A contractor in Riyadh has 75 workers. Its Nitaqat band is green and its Saudization certificate issues without trouble. Even so, by October 2027 it will need eleven more Saudis in specific roles, and five of them are already overdue today.
The reason is that occupational Saudization decisions do not run through Nitaqat. Each one is computed inside its own professions, with its own headcount trigger and its own definition of who counts as a Saudi. Over the next twelve months, four of them step up, on four different dates.
This article puts them in one table, then works them through on a single establishment, because the mistake rarely shows up in one decision on its own. It shows up when they all land on the same payroll.
The calendar: four dates between November 2026 and October 2027
| Start date | Decision | Rate | Applies when | Who counts as Saudi |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 November 2026 | Sports centres and gyms (12 coaching and supervision roles, procedural guide to Decision 72002) | 15% | 4 or more workers in the targeted roles, per licensed centre | A Saudi registered in a targeted occupation on the Qiwa contract |
| 14 February 2027 | Project management (project management manager, engineer and specialist) | 70% | 3 or more workers in those roles, at entity level | The earlier Decision 141749 required a wage of at least SAR 6,000; whether the new decision keeps it, we have not verified |
| 9 May 2027 | 94 engineering technician professions | 35%, up from 30% | 5 or more workers in those roles, at entity level | Saudi Council of Engineers accreditation and a GOSI wage of at least SAR 5,000 (per the 2025 guide) |
| 27 October 2027 | Accounting, phase three of Decision 103108 | 60%, up from 50% | 5 or more accountants across 21 occupation codes, at entity level | SOCPA accreditation and a wage of at least SAR 6,000 for a bachelor's degree, or SAR 4,500 for a diploma |
Three more decisions are already in force rather than upcoming:
- Administrative support at 100% since 4 October 2026, covering 69 occupations including receptionist, administrative assistant, recruitment specialist and government relations clerk. It applies to any establishment with even one worker in them. Details in our administrative support Saudization news.
- Accounting at 50% since 27 October 2026, phase two of the same decision. See accounting Saudization phase two.
- Engineering technicians at 30% since July 2025, until the 35% rate starts.
This is not a complete list. It is the set of decisions whose dates and texts we have verified. Health, pharmacy and dentistry have their own decisions and phases; an establishment in those sectors needs to add them from the decisions page on the HRSD website.
Three definitions of "a Saudi"
What trips establishments up most is that the same Saudi employee can count under one decision and not another.
Take a newly graduated Saudi engineer on SAR 5,500 registered with GOSI. If they are accredited by the Saudi Council of Engineers and registered in an engineering technician occupation, they count towards the technician rate, because their wage is above 5,000. Registered in an accounting role instead, they would not count even with SOCPA accreditation, because the bachelor's floor there is SAR 6,000.
Worse, an employee who does not count does not disappear from the equation. They stay in the denominator, among all workers in the profession, and stay out of the numerator. They pull the rate down.
Three systems decide the result, and they have to agree:
- The occupation registered on the Qiwa contract, not the internal title on the organisation chart.
- The wage registered with GOSI, not the payroll figure if the two differ.
- The professional accreditation from the relevant body, and its expiry date.
The procedural guides are also explicit that actual work counts: assigning the duties of a localised occupation to a non-Saudi under another title is a breach in its own right.
Worked example: a contractor with 75 workers
The establishment is hypothetical; the numbers come from the decision texts. It is a Category A contractor, because it has 50 or more workers, with:
- Project management: 10 workers, 3 of them Saudi.
- Engineering technicians: 20 technicians, 5 of them Saudi, one with a registered wage of SAR 4,500.
- Accounting: 8 workers within the 21 codes, 3 of them Saudi, accredited and paid above 6,000.
