An establishment with 35 workers gets a visit from a Ministry inspector. Six workers have been paid late. One month's WPS file was never uploaded. Two passports are sitting in the HR drawer. Eight contracts were never authenticated on Qiwa. What does the bill come to?
Before February 2026 you would have heard numbers like SAR 3,000 for every worker paid late. That number is no longer right. The Minister of Human Resources issued Ministerial Decision No. 112377 of 21/8/1447H (9 February 2026), published on the Ministry's website on 25 February 2026. It replaced the schedule of violations and penalties for the Labour Law and its Implementing Regulations. A few weeks earlier, Ministerial Decision No. 93442 of 1/7/1447H allowed an 80% fine reduction under specific conditions.
Most pages ranking for this today still quote the old schedule, or mention the reduction without its conditions. We read both decisions from the copies published on the Ministry's site. Here is what they say.
Headcount sets the fine: three establishment categories
The general schedule splits establishments into three categories, and every violation carries three fines:
| Category | Workers |
|---|---|
| Category C (ج) | 20 or fewer |
| Category B (ب) | 21 to 49 |
| Category A (أ) | 50 or more |
The detail that matters is in clause Two of the decision: the category is set by the establishment's total number of workers registered with the Ministry under the unified number it belongs to. If you hold three commercial registrations under one unified number, each with 15 workers, you are not Category C. You are Category B, because the count is summed across the unified number, not per registration.
The schedule also classifies each violation as "serious" or "non-serious", and most fines multiply by the number of workers. That phrase is what produces the big invoice: a SAR 500 fine becomes SAR 4,000 when the violation covers eight workers.
The violations establishments commit every day
This is an extract from category (A), "general violations for all activities", with item numbers as they appear in Decision 112377. Fines are in Saudi riyals.
| Item | Violation | Class | Cat. C | Cat. B | Cat. A | Multiplies by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 39 | Wages not paid on their due dates into bank accounts, or wages withheld without a court order | Serious | 300 | 300 | 300 | workers |
| 40 | WPS file not uploaded monthly, or required compliance ratio not met | Serious | 500 | 1,000 | 2,000 | no |
| 34 | Employee contracts not authenticated electronically | Serious | 300 | 500 | 1,000 | workers |
| 31 | Holding the worker's passport or iqama | Serious | 1,000 | 2,000 | 3,000 | workers |
| 36 | Wages and final dues not settled within one week of the end of employment, or two weeks if the worker ended it | Non-serious | 1,000 | 2,000 | 3,000 | workers |
| 37 | No service certificate given, or documents not returned, after employment ends | Non-serious | 1,000 | 2,000 | 3,000 | workers |
| 41 | No weekly rest, hours beyond Article 98 without overtime, or daily rest breaks not respected | Non-serious | 1,000 | 2,000 | 3,000 | workers |
| 42 | Statutory leave not granted | Non-serious | 1,000 | 2,000 | 3,000 | workers |
| 27 | Work regulation not approved by the Ministry or not announced to employees | Non-serious | 300 | 500 | 1,000 | no |
| 25 | Arabic not used in contracts, records and instructions | Non-serious | 300 | 500 | 1,000 | no |
| 30 | Saudization ratios set by ministerial decisions not met | Serious | 2,000 | 4,000 | 6,000 | non-Saudis above the ratio |
| 33 | Registering a Saudi as an employee with no actual employment | Serious | 5,000 | 8,000 | 15,000 | persons registered |
| 20 | Employing a non-Saudi without a work permit | Serious | 10,000 | 10,000 | 10,000 | workers |
| 21 | Letting a non-Saudi work in an occupation other than the one on the work permit | Non-serious | 3,000 | 5,000 | 10,000 | workers |
| 23 | Not facilitating, or not cooperating with, labour inspectors | Serious | 10,000 | 10,000 | 10,000 | no |
Three things you can read in this table that you will not read in the news:
- The late-wage fine fell to SAR 300 per worker, in all three categories. In the previous schedule (Decision 4786 of 28/12/1436H, item 20) it was SAR 3,000 per worker. The drop is real, but late pay did not become cheap: WPS sanctions on Mudad, from service suspension to letting the worker transfer without your consent, run on a separate track from this schedule. We covered them in Late salaries: the clock is the wage file.
- Item 40 does not multiply by workers. It is one fine for the file, by establishment category. Item 39 does multiply. One month with no file and late wages for twenty workers in a Category B establishment means two items: SAR 1,000 for the file and SAR 6,000 for the wages.
- The highest fines are not about wages. Employing a worker without a work permit is SAR 10,000 per worker in every category, and phantom Saudization goes up to SAR 15,000 per person in this schedule alone, separate from the GOSI fine on the same case. Obstructing an inspector is SAR 10,000 on its own.
The 80% reduction: Decision 93442 and its six conditions
Ministerial Decision 93442 (1/7/1447H, 21 December 2025, published 25 January 2026) repealed the earlier Decision 75907 of 19/5/1445H and set the conditions for a settlement request. The text:
- An administrative decision imposing one of the penalties in the schedule has been issued.
- The settlement request concerns the establishment's first violation.
- The request is filed within ninety days of being notified of the administrative decision.
- The violation has been removed and the establishment's position corrected.
- The fine is unpaid.
