Saudization and Developed Nitaqat 2026: How Your Ratio Is Calculated

What are Saudization and Developed Nitaqat, and who sets your required ratio?

Saudization is a duty the Labor Law places on every establishment, whatever its activity and however many people it employs: to recruit and employ Saudis, provide the means for them to stay in work, and give them a fair opportunity to prove their fitness for work by guiding, training and qualifying them for the work assigned to them. The law sets a statutory minimum of 75% Saudi workers out of the establishment's total workforce, and allows the Minister to lower it temporarily where the technical skills or academic qualifications are not available or the jobs cannot be filled by citizens.

The ratio actually required of your firm is set through programs the Ministry designs for each private-sector activity, under which it withholds all or some of its services from establishments that miss their ratio. Nitaqat is one of these programs. So there is no single national Saudization ratio: the required ratio is calculated for each economic activity and each entity separately, using the Developed Nitaqat formula.

• Developed Nitaqat has applied to private-sector establishments since 1 December 2021, under Ministerial Decision No. 182495.
• MHRSD published the updated procedural guide for the program in January 2026, with separate fixed values for each activity and band for 2026, 2027 and 2028.

For the rest of an employer's obligations under the Labor Law, see our Saudi Labor Law guide.

What are the five Developed Nitaqat bands, and does the Yellow band still exist?

The program places every entity in one of five bands, from lowest to highest:

• Red.
• Low Green.
• Mid Green.
• High Green.
• Platinum.

The 2026 procedural guide has no Yellow band and does not sort firms into size categories. The previous version of the program classified entities with 6 or more workers into six bands and compared them with similar establishments by size and activity; the Yellow band belongs to that version.

Assessment happens at entity level, not branch level: the entity is the capacity in which the Ministry deals with a firm for Saudization purposes, and it covers every branch in the same economic activity owned by one establishment, so a weak branch is not assessed on its own.

How is your required Saudization ratio calculated in 2026?

Each band from Low Green to Platinum has a minimum threshold calculated from one formula. The formula's values change with your activity and the year, and your entity's headcount enters it as a continuous number, not a size category.

The formula as stated in the procedural guide:

• Y = M × ln(X) + C
• Y: the minimum ratio required for the band.
• M: a fixed curve value for each band and activity.
• C: a fixed value for each band, activity and year.
• X: the entity's total workforce; ln is the natural logarithm.

Your entity's actual Saudization ratio is the sum of the average Saudi workforce divided by the sum of the average Saudi and expatriate workforce, multiplied by 100. Expatriate here means workers who are not GCC nationals. Your ratio is then compared with the thresholds: below the Low Green threshold the band is Red; at or above it but below the Mid Green threshold the band is Low Green; and so on up to Platinum, which starts at its own threshold. So the line between Red and everything else is the Low Green threshold.

Example: an entity in the business services activity with 20 workers needs a Saudization ratio of at least 36.87% in 2026 to reach Low Green, 45.71% for Mid Green, 50.18% for High Green and 61.38% for Platinum. The same entity's Low Green threshold rises to 39.87% in 2027 and 42.87% in 2028.

In most activities the threshold rises with headcount because the curve value is positive, but not in all of them. In some activities the curve value is zero, so the threshold stays the same whatever the headcount, for example telecom infrastructure, higher education in health specialties, and girls' schools, kindergartens and nurseries. In construction contracting and in cleaning contracting and laundries it is negative for Low and Mid Green, so the threshold falls as headcount rises.

Your band can also drop without you adding an expatriate or losing a Saudi, because the fixed value for many activities rises from one year to the next. To find your band and how many Saudis you need, the procedural guide points to an online link that determines your band automatically, and the Ministry's FAQ refers to the interactive Nitaqat guide service on Qiwa (دليل نطاقات التفاعلي) and to the Developed Nitaqat calculator, where you enter your total actual workforce, not just your Saudis.

Low Green threshold by activity, headcount and year (calculated from Annex 1 of the 2026 procedural guide, rounded to two decimals)

How is each Saudi employee counted in your ratio?

Not every Saudi counts as one full employee. Under Ministerial Decision No. 61706, each Saudi's weight in the ratio follows their monthly wage:

• SAR 4,000 or more: one full worker.
• SAR 3,000 to under 4,000: half a worker.
• Under SAR 3,000: not counted.

The wage that matters is the wage subject to GOSI contributions, not the gross salary, which is the basic wage plus the housing allowance. So an employee with a gross salary of SAR 4,000 and a GOSI contribution wage of SAR 3,500 counts as half a worker. And six Saudi employees, four with a GOSI wage of SAR 4,000 or more and two from SAR 3,000 to under 4,000, count as five workers, not six.

• GCC nationals are treated as Saudis in the program, and the same wage weights apply to them.
• Students, part-time and flexible-work employees, persons with disabilities and released prisoners have their own counting rules in the same decision; check each group's conditions before building your plan on them.
• The Ministry announced that, since 15 April 2026, Saudization ratios are calculated from employment contracts documented electronically on Qiwa, so a Saudi employee is not counted unless their contract is documented. Documentation is necessary but not sufficient: the wage and other conditions still apply.

