Saudi Amicable Settlement: Deadlines and What to Claim

Every page that explains amicable settlement of Saudi labour disputes quotes the same number: 21 days. Some count it from the day the claim is filed. Others drop the word "working", which turns it into calendar days. The text says neither.

The Rules and Procedures Regulating Amicable Settlement in Labour Disputes, adopted by Ministerial Decision No. 91285 dated 20/6/1445H, set three different periods, and each starts from a different point. Mixing them up puts the date a dispute reaches the Labour Court off by weeks. This article reads the periods from the decision itself, then turns to the question most guides leave open: what goes in the claims field, and with which figures?

Why this stage cannot be skipped

Royal Decree No. M/14 dated 22/2/1440H, as quoted in the preamble of the decision, requires that a labour claim be brought to the labour office with jurisdiction over the place of work before it is filed with the Labour Court, so the office can take the steps needed to settle the dispute amicably. Amicable settlement is therefore a condition for getting into court.

The service is free and online, through the e-services portal of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (HRSD): the individuals portal when the claimant is a person, the establishments portal when the claimant is a company. Jurisdiction belongs to the labour office where the workplace is located (Article 11 of the Rules), and sessions may be held remotely (Article 6).

A note on scope: these Rules cover workers subject to the Labour Law. Disputes involving domestic workers and similar categories have separate rules.

Three periods, three starting points

Article 13 requires the settlement department to work on resolving the dispute "within a period not exceeding (21) working days from the date of the first settlement session". The service page on the ministry's website says the same thing: referral to the Labour Court happens "within (21) working days from the date of the first session".

So the number 21 is correct. The errors are in its unit and its starting point. It is working days, it runs from the first session, and another ten working days come before it.

The difference on a calendar

Take a claim filed and registered on Sunday 4 October 2026. We assume a Sunday to Thursday working week, no public holidays in the period, and counting from the following day.

The maximum under the text is 43 calendar days from filing, not 21. That is three weeks of difference. It is also a ceiling: if the first session is held early, the 21 working days start early, and if the parties settle at the first session, it ends that day.

The period nobody guards but you: 12 months

Article 234 of the Labour Law provides that no claim for a right under the Law or arising from the employment contract is accepted before the labour courts after twelve months from the end of the employment relationship, unless the claimant presents an excuse the court accepts or the defendant acknowledges the right.

Three points on this period:

First, the calendar. Article 10 of the Law says all periods and deadlines in it are calculated by the Hijri calendar, unless the employment contract or the work regulation states otherwise. Twelve Hijri months are about 354 days, roughly eleven days short of a Gregorian year. Someone counting one Gregorian year from the last working day may arrive late. Count the shorter one.

Second, the settlement office does not rule on time bars. Article 4 of the Rules states that an arbitration clause, or the expiry of the statutory period for bringing a labour claim, does not prevent the conciliator from completing the settlement procedure, even if one of the parties raises it. A registered claim is therefore not proof that the claim is in time. The time-bar defence is decided in court.

Third, the Rules do not say that filing for settlement stops the clock. Article 234 measures acceptance "before the labour courts", and we found no provision in Decision 91285 that makes registration with the settlement department interrupt that period. Do not plan around that assumption: file with enough room for 31 working days of settlement and then the court filing, all inside the twelve months. If you are close to the end of it, take legal advice.

Absence: who loses what

The Rules treat the two parties' absence differently.

The claimant is absent (Article 15): the claim is shelved by a record. If the claimant comes back within the 21 working days, they may ask for the claim to continue. If they come back after it, they are told to file a new claim, and the first is treated as if it had never existed. The counter restarts from zero, and the twelve-month clock never paused.

The defendant is absent (Article 16): if the defendant fails to attend without an accepted excuse, despite proof of notification, the settlement department may issue a record that the dispute could not be settled. An employer's no-show does not stall the claim. It opens the way to court.

If both parties attend, settlement is not reached in the session, and the conciliator sees that both are moving toward an agreement, a second date may be set for that purpose.

The claims field: "specific, detailed and written"

Article 18 of the Rules lists what the conciliator must check at the session, including that the claimant's requests are "specific, detailed and written". Article 25 allows the claimant or their representative to add new requests, or amend them, before or during the settlement procedure.

Some Saudi lawyers warn publicly that the claim filed in court should match what appears in the settlement record, and that a request missing from the record may be rejected and sent back through settlement. That is practitioner opinion, not a provision of the Rules, but it is reason enough to list every claim from the start and to use Article 25 before the record is issued, not after.

