exactly as the level of measurement is.

One distinction is worth holding before any of this reaches a spreadsheet. The Ministry’s own answer in its guides says that a localisation decision is applied to the professions the decision targets. That is a statement about the scope of application. Whether the percentage is calculated on those professions alone is a separate question, and it is answered by the decision’s own percentage sentence, not by the answer about scope. The two sentences read alike and they do not say the same thing, and reading the second out of the first is how a denominator gets invented.

The level of measurement in this decision is the entity, not the branch. In these decisions the entity is the capacity the Ministry deals with for the purposes of computing localisation, and it represents all the branches of a single establishment operating in the same economic activity, so several branches of one owner in one economic activity are measured together.

3. Scope: the wording of the sentence, and what is not in it

The scope of Decision 93483 in its guide reads: “all private-sector establishments operating in the Saudi market”.

That sentence carries no worker-count trigger of the kind carried by the marketing, sales and procurement decisions, whose scope is establishments in which 3 or more workers work in the targeted professions. What lies beyond the wording of this sentence was not established here, so no conclusion about a particular establishment is built on it on this page. Placing a given establishment inside or outside the scope is a matter for the decision’s procedural guide and the competent authority.

That difference on its own is enough to stop one decision’s trigger being carried into another. Each decision’s scope is read from its own guide.

4. The SAR 8,000 floor is a counting condition, not a minimum wage

The wage floor in this decision is a condition of being counted: a Saudi whose wage falls below it does not enter the calculation of the percentage. There is no setting of a statutory minimum wage in it and no bar on contracting below the figure. The effect that was read is the count alone.

The measure is the contribution wage registered with the General Organization for Social Insurance, not the basic wage and not the total in the contract. A Saudi in a profession targeted by Decision 93483, registered with a contribution wage below SAR 8,000, is, on your file, inside the percentage, and in the calculation, outside it. The gap between the two figures only shows up on reconciliation.

5. The neighbouring decision: technical engineering professions (103105)

Alongside the engineering professions decision sits a decision for a neighbouring family: the technical engineering professions, Decision 103105. The two decisions are independent, each with its own procedural guide, its own date and its own wage floor:

The percentage is the same in both decisions, the dates differ, and the wage floor differs. A matching percentage does not produce a match in the remaining fields, and anyone who reasons from one decision’s floor to the other’s has attributed a condition to a decision it was not read in.

Which of your job titles falls inside the targeted-professions table of either decision is read from each guide’s own table, and the two tables were not established here. The profession codes in them are keyed to the Saudi Unified Classification of Occupations issued by the General Authority for Statistics.

6. A worked example on the 30%

Take an entity with 15 workers in the professions targeted by Decision 93483. That number is the input to the calculation, and it is assumed here to show the operation. It is not taken from any text.

• The denominator: 15 workers in the targeted professions, not the entity’s total workers.
• The percentage set in Decision 93483: 30%.
• The result: 30% of 15 is 4.5.
• Rounding: the guides provide that 0.49 and below rounds to zero and 0.5 and above rounds to 1. The fraction here is 0.5, so the figure is 5.

The example shows the denominator and the rounding, and it is conditional on what is in section 4: a Saudi whose contribution wage falls below SAR 8,000 does not enter the count at all. The example settles no date, no particular profession and no establishment’s position under the scope sentence.

7. The grace period: 6 months, applying on 30/6/2026

The grace period in Decision 93483 is six months and the application date is 30/6/2026. The grace period in this family of decisions is defined in the guides as the period between the date the ministerial decision is published and the date it is applied and enforced. It runs from publication of the decision, not from publication of the guide and not from the establishment’s knowledge of it.

The technical engineering professions decision, 103105, carries a grace period of six months as well, with an application date of 27/7/2025. The duration is the same and the dates differ.