- The fine amount is SAR 1,000 or more.
Then clause Two: fines are settled for any establishment whose violation decisions are issued on a single date, for the first time, on each file, with a reduction of 80%, provided the conditions above are met.
Three deadlines running at once
Decision 112377 sets two more deadlines of its own, so three clocks start on the day you are notified:
| Deadline | Source | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 60 days | Decision 112377, clause Four | The violator pays the fine within 60 days of notification |
| 60 days | Decision 112377, clause Three | Objection before the competent body at the Ministry; an objection does not suspend the fine |
| 90 days | Decision 93442, condition 3 | File the settlement request, with the fine still unpaid |
Note the practical conflict: payment is due in 60 days, settlement requires the fine to be unpaid, and the settlement window is 90 days. Neither decision says what happens to a settlement request filed on day 70, after the payment deadline has passed. The safe reading: correct the violation and file the settlement request before day 60, and do not pay until it has been decided.
What the text leaves open
Condition 6 says "the fine amount is SAR 1,000 or more". It does not say whether the amount is counted per administrative decision, or per worker for violations that multiply by workers. That difference is large for the wage and contract items, because their per-worker fine is under SAR 1,000. We found nothing in the published text that settles it, so ask the Ministry before you build a decision on either reading.
Some news reports add other settlement conditions, such as the establishment being in the green Nitaqat band. That condition is not in the text of Decision 93442 as published on the Ministry's site. If someone asks it of you, ask for the reference.
Worked example: the 35-worker establishment
Back to the establishment at the top. 35 workers on the unified number, so Category B. This is its first violation, and all decisions were issued on the same day.
| Item | Violation | Calculation | Fine (SAR) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 39 | Late wages for 6 workers | 6 × 300 | 1,800 |
| 40 | One month with no WPS file | single fine | 1,000 |
| 31 | Two passports held | 2 × 2,000 | 4,000 |
| 34 | 8 unauthenticated contracts | 8 × 500 | 4,000 |
| 27 | Work regulation not announced | single fine | 500 |
| Total before settlement | 11,300 |
After settlement, the result depends on how condition 6 is read:
- If the threshold is per decision: items 39, 40, 31 and 34 (SAR 10,800) qualify and become SAR 2,160; item 27 stays at 500. Total SAR 2,660.
- If the threshold is per worker: only the passports (2,000 per worker) and the WPS file (1,000) qualify: SAR 5,000 becomes 1,000. Wages, contracts and the work regulation stay in full: 6,300. Total SAR 7,300.
Either way, the condition nobody disputes is number 4: remove the violation. No settlement until the late wages are paid, the file is uploaded, the passports are returned and the eight contracts are authenticated on Qiwa.
Why the same violation keeps coming back
Look at the items in the example: wages (39), the file (40), the contracts (34). All three come from one thing: the salary data in your system does not match what Mudad, Qiwa and GOSI hold. The contract authenticated on Qiwa says one wage, the file uploaded to Mudad says another, GOSI has a third. The inspector does not see three separate violations, and the establishment does not need three separate fixes.
And settlement is only granted for the first violation. An establishment that pays 20% of its fine and repeats the same mistake six months later pays the full fine the second time. So the real value of settlement is not the 80% it saves. It is making sure you never need it again.
Where to start:
- The WPS file: check it before upload with the free WPS file validator. It flags the rows Mudad will reject before they count against your compliance ratio. The common rejection causes are in Why Mudad rejects your WPS file.
- End-of-service dues, leave and overtime (items 36, 41, 42): work out what the worker is actually owed with the labour rights calculator before the gap becomes a violation, or a claim that starts with amicable settlement at the labour office.
- The work regulation (item 27): what it must contain and how it is approved on Qiwa, in Articles 12 and 13 and the work regulation.
- Saudization (items 30 and 33): the riskiest track, covered in Phantom Saudization: penalties and proof.
What we did not confirm
- The other categories in the schedule. Decision 112377 has categories for mines and quarries, operation and maintenance, recruitment, sharing platforms and domestic workers. This article covers only the general category. The categories lettered ح, ط, ي and ك in the decision and the administrative violations took effect 120 days after publication, not on the day of publication.
- The May 2026 amendment. On 12 May 2026 the Ministry published a decision amending the schedule for the support-labour (recruitment) sector. We have not read its text and do not know whether it touches any item in the general category. Check it if your business is recruitment.
- How long you have once a settlement is approved. Newspapers have reported that the violator must execute the settlement decision within 60 days of notification or it is cancelled. We did not find this in the text of either decision.
If you received a violation decision this month: send us the decision and your headcount on the unified number. We will tell you which items qualify for settlement, how much of the window is left, and which payroll data gap produced the violation so it does not repeat. Get in touch for a quick review.
Sources: Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, Ministerial Decision No. 112377 of 21/8/1447H, "Schedule of violations and penalties for the Labour Law and its Implementing Regulations" (24 pages, published 25 February 2026) · Ministerial Decision No. 93442 of 1/7/1447H, "Approval of the conditions for settlement requests for Labour Law violations in the violations schedule" (published 25 January 2026) · Ministerial Decision No. 4786 of 28/12/1436H (previous schedule, for the wage-item comparison). Every figure above was taken from the page images of the two decisions, not from summaries.