"My salary and my dues" is not a specific request. A specific request is a line with a legal basis and an amount:

A worked example in riyals

An employee has an actual wage of SAR 12,000 a month (basic 9,000, housing 2,250, transport 750) and seven years of service on an indefinite-term contract. The employer ends the contract immediately, without a valid reason and without notice. The employee has 12 days of leave outstanding. The contract sets no agreed compensation for termination.

A claimant who writes only "end-of-service dues" claims SAR 54,000 and leaves SAR 70,800 outside the record. One who computes all four lines on the basic wage brings the total down to SAR 93,600, because "wage" in the Law means the actual wage under the Article 2 definition.

The free labour rights calculator computes five of these lines: unpaid wages, the end-of-service award, leave balance, overtime and Article 77 compensation. Pay in lieu of notice is the one you compute by hand, as in the table. Walk into the session with written requests and amounts you can explain.

The settlement record is an enforceable instrument

If the dispute ends amicably, the conciliator draws up a settlement record. It is not a goodwill paper:

• It is enforceable. Article 20 requires the conciliator to append the enforcement formula to the settlement record, and Article 26 counts ratified settlement records among the enforceable instruments listed in Article 9 of the Enforcement Law. A party that does not pay what it agreed can be enforced against without a new lawsuit.
• It is absolutely void in two cases (Article 21): where one of the parties has not ratified it through an approved verification method, or where a party's representative has no legal power to settle. This is why the service page requires an agent's power of attorney to include the right to settle, release and waive.
• Words beat digits. Article 24: if the agreed amount differs between its written-out form and its figures, the written-out form prevails. Check the amount in words before you ratify. The tafqit tool converts a figure into its correct Arabic wording in riyals and halalas.
• Waivers while the contract is running. The Rules refer the conciliator to Article 8 of the Labour Law, which voids any release or settlement of a worker's rights under the Law during the term of the employment contract, unless it is more favourable to the worker. A settlement signed while the worker is still employed is not the same thing as one signed after the relationship has ended.

What this means for the employer

Amicable settlement is usually written up from the worker's side. Three articles of the Rules speak directly to the company:

1. Ten working days is all you get. From registration to the first session is two weeks at most. At the session the conciliator identifies the documents each party relies on, including the employment contract. A company that needs a month to pull payslips and the leave ledger walks in without figures.
2. Three claimants bring the inspectorate. Article 17: the Agency for Inspection and Work Environment Development is notified when three or more workers bring claims against the same establishment. One calculation error repeated across the workforce, such as overtime or the end-of-service award computed on the basic wage, produces that number easily.
3. A claim can expose a violation. Article 23: if the claim involves a breach of the Law, or the conciliator finds one on either side, the department may notify the same agency to examine and investigate. Late wages that surface in one claim also show up in your Wage Protection System data.

What the HR system needs to produce

• The documented employment contract and its current version for each employee, with annexes.
• A monthly payslip that separates basic wage from allowances, so the actual wage can be read without rebuilding it.
• A leave ledger with a balance computed at the date the relationship ended, not at year end.
• A record of approved overtime hours.
• The notice delivery date, the termination date and the terminating party as separate fields.
• The end date of the employment relationship for every leaver, with an alert before twelve Hijri months have passed.

Can your company produce these figures in ten working days?

If final settlements are computed by hand in a spreadsheet, or your system computes the award and notice pay on the basic wage, the amount you put on the table will differ from the amount the worker claims, and that gap is what turns a session into a lawsuit.

Contact us for a diagnostic session on the calculation and reporting layer above your current system: where the actual wage is read from, how one employee's settlement is produced with its supporting documents, and where the same error repeats across employees.

Sources: Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, Ministerial Decision No. 91285 dated 20/6/1445H adopting the Rules and Procedures Regulating Amicable Settlement in Labour Disputes (Articles 4, 6, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 and 26), which replaced the rules issued by Decision No. 57167 dated 20/3/1440H; the "Amicable Settlement of Labour Disputes" service page on the ministry's website; Saudi Labour Law, Articles 2, 8, 10, 64, 75, 76, 77, 84, 85, 107, 111 and 234; Royal Decree No. M/14 dated 22/2/1440H as quoted in the preamble of the decision. Quotations are our translation of the Arabic text. This article is for guidance and does not replace legal advice in an open dispute.