Working in Saudi Arabia: the steps, start to finish

The route into a Saudi job, from a genuine offer to the iqama: who raises the visa, who pays, and what the Labour Law says about the contract and the work permit. A practical guide that reads the articles, not the brokers.

People often imagine that going to work in Saudi Arabia starts with buying a ticket. The ticket is the last step. Before it come a ministry approval, a written contract, a work permit, and a medical at an approved centre. Anyone offering to shorten that chain for a fee is asking you to pay what the employer already owes — and usually does not hold the visa at all.

First: an offer from an establishment with a commercial register, not a WhatsApp number

Start nothing until you hold a written offer naming the establishment as on the commercial register, the job title, the wage, and the contract term. A voice note is not an offer. If the person contacting you will not put the company name in writing, you are not dealing with an employer.

Search the name. A real establishment leaves traces. Then ask early the one question that saves months: can this establishment issue a visa for this occupation now? The answer may have nothing to do with you — it may be their Nitaqat band, which has its own guide on this site.

Recruitment is a ministry approval — not something you buy

Article 32 of the Labour Law: no recruitment for the purpose of work except after the ministry’s approval. You do not apply for a work visa yourself from Cairo or Alexandria. The employer requests it from inside the Kingdom through the ministry’s channels — today through Qiwa — once it has been allocated to them.

Article 33 is what matters the day you land: a non-Saudi may not perform work, and may not be allowed to perform it, except after obtaining a work permit from the ministry. The permit is granted only if you entered the country lawfully and authorised to work, and you are contracted to an employer and under that employer’s responsibility.

Anyone selling you a "work visa", or telling you to "come on a visit and we will convert it later", is offering you entry without Article 33’s first condition. Working on a visit visa is not a shortcut — it is unauthorised work, and it puts you under Article 39 as below. The difference between the two visas is in its guide on this site.

Who pays: Article 40, not the agent

Article 40 — after the amendment by Royal Decree M/44 — puts on the employer: your recruitment fees, the residence-permit and work-permit fees and their renewal, and the fines for delay the employer causes, occupation-change fees, exit/re-entry, and your return ticket to your home country when the relationship ends.

Only two later clauses move the cost onto you: if you are shown to be unfit for the work, or if you wish to return without a legitimate reason. Outside those, the return ticket is not yours. Transfer of services: the fees sit with the new employer you move to.

Any sum demanded of you before travel as "visa confirmation", "iqama fees" or "the office’s share" collides with this article. The detail is in the recruitment-fees guide on this site. What is yours at home: your passport, attestation of a certificate if the occupation requires one, and the medical at an approved centre named by the receiving side, not the clinic next door.

The medical: a result that cannot be bought

GCC states require a pre-travel medical at approved centres in the Gulf medical system (Wafid / what used to be called GAMCA centres). A report from any other clinic is not accepted. The result is fit or unfit. Do not pay an agent to "guarantee" it — results are not for sale, and anyone who travels knowing they may fail medically risks bearing the return ticket under Article 40.

The contract is written and fixed-term — and a copy is yours

Article 37 after the same amendment: a non-Saudi’s employment contract must be written and for a fixed term. If it states no term, the term is one year from the date you actually start, and if work continues after that it is treated as renewed for a like term. After this amendment there is no vague open-ended contract for a migrant worker.

Article 51: the contract is written in two copies, each party keeps one, and it must be documented under the relevant rules. Documentation today is through Qiwa: the establishment creates the contract, and you accept, reject or request a change from your account. Acceptance on the screen is acceptance. The contract still exists even if it was never written — and you alone may prove it and the rights that arose from it by all means of proof — but relying on that after a dispute takes longer than taking the copy now.

Article 52 requires the unified form to contain the employer’s name and place, your name, nationality and what proves your identity, your address, the agreed wage including benefits and allowances, the type and place of work, the start date, the term if it is fixed, and each party’s basic rights and obligations.

Read before you accept on Qiwa and before you sign the paper: basic wage separated from allowances — end-of-service in Saudi Arabia is calculated on the actual wage — housing or its cash substitute (Article 61, and its guide on this site), hours, and probation if any (Article 53: the total must not exceed 180 days). Then match the paper to what will be registered. What is on Qiwa is what counts in a dispute.

The occupation on the permit is your lawful occupation

Article 38: the employer may not employ you in an occupation other than the one on your work permit, and you may not work in another occupation before the lawful steps to change it. Accepting a "sales" visa when you will stand in a workshop looks like a way in, then it constrains renewal, transfer and any claim. Ask for the occupation to match the work you will actually do before the passport is stamped.

And Article 36 lets the minister specify by decision the occupations and work closed to non-Saudis. Some adverts are for citizens only. Read the advert, and ask: is a foreign visa issued for this occupation now?

After arrival: the work permit, then the iqama

Landing on a work visa is not enough on its own. Article 33 requires a work permit. The ministry’s official work-permit service — through Qiwa — states that the establishment issues the work permit for the expatriate within the first ninety days after entry, and the permit is a condition for issuing or renewing residence. The iqama (resident identity) is the Jawazat path after the in-Kingdom medical and payment of what Article 40 puts on the employer.

A late iqama is not "office routine". The fine is in principle on whoever on the employer’s side caused the delay. Without an iqama you stall at the bank, at checkpoints and on Absher. Put your demand in writing. How to reach Absher then Qiwa once the iqama is issued is in its guide on this site — make the first week: a SIM in your name, then Absher, then your contract on Qiwa.

The passport is not the employer’s security

Article 20 forbids the employer or the worker from doing anything that pressures the other’s freedom in a way that conflicts with freedom of work. The Implementing Regulation, giving effect to that article — the wording the ministry uses in its public FAQ — requires the employer not to retain a non-Saudi worker’s passport, residence permit or health-insurance card.

If the passport is taken for a day for an exit or a renewal, that is temporary. Ask for a dated receipt: who took it, why, and when it comes back. Refusal of a receipt means the holding is not a transaction.

Do not work for someone else, or for yourself, on this visa

Article 39 after the amendment: except by following the prescribed rules and procedures, the employer may not leave the worker to work for others or on their own account; the worker may not work for another employer or on their own account; and an employer may not employ someone else’s worker. "Extra work in the evening for another contractor" on the same iqama is not overtime — it is a breach.

What to check before you transfer a riyal or board the plane

• The establishment name as on the register, not a loose trading name.
• Is the visa a work visa tied to this establishment and this occupation, or a visit with a promise of conversion?
• Have you been asked for money for the visa, the iqama or "securing the job"? That sits with the employer under Article 40.
• The contract: basic and allowances each as a figure, term, housing or allowance, probation if any.
• Does the occupation on the visa match the work you will do? Article 38.
• The medical centre: is it one of the approved centres the receiving side named, not any clinic?

This is an explanation of the Labour Law as published by the Bureau of Experts, and of the work-permit service on the ministry’s site, at the time of writing. Fees, windows and platforms change. Before you pay or sign, read Articles 32 to 40, 51 and 52 of the Labour Law on the ministry’s site or the Bureau of Experts, and check the visa’s status from the official source, not from an agent in a group.

Rules and fees change and differ by country and employer. Always check with the official authorities before paying or signing anything.