Leave by country / Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia annual leave entitlement
How much paid leave people in Saudi Arabia get, what happens to unused days, and what you owe when someone leaves — in plain English, whether you run a team there or work on one.
Saudi Arabia guarantees at least 21 days of paid annual leave a year under article 109 of the Labor Law, rising to at least 30 days after five consecutive years with the same employer — roughly 15 and 21 working days on a five-day week. Leave is paid in advance, cannot be exchanged for cash while employed, and accrued days must be paid out when the worker leaves.
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What the law actually says
Article 109 entitles a worker to annual leave of not less than 21 days, rising to not less than 30 days once the worker has spent five consecutive years in the employer's service, and that leave is paid in advance. Those are calendar days, not working days: on the Sunday-to-Thursday week worked across most of the Saudi private sector, 21 calendar days is about 15 working days and 30 is about 21, which is how this table lists them. The employer schedules the leave, and the worker cannot refuse to take the balance once the employer has decided to grant it.
Worth knowing: Article 109 also stops the entitlement being traded away: the worker must enjoy the leave in the year it falls due and may neither renounce it nor take money instead of it while still employed. On leaving, the worker is entitled to wages for accrued leave days not used, including a proportionate amount for the part of the final year worked. The 2024 amendments to the Labor Law, in force from 19 February 2025, reworked several leave rules but left article 109 itself alone.
What happens to unused leave in Saudi Arabia
Saudi annual leave is meant to be consumed in the year it accrues — article 109 requires the worker to enjoy it when due and forbids cash in lieu during employment, and the employer, not the worker, chooses when it is taken. Deferral into the following year is possible by agreement rather than as of right. What is not taken by the time the worker leaves converts into wages for the accrued days, so the balance is not lost, only deferred to the final settlement.
When employment ends, the untaken balance must be paid. This is the rule across the European Union and Australia, and it is the sharpest contrast with the United States, where whether unused time is paid out depends entirely on which state the employee works in.
If you run a team in Saudi Arabia
- Write the entitlement into every contract. At least 15 days; more is fine, less is void. Collective agreements may add to it.
- Track accrual and carryover to the day, with a record of every approval. When someone leaves, the untaken balance is money you owe, and you will need to show how you got to the number.
- Budget for the payout. Every unused day on the books is a liability at that person's current pay rate — it does not disappear at year end.
If you work in Saudi Arabia
- Check your contract gives at least 15 days. Anything less is unenforceable.
- Keep your own record of approved leave. Payroll systems get changed; your notes don't.
- When you leave, untaken statutory leave must be paid out. It cannot be forfeited.
Countries with the same 15-day minimum
Calculating an employee's balance
Entitlement is the starting point; the working number is what an individual has actually accrued at a given date. Our accrual calculator converts an annual entitlement into a per-pay-period figure and a current balance.
Tracking Saudi Arabia leave correctly
Because untaken leave is money the employer owes, the balance has to be provable. Spreadsheets fail at exactly the moment they matter — when someone disputes what they were owed on their last day and nobody can reconstruct the record.
For a single-country team, Leavo handles Saudi Arabia accrual rules, carryover and approvals with a full audit trail. If you employ people in more than one country, statutory entitlements, carryover rules and payout obligations differ in every one — that is the case for a platform like Deel that handles multi-country employment rather than leave alone. We compare the options in our leave management software guide.
Saudi Arabia annual leave: common questions
How many paid annual leave days are employees entitled to in Saudi Arabia?
15 working days is the statutory minimum in Saudi Arabia, equivalent to 3 weeks on a five-day working week, under Labor Law (Royal Decree M/51), art. 109. Employers and collective agreements may grant more, never less.
Must unused annual leave be paid out when employment ends in Saudi Arabia?
Yes. Payment in lieu of untaken statutory leave is required when the employment relationship ends in Saudi Arabia. During employment, cash-out is limited: not while employed: article 109 bars the worker from renouncing leave or receiving cash in lieu during service..
Can an employer in Saudi Arabia refuse a leave request?
An employer can usually influence when leave is taken for operational reasons, but cannot deny the entitlement itself. The right to the minimum number of days is statutory and cannot be contracted away.
Do public holidays count towards the 15-day entitlement in Saudi Arabia?
No. Public holidays are separate from the 15-day statutory annual leave entitlement in Saudi Arabia.
Source
Primary source: Labor Law (Royal Decree M/51), art. 109. Statutory minimums change, and collective agreements frequently exceed them — confirm against the current text before acting. See our methodology.