To work out an employee's GOSI contribution wage and their full cost to your firm, use our salary calculator.

What does your band mean for your firm's services?

Your band decides which services the Ministry provides to you, and the 2026 procedural guide lists the main ones for each band. The difference many firms miss: Low Green is not enough to apply for new visas.

• Platinum, High Green and Mid Green: visa-balance requests for available professions; changing expatriate workers' professions to available professions, subject to the profession-change requirements; renewing work permits for their expatriate workers regardless of the length of their residence, provided no more than 6 months remain on the worker's residence permit at renewal; and transferring expatriate workers in from any band, subject to the service rules.
• Low Green: new visa requests and profession-change requests for expatriate workers are stopped; work-permit renewals for their expatriate workers remain, on the same condition.
• Red: no new visa requests, no work permits for new expatriate workers, no work-permit renewals for their expatriate workers, no profession changes, and no transfers of expatriate workers in.

How do you raise your firm's band, step by step?

Start with the numbers before you hire: work out the threshold for the band you are targeting this year and next year, then compare it with your entity's ratio calculated with the actual weight of each Saudi you employ.

• Know the gap: calculate your target band's threshold, or use the Ministry's tools to find your band and the number of Saudis you need.
• Document every Saudi contract on Qiwa: according to the Ministry's announcement, an undocumented contract has not counted since 15 April 2026.
• Check each Saudi's GOSI contribution wage: anyone below SAR 4,000 counts as half a worker or not at all, even if their gross salary is higher.
• Plan for next year: if your activity's value rises in 2027, the same number of Saudis may not keep your current band next year.
• Keep your entity data accurate, from the economic activity to the branches it includes, because assessment pools every branch in the same activity.
• Hire into real roles: registering someone with GOSI and paying them without real work is fake Saudization, not a higher band.

Are there Saudization ratios for specific professions?

Yes. Alongside Nitaqat, the Ministry issues Saudization decisions for specific professions. Two examples are the accounting and engineering decisions: each has a procedural guide setting its ratio, start date and minimum counting wage, and each says that where other decisions target the same profession at different ratios, the higher ratio applies.

• Accounting professions (Ministerial Decision No. 103108): applies to establishments with 5 or more workers in the targeted accounting professions, calculated at entity level: 40% since 27 October 2025, then 50% from 27 October 2026, 60% from 27 October 2027 and 70% from 27 October 2028; a fifth phase from 27 October 2029 extends it to establishments with 3 or 4 such workers at 30%. Accounting firms are calculated under the Executive Regulation of the Accounting and Auditing Profession Law.
• Under this decision, a Saudi accountant counts only if professionally accredited by the Saudi Organization for Chartered and Professional Accountants (SOCPA) and their GOSI contribution wage is at least SAR 6,000 for holders of a bachelor's degree or equivalent, or SAR 4,500 for holders of a diploma or equivalent.
• Engineering professions (Ministerial Decision No. 93483): 30% of all workers in the targeted engineering professions, at entity level, for establishments with 5 or more workers in those professions, from 30 June 2026. Under this decision, a Saudi engineer counts only with professional accreditation from the Saudi Council of Engineers and a GOSI contribution wage of at least SAR 8,000.

What is fake Saudization, and what is the penalty?

MHRSD defines fake Saudization as an agreement between a Saudi worker and an employer under which the worker is registered in labor-market and GOSI records and paid a wage without any indication of actual work at the establishment. The test is the absence of any indication of real work: paying the wage and registering the employee with GOSI do not cure the violation.

• The Ministry detects it through suspicion criteria, including checks on the workplace, equipment, working hours and whether real activity takes place, and it may also analyse indicators such as a repeated pattern of hiring Saudis, and a lack of evidence that real job opportunities exist.
• Once found, the establishment and any intermediaries face the penalties in the Labor Law, its Executive Regulation and the decisions issued under it, and the case is referred to the competent authorities for the penalties of the Penal Law for Forgery Crimes.
• Labor Law penalties are one or more of: a fine, closure of the establishment for a set period, or permanent closure. Fines multiply by the number of persons the violation concerns, and the penalty may be doubled for a repeat violation. The Ministry can impose a fine or temporary closure administratively only up to half the statutory maximum; anything above that, and permanent closure, requires the Ministry to bring a case before the competent court.
• The Ministry issues a schedule of violations and their penalties by ministerial decision; that schedule, not the figures circulating online, is the official reference for violations and their penalties.
• Fake Saudization can be reported through the Ministry's app.

Genuine Saudization is the sustainable way to raise your band, alongside tracking each year's thresholds. If you want a team that keeps your Saudization file in order, from your Saudis' GOSI contribution wages to their contract documentation on Qiwa and your band against each year's thresholds, that is part of our HR Outsourcing service.