Leave Under Saudi Labor Law: An Approval Path, Not WhatsApp

The leave balance is the number employees ask about most, and leave is the request most often lost between WhatsApp messages and phone calls. The Labor Law sets the base clearly: annual leave of at least 21 days, rising to 30 days after 5 continuous years with the employer, and the worker must be told the leave date at least 30 days ahead. In part three we built the attendance and shift record; this fourth part turns leave, letters, advances and other employee requests into one approval path: who approves what, what happens when the approver is away, how the balance updates itself, and how employees see the status of their request without asking, then an exercise where you write the approval matrix for your five most frequent requests.

Leave as the law defines it: what the system must know before it calculates

Before any approval path, the system has to know the types of leave and the rules for each, because the balance, the pay and the supporting documents differ from one type to another. The key provisions of the Labor Law published by the Bureau of Experts:

• Article 109, annual leave: at least 21 days for each year, rising to 30 days once the worker has completed 5 continuous years, paid in advance. The worker must take it in the year it is due and may not receive cash in lieu of it during service; the employer may set leave dates according to work needs, notifying the worker at least 30 days ahead.
• Article 110, postponement: with the employer's consent, the worker may carry leave or part of it into the following year; the employer may postpone it beyond the year it is due by no more than 90 days, and anything longer needs the worker's written consent, never past the end of the following year.
• Article 111, balance on leaving: the worker is owed pay for leave days not taken, and leave pay for part of a year in proportion to the time worked.
• Article 113 as amended, in force from 20/8/1446H: 5 days on full pay on marriage or the death of a spouse, ascendant or descendant, 3 days on the death of a brother or sister, and 3 days for the birth of a child, within 7 days of the birth; the employer may ask for supporting documents.
• Article 114, Hajj leave: no less than 10 and no more than 15 days including the Eid al-Adha holiday, once during service, provided the worker has completed at least 2 continuous years.
• Article 116, unpaid leave: with the employer's consent; the contract is considered suspended for any period beyond 20 days unless both parties agree otherwise.
• Article 117, sick leave: full pay for the first 30 days, three quarters of pay for the next 60 days, and unpaid for the following 30 days within one year, the year starting from the date of the first sick leave.

In practice, each of these rules becomes a setting in the system: the leave type, its length, whether it is fully or partly paid, the document required, and when its counter starts. Once the rules are written down once, the calculation no longer depends on one HR employee's memory.

One request, one path: who approves what

Leave is not the only request. Employees ask for a salary certificate, an advance, a data update or overtime approval, and today each arrives through a different channel. The fix is not a faster channel but one path for every request, with the approver depending on the type. It is the same logic as the approval matrix we explained in purchase requests and approval limits, applied to employee requests:

• Each request type has a named approver: annual leave is approved by the line manager, an advance may go through the manager and then finance, and a salary certificate is issued by HR directly.
• Conditions that change the path: leave longer than a period the business sets, or an advance above a set limit, adds a second approver instead of needing a fresh decision every time.
• The document is part of the request: the medical report or the marriage or birth certificate is attached to the request itself, not sent separately in a chat.
• The decision is recorded: every approval or rejection carries the approver's name, the time, and the reason when it is a rejection.

When the approver is away: delegation and escalation

What stalls requests is rarely rejection; it is waiting: the manager is on leave or travelling, the request is stuck, and the employee does not know whom to ask. A good path handles this with two rules written in advance:

• Delegation: when managers record their own leave, they name who approves on their behalf for the whole absence, so requests move to the delegate automatically and the record shows that the delegate approved.
• Escalation: if no decision is taken within a period the business sets, the approver gets a reminder, then the request moves up a level, so no request is left without an owner.

Remember that Article 109 gives the employer the right to set leave dates according to work needs, so it helps if, at the moment of deciding, the approver can see who else in the team is on leave over the same dates and decides knowing the effect on coverage.

The balance updates itself and employees see their request status

In a spreadsheet, the balance is a number someone edits by hand. In a system, the balance is the result of a calculation: employees accrue their days according to their start date and length of service from their file, days are deducted automatically when a request is approved, and entitlement moves from 21 to 30 days when they complete 5 continuous years without anyone having to remember. Sick leave works the same way: the system knows when the employee's sick-leave year started and how many days were used, so it knows whether the next day is on full pay or three quarters, and sends that straight to payroll.

The other side is the employee: when they can see their balance and the status of their request, pending, approved or rejected, most repeated questions disappear. That is the core of what we covered in employee self-service, so we will not repeat it here. And remember that medical reports are sensitive personal data, so only the people who need them to approve should see them, not everyone with access to the system.

The Origami view

We are a technology company that builds custom systems and integrations, and when we build a request path we start from the approval matrix the business actually works with and from the leave rules as set in the law, then connect them to the employee file, the attendance record and payroll so the balance is the result of a calculation, not a number edited by hand.

We design delegation and escalation from day one, because a path that stops whenever one person is away will send people back to WhatsApp however tidy it looks. That is how we build our services around how a business actually works.

Exercise: write the approval matrix for your 5 most frequent requests

• Pick 5 requests: go through last month's chats and pick the five most frequent requests, such as annual leave, sick leave, a salary certificate, an advance and overtime approval.
• For each request write: who submits it, who approves it first, when it needs a second approver, and which document is required.
• Name the delegate: who approves each request if the main approver is away?
• Set the deadline: how many working days does a request wait before it escalates?
• Define the effect: does the request change the balance or the salary, and where must that show?

Every box you could not fill is a question someone answers from memory today, and an item in your request digitization plan.

Conclusion and next part

A good request path starts from the leave rules in the Labor Law, sends every request to a named approver with a delegate and an escalation deadline, updates the balance itself, and lets employees see where their request stands. In the next part we move to the monthly payroll close: how to close every month the same way, from attendance and leave to the bank transfer, without surprises.

Sources

• Bureau of Experts at the Council of Ministers: Labor Law — text of Articles 109, 110, 111, 113, 114, 116 and 117 with their amendments.

This article explains the mechanism and is not legal advice; confirm your case with the Ministry or a labor lawyer.