Photo from Wikimedia Commons
Ending the job is not the same as being ready to leave. Your contract record decides how the employment ends, and the final exit visa is a separate step whose conditions you check in your own Absher account.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
CONTENTS
Your contract record decides the route
This guide covers workers under the Labour Law. Article 7 excludes listed categories, including domestic workers; check your employment status and permit before using this route.
Under Article 51, each party keeps a written contract copy, documented as the regulations require. An unwritten contract remains valid: the worker alone may prove it and the resulting rights by all means of proof. Either party can request a written contract at any time. Gather your copy, Qiwa record and payslips for the checks below.
Article 37 requires a non-Saudi worker’s contract to be written and fixed-term. If no duration is stated, the term is one year from the actual start date; continued work afterward renews it for a similar duration. Check your dates and renewal clause. Any probation period must be expressly stated and total no more than 180 days. Either party can end the contract during probation, with no compensation or end-of-service award under Article 54.
For a planned return home, compare these Article 74 ending routes with your own records.
| Route | Trigger | Record to check |
|---|---|---|
| Resignation | Your written request, plus the employer’s acceptance or acceptance deemed under Article 79 bis | Your request and its date; the employer’s written response; the reason and status in Qiwa |
| Mutual agreement | Both parties agree, with your consent in writing | The termination or settlement document, and the reason recorded in Qiwa |
| Expiry of the term | The stated term ends with no renewal made explicit in accordance with the Law | The term and renewal clause; the contract status in Qiwa |
Check the renewal clause: if the contract provides for renewal, the agreed period applies. Article 55 generally ends a fixed-term contract at expiry and treats continued performance by both parties as indefinite renewal, but that rule is subject to Article 37 for non-Saudis. Check whether your contract was renewed and for how long. The cited texts do not establish a non-renewal notice period; that does not prove there is no statutory requirement. Check any notice term in your contract.
Resignation: what you submit and when the contract ends
A resignation is your written declaration, made without coercion, that you want to end the fixed-term contract without conditions or stipulations, together with the employer’s acceptance. Where the employer stays silent, Article 79 bis supplies it: the request is deemed accepted once 30 days pass from its submission.
Before those 30 days end, the employer may postpone acceptance for up to 60 days where work needs require it, giving you a written explanation. The postponement runs from the day that explanation is delivered to you. The contract ends when the employer accepts, when 30 days pass without a response, or when the postponement expires. The periods have different starting points; the article does not state a single combined maximum.
- Clock starts
- Submission date
- No response
- 30 days from submission If that period passes without a response, the request is deemed accepted and the contract ends.
- Required conditions
- Before the first 30 days end Work needs must require postponement, and the employer must give you a written explanation.
- New clock
- Up to 60 days from delivery Count from delivery of that explanation. The contract ends when the postponement expires.
You may withdraw the request within seven days of submitting it unless the employer accepted it sooner, and the request may not name a deferred resignation date. Until the contract ends it stays in force and both sides must keep performing their obligations; a contract that ends by resignation leaves the employee all rights under the Labor Law.
Article 75 is a separate route, not a resignation step. It covers indefinite-duration contracts, which either party may end for a legitimate reason by written notice: at least 30 days when a monthly-paid employee ends it, at least 60 days when the employer does, and at least 30 days for an employee not paid monthly, whichever side ends it. Article 37 requires a non-Saudi contract to be fixed-term, so check what your contract records before relying on those figures.
To use Qiwa’s ‘Termination of Contractual Relationship’ service yourself, open Qiwa Individuals, select the contract and reason, enter the Last Working Date, then review and submit. No employer visit is required. The service is free, requires no documents and needs a valid Qiwa contract with no other termination request for that contract under approval. HRSD’s guide (30 August 2026) describes an authenticated contract and requires an active employment contract; a non-Saudi worker’s work permit must have at least 60 days’ validity. The guide covers both worker and establishment requests, recording the reason and effective date and updating contract status. Notice must be observed when the selected reason requires it; some reasons take effect without notice. The guide does not identify which worker-initiated reasons require notice.
Keep the request and its date, any written postponement explanation and its date, any acceptance, and the reason, effective date and status Qiwa shows. One question to put to HR or HRSD: Article 79 bis bars a deferred resignation date, while the service description does not explain the Last Working Date step when the reason chosen is resignation, so ask which date is recorded against your request.
Settlement: reconcile the numbers before you accept them
The employer must settle wages and entitlements within one week after the relationship ends, or within two weeks if you ended it. It may deduct a work-related debt you owe it; disputed payments, amounts withheld or deductions are labour disputes.