Decisions in this family are issued as updates. The wording of each one read here is “approval of an update to the procedural guide”. So before a date from this page is built into anything, open the decision’s own page at the Ministry and check two things: that the decision number on the signed attachment is unchanged, and that no updated guide has replaced the one read.

8. Professional accreditation: what the guides did not name in this decision

Professional accreditation is a counting condition in a number of localisation decisions, of the same kind as a wage floor: a worker who does not hold it is not counted in the percentage. Three authorities are named across the guides read for this material: the Saudi Organization for Chartered and Professional Accountants for the accounting professions, the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties for the health professions, and the General Authority of Civil Aviation for the licensed aviation professions. That is what those guides were read to say, and it is not a census of what the decisions contain.

No accrediting authority and no professional-accreditation condition was read in Decision 93483. That is an absence from the reading and not a denial. A decision in which no authority was named in the guides read is not thereby a decision without an accreditation condition, and settling the question either way is a matter for the decision’s own procedural guide and the competent authority.

A localisation decision is an obligation separate from the Nitaqat programme. The Ministry answers the question in its own guides: the localisation decision is applied to the professions the decision targets at entity level, the penalties provided for in law apply regardless of the establishment’s band in Nitaqat, and the establishment’s band does not affect the calculation of the localisation percentage. The other direction of the question, whether meeting a decision moves the band or whether the headcount a decision targets is weighted in the Nitaqat formula, was not established in any source read here. The required figure under the programme is a different number, and estimating it is what the Nitaqat calculator is for.

What the text does not settle

• A professional-accreditation condition in Decision 93483 and the authority for it: neither denied nor affirmed here.
• The targeted-professions table in Decision 93483 and in Decision 103105, and which job titles fall inside each.
• The position of a particular establishment under the scope sentence, beyond the wording reproduced here.
• The penalty amount arising from a breach of Decision 93483, and what follows from its cross-reference to the older schedules of violations.
• The content of the earlier decision that Decision 93483 updates: its citation was read, not its text.
• The effect of meeting the decision on the establishment’s classification in Nitaqat.
• The regional decisions, their percentages and the activities they cover, and their bearing on engineering professions inside those regions.

Each of these is a matter to be referred to the statutory text and the competent authority.

What your system should record

The figure the Ministry sees is read from the GOSI registration, not from your file. Monitoring runs on the job titles and wages in the social insurance database, and the wage tested is the contribution wage registered there, not the basic wage and not the total in the contract. So what is worth holding in your own employee file is what you can reconcile against that registration:

• The number of workers in the professions targeted by Decision 93483, held separately from the entity’s total headcount.
• The number of workers in the professions targeted by Decision 103105, because it is the denominator of a different decision’s percentage.
• The job title registered with GOSI for each worker, and its code in the Saudi Unified Classification of Occupations.
• The contribution wage for each Saudi in a targeted profession, to measure against its own decision’s floor: SAR 8,000 in 93483 and SAR 5,000 in 103105.
• Which branches fall inside the entity: which are in the same economic activity and which are outside it.
• The date 30/6/2026, as the application date of Decision 93483.

Checklist

• Do you know how many workers you have in the professions targeted by Decision 93483, from the table in its guide rather than from an estimate?
• Are you computing 30% on the workers in the targeted professions, or on the entity’s total headcount?
• Have you separated the count of engineering professions from the count of technical engineering professions, given that each has its own decision and its own wage floor?
• Does the contribution wage of each Saudi in a profession targeted by Decision 93483 reach SAR 8,000?
• Did you round the fraction by the rule that 0.49 and below goes to zero and 0.5 and above goes to 1?
• Do the titles registered with GOSI match the actual work the worker performs?
• Do you know which of your branches sits inside the single entity and which sits outside it?
• Are you watching 30/6/2026 as the application date, or waiting for the effect of a breach?

Why this turns into a problem

The effect of this decision shows up late. Monitoring runs on the job titles and wages in the social insurance database, and an establishment is not notified on the day it falls out of the percentage.

