The Work-Organisation Regulation: What Article 13 Requires and What the Law Delegates to It

The work-organisation regulation is not an optional internal document that an establishment writes if it so wishes. The Saudi Labor Law requires it to be prepared in Article 13, and then refers to it in scattered places in different roles: as a source of penalties, as a place for stipulating otherwise than the default on the calendar, and as the determinant of a detail the text leaves to it.

From here its practical importance appears: the places where the Law refers to it involve matters applied every month, namely penalties, the calendar and holiday leave.

1. What Article 13 provides

Article 13 provides three rules concerning every employer:

• That the employer shall prepare a work-organisation regulation in accordance with the template approved by the Ministry.
• That the employer may add conditions to it, provided they do not conflict with the provisions of the Law.
• That the employer shall announce it in a visible place for those to whom its provisions apply.

The third rule is what turns the regulation from a filed document into a document effective against those to whom it applies.

Note in the first rule that preparation is not free-form: the text ties it to the template approved by the Ministry. So the regulation is not a document the establishment drafts from nothing; it builds on an approved template and then adds to it.

In the second rule there is a matching restriction: addition is permitted provided it does not conflict with the provisions of the Law. So the space left to the establishment is defined by two limits: a template it builds on, and a Law it does not contravene.

2. The regulation as a source of penalties

Article 67 provides that an employer may not impose a penalty that is not provided for in the Labor Law or in the work-organisation regulation.

So the source is twofold and confined to these two, and the regulation is one of them. What follows is that the penalties an establishment may impose depend in part on what it wrote in its regulation.

The detail of the penalties, their ceilings and their procedures has its own separate place in Articles 66, 70, 71 and 72, and Article 66 confines the types of penalty that may be imposed. That is set out in Disciplinary penalties under the Saudi Labor Law.

3. The regulation determines the adopted calendar

Article 10 provides that the periods and dates stated in the Labor Law are reckoned by the Hijri calendar, unless the employment contract or the work-organisation regulation stipulates otherwise.

This is a rule with practical effect: the default is Hijri, and the Gregorian is an exception that needs a stipulation. An establishment that runs the Law’s periods on the Gregorian calendar without stipulating that in the contract or in the regulation is operating otherwise than the default the text lays down.

The effect of the difference is not theoretical: the Hijri year is shorter than the Gregorian one, and every rule built on a year or years is affected by the adopted calendar.

Note that the text makes the contract and the regulation both valid places for stipulating otherwise than the default. As for the effect of a stipulation in one of them without the other, or of a divergence between them, that is a matter to be referred to the statutory text and the competent authority.

An illustration of the calendar’s effect

Assumed inputs (the example’s own assumption, not a statutory rule): an establishment whose contract and regulation say nothing about the calendar, and which runs the Law’s periods on the Gregorian calendar.

What the text says: the periods and dates stated in the Law are reckoned by the Hijri calendar, unless the contract or the regulation stipulates otherwise.

Application: this establishment has no stipulation permitting a departure from the default, so the default laid down in Article 10 is what applies. The establishment did not depart by a decision but by the absence of one: it wrote nothing, so the default remained in place while practice ran on something else.

The flaw here is not in choosing a calendar, but in not recording the choice where the text calls for it.

4. The regulation determines holiday and occasion leave

Article 112 provides that the worker is entitled to paid leave on the holidays and occasions determined by the regulation.

So the Law lays down the right and refers the determination of its subject matter to the regulation. This guide has not established a list of these occasions; refer to the implementing regulation and the competent authority on that.

5. The regulation determines what is not counted in the probation period

Article 53 lays down a ceiling for the probation period, and refers to the regulation the determination of the provisions connected with that, including the leave that is not counted within the period.

What follows is that computing the probation period in a particular case may depend on what the regulation provides, not on the text of Article 53 alone.

This pattern recurs in two of these places: the Law lays down the rule and leaves the detail to the regulation. The right to holiday leave is laid down in Article 112 and its subject matter sits in the regulation; the probation ceiling is laid down in Article 53 and what is not counted within the period sits in the regulation.

It follows that reading the article alone is not enough to answer the practical question in these places, because the text itself refers to something else.

6. The regulation as a restriction on what is added to the contract

The second paragraph of Article 52 provides that the parties may add clauses to the contract, provided they do not conflict with the Labor Law, its regulation and the decisions issued in implementation of it.

Article 65 opens the worker’s obligations with a similar phrase: in addition to the duties provided for in the Law and its regulations and the decisions issued in implementation of it.

So in these two places the regulation is not a source of permission but a restriction on what is added, and a source of duties alongside the Law.

7. The regulation in its different roles

It is clear from the above that the regulation appears in the Law in different roles, not in a single one:

• A duty on the establishment to prepare and announce it, in Article 13.
• A source of penalties alongside the Law, in Article 67.
• A place for stipulating otherwise than the default on the calendar, in Article 10.
• The determinant of the subject matter of the right to holiday leave, in Article 112.
• The determinant of connected provisions on the probation period, in Article 53.
• A restriction on what is added to the contract and a source of the worker’s duties, in Articles 52 and 65.