The end-of-service award uses the last wage: half a month’s wage for each of the first five years, one month’s wage for each later year, and a proportion for part-years. Under Article 86, the parties may agree to exclude all or some commissions, sales percentages and similar inherently variable wage components. That permission does not cover arbitrary pay components, and exclusions are not automatic. Check your contract or written terms.
Resignation changes the fraction: one third after at least two and up to five consecutive years, two thirds after more than five but less than ten consecutive years, and the full award after ten or more. Article 85 states no fraction below two consecutive years; the cited texts do not classify mutual agreement or expiry as resignation. Article 87 keeps the full award if you leave because of force majeure beyond your control, or if a female worker ends her contract within six months of her marriage contract or three months of giving birth. An ending during probation carries no award.
Compare the written settlement with the recorded ending reason, service dates, wage terms and any claimed work-related debt. Ask HR for the calculation. Under Article 64, you can request a free certificate of experience when the contract ends, showing your start and end dates, profession and last salary, without remarks harmful to your reputation or future employment. Ask for any deposited documents back too.
Article 40 puts the return ticket home after the relationship ends on the employer, alongside residence and work permit fees, renewals and late-renewal penalties, and exit and re-entry fees. The return journey is at your cost if you are unfit for work or wish to return without a legitimate reason. The cited text does not define that reason or decide whether your departure qualifies; a disagreement is a labour dispute.
Article 77 concerns termination for an invalid reason. Unless the contract specifies compensation for either party’s termination for an invalid reason, the affected party receives 15 days’ wage per service year for an indefinite contract, or the remaining term’s wage for a fixed-term contract, with a statutory minimum of two months’ wage. Remaining months are not automatically payable on every departure. The texts do not establish whether an Article 79 bis resignation is an invalid-reason termination, whether you owe compensation, or whether the minimum applies to a contractual amount.
For a dispute, HRSD’s Friendly Settlement for Labor Disputes is the first claim stage. File electronically with supporting documents. After one week for direct negotiation, settlement sessions and mediation follow; if unresolved, referral to the labour court is within 21 working days from the first claim. The service requires an employment contract and excludes domestic labour. Its 12-month filing period has no starting point stated on the card. A representative needs power of attorney to attend and to waive, settle or release. The service is free; HRSD’s listed number is 19911.
Final exit is decided separately from the contract ending
Ending the employment contract and being cleared to leave are two different decisions: a final exit visa is issued from the Ministry of Interior’s systems, and a contract status updated in Qiwa does not show that a visa was issued.
The Labor Reform Initiative allows private-sector expatriate workers to leave after the employment contract ends without employer consent, with electronic notification to the employer. Current eligibility for a worker’s own Absher request—including contract documentation and residence or passport validity—is not supplied here. Check your Absher account or ask the General Directorate of Passports (Jawazat).
The published employer channel has separate terms. Employers and heads of households can issue final exit visas free through Absher and Muqeem for sponsored people and their family members, with at least 30 days left on the Iqama when requesting. Below 30 days, renewal is needed before issuance. With more than 30 but fewer than 60 days left, the visa lasts the remaining validity; with 60 days or more, it is limited to 60 days. The minimum is known, but visa duration at exactly 30 days is unstated. These terms address employers and heads of households; their application to your own request, and consequences of an unused visa, remain unspecified.
The reform announcement also assigns workers the consequences of breaking a contract, financial or otherwise. It neither explains those consequences nor distinguishes departure after the contract ends from departure during its term. It cannot settle your individual financial responsibility. Keep Iqama validity, contract end date and planned departure date separate, and confirm each with the relevant account or office.
If you know of an enforcement case
Nothing in these sources ties a travel ban to resigning or to ending an employment contract as such, and none offers a way to search for unknown enforcement cases or bans. If you know of a specific enforcement application, the Ministry of Justice’s ‘Verify enforcement application’ e-service on Najiz checks it by application number and shows its decisions, procedures and financial movements as last updated. The page contradicts itself on login: its steps begin by signing in to Najiz with National Single Sign-On, while its ‘Should Know’ section says no login is needed. A result is no confirmation that no other case or ban exists.
A debtor already under a travel ban can ask the enforcement circuit to allow travel where necessary, on providing a guarantee or a guarantor, or where a medical report establishes a need for treatment outside the Kingdom. That is a court decision inside enforcement proceedings, where the conditions for imposing the ban sit in the Enforcement Law itself, and a guarantee does not by itself establish that permission will follow.
