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Every employee earns at least 21 days of paid annual leave a year, rising to 30 after five years. Here is how to grant it, postpone it, count it around holidays and pay it out.
DynamoOS team7 min read
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Under Article 109 of the Labour Law, every employee is entitled to paid annual leave of at least 21 days for each year of service. Once the employee has completed five continuous years with the same employer, the minimum rises to 30 days. These are floors: a contract or the company's work rules can give more, never less.
| Continuous service with the employer | Minimum annual leave |
|---|---|
| Under 5 years | 21 days a year |
| 5 years or more | 30 days a year |
Leave builds up through the year. A simple way to track it is per month: 21 days a year is 1.75 days for each month worked, and 30 days a year is 2.5 days a month. That monthly figure is also what you use for a part year when someone joins or leaves.
Annual leave is paid leave, and Article 109 says the pay is paid in advance, before the employee goes. The daily rate is the monthly wage divided by 30, where the wage is the basic wage plus the recurring allowances the employee normally receives, such as housing and transport. The employee should not lose anything by taking leave.
In practice many companies pay the leave with the salary of the month in which the leave starts. Whichever way you choose, put it in writing in your work rules so employees know when the money arrives, and make sure the payslip shows the leave days clearly.
The employer does. Article 109 lets the employer set the dates of annual leave according to the needs of the work, or grant it in rotation so the business keeps running. The employer must tell the employee the date of their leave at least 30 days in advance, so they can plan around it.
The law also says the employee must take the leave in the year it is earned, may not give it up, and may not take cash instead of leave while still in service. A leave plan for the year, agreed with team leaders early, avoids a rush of requests at the end of the year and protects the 30-day notice.
Yes, within limits set by Article 110. The employee may postpone their leave, or some days of it, to the following year if the employer agrees. The employer may also postpone the leave after the end of the year it was earned, when the work requires it, but only for up to 90 days without the employee's consent.
If the work still needs the postponement after those 90 days, the employer must get the employee's written agreement, and even then the leave may not be pushed beyond the end of the year following the year it was earned. Leave should not simply pile up from year to year.
| Who postpones | Condition | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| The employee | The employer agrees | To the following year |
| The employer | The work requires it | Up to 90 days after the year ends |
| The employer, beyond 90 days | The employee agrees in writing | Not past the end of the next year |
The implementing regulations protect the leave in both cases. If an official holiday, such as Eid, National Day or Founding Day, falls during annual leave, the annual leave is extended by the number of holiday days. If the employee falls sick during annual leave, the annual leave stops and resumes after the sick leave ends.
So an employee who takes 21 days of leave across the Eid al-Fitr holiday gets the four Eid days on top, and returns that much later. Weekly rest days that fall during sick leave are not made up. Recording holidays on a company holiday list keeps these counts right without manual corrections.
Article 111 entitles the employee to be paid for leave earned and not taken when they leave, and to pay for the leave of a part year in proportion to the time worked. This applies however the contract ends, and it is paid on top of the end-of-service award, not as part of it.
For example, an employee entitled to 21 days a year who leaves eight months into a new leave year, without having taken any of it, has earned 14 days. On a monthly wage of SAR 9,000, a day is worth SAR 300, so the leave pay-out is SAR 4,200, plus any days carried over from earlier years.
The end-of-service calculator linked here can add unused leave to the award, so the whole settlement is worked out in one go.
No. Annual leave is separate from the other kinds of leave the law gives, and none of them is taken out of the annual balance. Official holidays, sick leave, family occasion leave, Hajj leave, maternity leave and exam leave each have their own rules, and an employee can be entitled to several in the same year.
A Saudi company in Dynamo People starts with an Annual Leave type of 21 days, up to 30, carried forward, alongside the other Labour Law leave types. Employees request leave themselves and balances update when a manager approves. Dynamo Payroll pays unused days at the daily wage when someone leaves.
Not while they are still working. Article 109 forbids giving up leave or taking cash instead of it during service. Unused leave is paid only when the employee leaves (Article 111).
The law states leave in days and leaves the counting method to the contract and work rules. Write down how your company counts leave days and apply it to everyone the same way.
Once the employee has completed five continuous years with the same employer. From then on the minimum is 30 days a year.
No. If an official holiday falls during annual leave, the regulations extend the annual leave by the number of holiday days.
The rules in this article come from these official sources, read on the day it was published.
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