One error source here is the word “total”. Reading “30% of the total workers” and dropping the qualifier “in the targeted professions” divides by a larger number than the real denominator, which shows a higher percentage than the real one and a compliance that is not there. The qualifier sits inside the wording itself, and it is what falls away on abbreviation.

A second is mixing the two decisions. Counting technical engineering professions in the denominator of Decision 93483, or applying the SAR 5,000 floor to a Saudi in a profession targeted by Decision 93483, builds a figure belonging to neither decision. A third is a Saudi registered with a contribution wage below his own decision’s floor, who is inside the percentage on the file and outside it in the calculation.

This is where it pays to have an employee’s facts in a single file. That is what Qoyod HR provides: a single employee file holding the contract, the documents and their expiry dates with an alert before them, an attendance record for each employee, and their leave, salary and end-of-service entitlements. End-of-service, overtime and leave-balance calculations are built into the system. It is a standalone HR system with its own subscription, and the connection to Qoyod Accounting is now available.

For more guides and templates, browse the HR Resource Centre.

Frequently asked questions

What is the localisation percentage for engineering professions?

The percentage in Decision 93483 for engineering professions is 30%, and its wording in the guide is 30% of the total workers in the targeted professions at entity level. So the denominator is the workers in the professions the decision targets, not the establishment’s total headcount.

When does the engineering professions localisation decision start to apply?

Decision 93483 was issued on 11/7/1447 AH, corresponding to 31/12/2025, the grace period in it is 6 months, and the application date is 30/6/2026. The grace period as the guides define it is the period between the date the ministerial decision is published and the date it is applied and enforced.

What is the minimum wage in the engineering professions localisation decision?

SAR 8,000, and it is a counting condition rather than a minimum wage: a Saudi whose contribution wage falls below it does not enter the calculation of the percentage. The measure is the contribution wage registered with the General Organization for Social Insurance, not the basic wage and not the total in the contract.

Are the technical engineering professions inside Decision 93483?

The technical engineering professions have their own decision, Decision 103105, with its own procedural guide, its own date and its own wage floor. The percentage in both decisions is 30% at entity level, and they part company on the issuance date, the application date and the minimum counting wage, so neither is read from the other’s guide.

Does the engineering professions localisation decision apply to small establishments?

The scope of Decision 93483 in its guide reads: all private-sector establishments operating in the Saudi market. That sentence carries no worker-count trigger of the kind carried by the marketing, sales and procurement decisions. What lies beyond the wording of that sentence was not established here.

Does the engineering professions localisation decision require professional accreditation for a Saudi in a profession targeted by Decision 93483 to be counted?

No accrediting authority was named for Decision 93483 in the guides read, and no professional-accreditation condition was read in it. That is an absence from the reading and not a denial, so it is not sound to say the decision carries no accreditation condition. Three authorities are named across the guides read for other decisions: the Saudi Organization for Chartered and Professional Accountants, the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties and the General Authority of Civil Aviation.

Statutory references

This page rests on the procedural guide for the localisation of engineering professions (Decision 93483) and the procedural guide for the localisation of technical engineering professions (Decision 103105) as published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, on each decision’s page at the Ministry for its number, issuance date and application date, and on the signed ministerial decision attached to the first.

The rounding rule, the definition of the grace period and the definition of the entity are read from the procedural guides of this family of decisions.

No accreditation condition is published on this page that was not read in its own decision’s guide, no penalty amount is attributed to a localisation decision, and no profession is named as falling inside a table that was not read.

Subjects that border this decision and are not settled on this page: registration with the General Organization for Social Insurance, and the contributions recorded against a worker under it; the contribution rates applied to a registered wage; and the Saudi Unified Classification of Occupations, from which the profession codes are drawn. None of these is read from this decision’s guide, and none of them is a source for the localisation percentage stated here.

This guide is a regulatory explanation, not legal advice. In an existing dispute or a particular case, the statutory text and the competent authority remain the reference.