Saudi Labour Law for Senior Professionals
Contracts, Probation, Notice and End-of-Service Award, Compared With the UAE

The key insight:

The statute is the floor of a Saudi contract, not the shape of it. For a senior hire, the clauses that cost the most sit above the line the law draws.

A move to Riyadh from Dubai, London or Singapore is one of the larger career decisions a senior professional makes, and the contract that carries it sits on Saudi labour law whether or not anyone reads it. The statute sets the floor for probation, notice, end-of-service pay, leave and restrictive covenants. The offer letter then adds a package on top. Most of the cost and most of the risk of a senior move sit in what the offer adds, but you cannot read the additions without knowing the floor.

This guide covers that floor for a senior hire, with the UAE alongside it for anyone moving between the two. It is general information and not legal advice, and the law has been amended recently, so confirm the current text before you sign. A move like this is also a bet on your own range, and if you want an outside read on it before you decide, you can take the free Leadership Psychometric, a 50-question leadership profile scoring five dimensions.

The law and what changed in 2025

The Labor Law is published in English by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development as Royal Decree No. M/51 of 2005. The Cabinet then approved a package of amendments: according to the ministry's announcement of the approval, 38 articles were modified, seven removed and two added, with the changes taking effect 180 days after publication in the Official Gazette. The ministry says the amendments expand the chapters on leave and contracts, define resignation and set new resignation procedures, and revise worker grievance processes.

Two things follow. First, the original English text remains the clearest primary source on the structure of the law, but article numbers and some figures below may have moved. Second, a law firm summary by RÖDL, Saudi labor law 2025: the most important amendments and their impact, reports that the amendments were enacted on 18 February 2025 and lists changes to probation and notice that this guide flags where they matter. Treat the secondary source as a pointer, and check the figures against the consolidated text on the ministry's site and against your own contract.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE side by side

Probation: where the risk of a senior move concentrates

Probation matters more to a senior hire than the tables suggest. You have usually resigned a stable role, may have relocated a family and can be dismissed in the early months by either side unless your contract says otherwise. The ministry's text (Article 53) says probation must be written into the contract, may not exceed 90 days in the original text and can be extended by written agreement to 180. A summary of the amendments reports that the maximum is now 180 days. Either party may end the contract during probation unless the contract gives that right to one party only.

Practical steps: ask for the probation length in writing before you resign, ask whether your sign-on terms survive a probation exit, and ask for any relocation costs to be treated as non-refundable if the employer ends the contract early. Our guide to negotiating senior compensation in the Gulf covers how to raise these terms without damaging the offer.

Notice and termination

For an indefinite-term contract, Article 75 of the original text requires written notice of at least 60 days where wages are paid monthly, and at least 30 days for other wage periods. Article 76 makes a party that skips the notice liable for pay in lieu. The 2025 amendments are reported to have shortened the employee's notice to 30 days while keeping the employer's at 60. For a senior role, expect the contract to set its own period, often longer, and to include garden leave, which the statute does not describe in these terms. Read this clause with the same care as the base figure.

The end-of-service award

This is the item senior hires most often misjudge. Article 84 of the ministry's text sets the award at half a month's wage for each of the first five years and one month's wage for each year after that, calculated on the last wage and pro-rated for part years. Article 85 scales the award where the employee resigns: one third after at least two consecutive years, two thirds after more than five and the full award after ten years or more. The ministry's announcement says the amendments define resignation and set new procedures for it, so confirm which scale applies to you.

An illustration of the calculation, using a monthly wage of SAR 30,000 and six years of service, ignoring the resignation scale: five years at half a month is SAR 75,000, and the sixth year at a full month is SAR 30,000, a total of SAR 105,000. What counts as the wage is decided by the law and your contract, so check how yours is defined before you rely on the figure. The same professional in the UAE, on a basic wage of AED 30,000, would earn AED 135,000 on the 21-day and 30-day rates, as our UAE gratuity guide shows. The structures are different, so compare the rate and the base, not just the headline.

Annual leave and restrictive covenants

Article 109 of the original text gives not less than 21 days of paid annual leave, rising to at least 30 days after five consecutive years. The amendments expand the leave chapter, so check the current figure. Senior packages routinely give more, and a longer entitlement should be written into your contract.

Article 83 permits a non-compete clause only if it is in writing and specific as to time, place and type of work, and caps it at two years from the end of the relationship. Confidentiality clauses over business secrets must meet the same specificity test. A non-compete is one of the clauses with the largest hidden cost for a senior hire, because it can bar you from your next move, so negotiate its scope before you sign, not at exit.

What the statute does not tell you about a senior contract

The law is a floor, and for senior packages most of the economics sit above it. Notice pay, negotiated settlements, unvested incentives and garden leave are usually larger than the statutory award. JOH Partners writes about this from the board's side in its piece on what an executive departure costs in the Gulf, which separates the statutory minimum from the contractual terms. Read your offer the same way: first the floor, then everything the employer has added.

If you are weighing a move from Dubai, work out what leaving costs you at home first. Our guides to relocating for a job, notice periods in the UAE and UAE gratuity set out what you give up and what you carry. For the conversation that sets these terms, see the final stage of a hiring process in our guide to final-round questions, and for market pay context, the GCC senior leadership market in 2026.

Before you sign

1. Read the contract against the current consolidated text. Check probation, notice, award and leave against the ministry's current version, not a summary.
2. Confirm the definition of wage. It decides your award and your pay in lieu.
3. Put probation, relocation and sign-on terms in writing. Ask what survives an early exit.
4. Negotiate the non-compete and garden leave now. They cost most at exit.
5. Take independent advice. A Saudi-qualified employment lawyer should review a senior contract before you resign.

Our Offer and negotiation tool compares an offer component by component and helps you prepare the conversation, and the wider GCC Market Intelligence collection covers the region. You can see what the Leadership Psychometric covers on its public overview page.

Key takeaways

• Saudi labour law sets a floor for probation, notice, end-of-service pay, leave and restrictive covenants. Senior packages add to it.
• The law was amended in 2025: 38 articles modified, seven removed, two added. Confirm every figure against the current text.
• The original text sets probation at up to 90 days, extendable to 180, and 60 days' notice. Reported amendments cut the employee's notice to 30 days and set the probation maximum at 180.
• The award is half a month's wage per year for five years and a month after that, scaled down on early resignation. The UAE is calculated on a different base and rate.
• Probation, the non-compete and garden leave are where a senior hire carries the most hidden cost. Negotiate them before you sign.

JOH Partners Intelligence

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