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The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development has imposed a limit of five employment contracts per year for any Saudi national whose work is to factor into an establishment’s Nitaqat classification. This directive, issued through the Qiwa platform that the ministry operates, addresses concerns over the use of multiple short-term agreements to artificially boost Saudization ratios without corresponding full-time roles. Establishments must now verify that participating Saudi employees stay within the annual threshold or risk seeing those individuals excluded from their percentage calculations. The Qiwa platform enforces the cap automatically when new contracts are registered.
Qiwa guidelines further stipulate that no Saudi employee may maintain more than two active contracts simultaneously. Employers seeking to add another agreement must first terminate one of the existing ones under labor regulations. Such measures form part of a wider effort to tie Nitaqat credit exclusively to documented, substantive employment rather than nominal listings. The platform processes these requirements for roughly 1.4 million registered establishments.
Nitaqat classifies private-sector entities into five bands from Platinum to Red according to the proportion of Saudi workers relative to total headcount and sector-specific targets. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development data shows that only contracts electronically authenticated on Qiwa contribute to these ratios following the program’s overhaul that took effect in April 2026. Higher bands grant benefits including faster visa processing and operational flexibility while Red status blocks new foreign worker permits and iqama renewals. Weekly updates adjust classifications once authenticated contracts are recorded.
A Council of Ministers resolution provided the basis for requiring digital documentation on Qiwa before any Saudi hire can influence an entity’s band. Platform figures indicate the rule has prompted companies to authenticate thousands of contracts that previously existed only on paper or in payroll systems. The change closed a loophole that had allowed some employers to claim Saudization credit without verifiable employment relationships. This forms one element of a three-year cycle running through 2028 with rising localization thresholds.
Additional criteria for a Saudi employee to contribute to Nitaqat include a minimum age of 18 years on the Hijri calendar, a basic salary of at least 4,000 riyals plus housing allowance, full-time status and non-student enrollment. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development assessment found these combined conditions help ensure the program reflects genuine participation in the private labor market. Entities that fail to meet their adjusted thresholds encounter restrictions on recruiting foreign staff that can constrain business growth. The Qiwa platform continues to refine its tools for real-time compliance monitoring.
The updated Nitaqat framework builds on earlier reforms that shifted assessment to the entity level and replaced fixed quotas with scalable thresholds based on headcount. Industry reports from consulting groups tracking GCC labor markets note that such adjustments have increased pressure on companies to authenticate contracts promptly to avoid downgrades. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development maintains weekly recalculations to reflect the latest authenticated data submitted through Qiwa.