- Administrative support: one receptionist and one administrative assistant, both non-Saudi.
| Decision | Saudis who count | Current rate | Required | Gap by replacement | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Admin support 100% | 0 of 2 | 0% | 2 | 2 | Overdue since 4 Oct 2026 |
| Accounting 50% | 3 of 8 | 37.5% | 4 | 1 | Overdue since 27 Oct 2026 |
| Engineering technicians 30% | 4 of 20 | 20% | 6 | 2 | Overdue since July 2025 |
| Project management 70% | 3 of 10 | 30% | 7 | 4 | 14 Feb 2027 |
| Engineering technicians 35% | 4 of 20 | 20% | 7 | 3 | 9 May 2027 |
| Accounting 60% | 3 of 8 | 37.5% | 5 (4.8 rounded) | 2 | 27 Oct 2027 |
The total gap in October 2027, by replacement: 2 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 11 roles, five of them overdue today. The cheapest line in the whole table is the Saudi technician on SAR 4,500: raising their registered wage to 5,000 moves them into the numerator and cuts the technician gap from 3 to 2 without a single hire.
The procedural guides round to the nearest whole number, with a half rounding up: 4.8 becomes 5, and 15.3 becomes 15.
Replacement or extra hiring: the difference between 4 and 14
The table above counts the gap by replacement: a Saudi takes a non-Saudi's place, so the numerator rises and the denominator stays put. The other route is extra hiring: each new Saudi raises the numerator and the denominator together.
At high rates the gap between the two routes is large. In project management, with 3 Saudis out of 10:
- By replacement: 4 Saudis in place of 4 non-Saudis, giving 7 out of 10.
- By extra hiring only: 14 new Saudis, giving 17 out of 24, or 70.8%.
- By reducing non-Saudis only: 6 of the 7 leave, keeping a single non-Saudi.
At 35% for technicians the two routes are closer: 3 by replacement, or 5 by extra hiring. That is why one hiring plan does not fit every decision; each needs its own calculation.
You can run this calculation per decision in our Nitaqat calculator: enter only the Saudis who count, and only the non-Saudis in the targeted professions (not the whole establishment), leave the activity empty and type the required rate. It shows the extra hires needed and the reduction alternative. It computes the exact rate without the guides' rounding, so in some cases it gives one more than the guide; treat it as the safe number.
Penalties: this is not Nitaqat, and Nitaqat does not shield you
Item 30 of the violations schedule (Decision 112377) covers failing to meet Saudization ratios set by ministerial decisions. The fine is SAR 2,000 in Category C, 4,000 in Category B and 6,000 in Category A, multiplied by the non-Saudis above the ratio. The schedule does not explain how "above the ratio" is counted under each decision, so we do not total a figure for the example; the full schedule is explained in our Saudi labour violation fines article.
Alongside the fine, occupational decisions provide for suspending the establishment's electronic services: transfer of services, work permit issuance and recruitment. The effect often shows up first when Qiwa refuses the Saudization certificate.
Do not try to close the gap with names on paper. Phantom Saudization is a separate and heavier violation, as covered in our piece on phantom Saudization penalties.
A 2027 plan in four stages
- Before the end of November 2026: export each worker's registered occupation from Qiwa and match it against the code lists in the procedural guides. The establishment in our example did not know its receptionist alone put it in breach.
- Before the end of December 2026: fix the wage and accreditation cases. They are the cheapest fix because they need no hiring, and accreditation takes time before an employee counts.
- Before 14 February 2027: project management, because it has the highest rate and the nearest date, and the gap between replacement and extra hiring is widest there.
- Every quarter after that: recompute. Every resignation or hire in a targeted profession moves the rate, and the new engineering technician guide was not yet downloadable when we checked the ministry site on 9 November, so confirm the SAR 5,000 condition still stands once it is.
Teams that want to automate the calculation instead of refreshing a spreadsheet every quarter will find the formula and constants in our tutorial on building a Saudization engine in TypeScript, and in the engineering technician Saudization engine.
The bottom line
The three 2027 dates, plus sports centres on 18 November 2026, cannot be read from Nitaqat or from the Saudization certificate. Each decision is computed inside its own professions, with its own headcount trigger and its own definition of a Saudi who counts. An establishment in the green band can be behind on three decisions today without knowing it.
If your Qiwa, GOSI and payroll data do not agree, that is exactly what we build: a reporting layer that reads all three systems and shows the gap per decision and its date. Start with a short review session where we compute your establishment's gap under each decision: get in touch.