It follows that the question “do we have a regulation?” is not an administrative question, but a question about the existence of the reference the Law pointed to in these places.

8. What the text does not address

• The content of the template approved by the Ministry for the regulation. On that, refer to what the competent authority issues.
• The effect of the absence of a regulation or of not announcing it. The particular case is to be referred to the statutory text and the competent authority.
• The procedures for approving the regulation and amending it. Refer to the statutory text and the competent authority on these.
• The effect of a divergence between the contract and the regulation on the calendar question. The particular case is to be referred to the statutory text and the competent authority.

9. What your system should record

• The approved regulation, its current version and its date.
• The place and date of its announcement, because announcement in a visible place is laid down in Article 13.
• The adopted calendar in the establishment, and where it was stipulated: in the contract or in the regulation.
• The list of penalties stated in the regulation, because it is one of the two sources of penalties.
• Holiday and occasion leave as the regulation determined it.
• The clauses added to contracts, because the regulation is one of the three things they are measured against.

10. Checklist

• Does the establishment have a work-organisation regulation prepared in accordance with the approved template?
• Is it announced in a visible place for those to whom it applies?
• Does it contain conditions that conflict with the provisions of the Law?
• Are the Law’s periods reckoned on the Hijri calendar, and if Gregorian, was that stipulated in the contract or the regulation?
• Are the penalties actually applied stated in the regulation or in the Law?
• Does the regulation determine holiday and occasion leave?

11. Why this turns into a problem

The regulation is one of those documents prepared once at incorporation and then never read. It is nonetheless the reference the Law points to in matters applied every month: penalties, the calendar and leave.

The flaw usually lies not in an express contravention, but in a disconnect between what the regulation says and what happens in practice: a regulation laying down one calendar and records running on another, or a penalty applied by custom with no basis in it.

Knowing about this disconnect starts with a single question: what does the system actually record, as against what the regulation provides?

The reason this disconnect persists is that the regulation is read only when there is a dispute, while the records are read every month. The two documents run on parallel lines, and they meet only at the moment when meeting is too late.

One thing shortens the distance between them: that the events the regulation refers to are recorded in the first place, not extracted when needed. The date the regulation was announced, the adopted calendar, the list of penalties applied, the holiday days granted: all of these are data that either exist in the system or are assembled from memory.

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 link with Qoyod accounting is available now.

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

Frequently asked questions

Is the work-organisation regulation mandatory?

Article 13 provides that every employer shall prepare a work-organisation regulation in accordance with the template approved by the Ministry, and announce it in a visible place for those to whom its provisions apply. The employer may add conditions to it provided they do not conflict with the provisions of the Law.

What is the regulation’s relationship to disciplinary penalties?

Article 67 provides that an employer may not impose a penalty that is not provided for in the Labor Law or in the work-organisation regulation. So the regulation is one of the two sources of penalties, and the other is the Law itself.

Are the Labor Law’s periods reckoned by the Hijri or the Gregorian calendar?

Article 10 provides that periods and dates are reckoned by the Hijri calendar, unless the employment contract or the work-organisation regulation stipulates otherwise. So the default is Hijri, and working on the Gregorian calendar needs a stipulation in one of them.

May the regulation contain additional conditions?

Yes. Article 13 provides that the employer may add conditions to the regulation, provided they do not conflict with the provisions of the Law.

Which matters does the Law refer to the regulation?

Among the places this guide has established: penalties in Article 67, the adopted calendar in Article 10, holiday and occasion leave in Article 112, and the provisions connected with the probation period, including the leave not counted within it, in Article 53. The regulation also appears as a restriction on what is added to the contract in Article 52 and as a source of the worker’s duties in Article 65.

Is preparing the regulation enough without announcing it?

Article 13 provides for preparing it and announcing it in a visible place for those to whom its provisions apply, so announcement is laid down in the text alongside preparation. As for the effect of not announcing it in a particular case, that is a matter to be referred to the statutory text and the competent authority.

Statutory references

This guide is based on the Saudi Labor Law: Article 10 (the adopted calendar), Article 13 (the work-organisation regulation), Article 52 (the unified template and the limits on adding to it), Article 53 (the probation period), Article 65 (the worker’s obligations), Article 67 (confining the source of penalties), and Article 112 (holiday and occasion leave).

On the effect of the amendments made by Royal Decree M/44 of 1446 AH, in force since 19 February 2025: Articles 52 and 53 were amended by it. As for Articles 10, 13, 65, 67 and 112, this guide has not established an express instance of amendment for them, so it is not sound to assert either that they were or were not amended; refer to the updated statutory text on that. As for Articles 66, 70, 71 and 72 referred to in section two: this guide has not established an express instance of amendment for them either.

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.