Documenting an employment contract on Qiwa: what it means and why it matters

What does documenting a contract mean?

Article 51 of the Labor Law requires the employment contract to be written in two copies, one for each party, and the 2025 amendments added a duty to document it:

«يجب أن يكتب عقد العمل من نسختين، يحتفظ كل من طرفيه بنسخة منه، ويجب توثيقه وفق الأحكام النظامية ذات الصلة وفي ضوء ما تحدده اللائحة»

From Article 51 of the Labor Law as published by the Bureau of Experts at the Council of Ministers, as worded by Royal Decree M/44 dated 8/2/1446H. Unofficial translation: "The employment contract must be written in two copies, each party keeping one, and it must be documented in accordance with the relevant statutory provisions and as the Regulation specifies." The Arabic text is authoritative.

The Law itself does not name a platform; it refers to the Regulation. Article 18 of the Executive Regulation of the Labor Law says the employer must document employees' contracts electronically through the platform approved by the Ministry, and that platform is Qiwa. The Ministry describes the service as letting the establishment create the contract, after which the employee accepts it, rejects it or asks for changes from their own account; once both parties agree, the contract counts as documented by the Ministry.

A standing obligation, not a deadline

Documentation rests on Council of Ministers Decision No. 195 dated 4/4/1443H, which gave the Ministry the management of the contractual relationship between establishment and worker. On that basis, Ministerial Decision No. 75506 dated 5/5/1444H provides in its first clause:

«تُلزم المنشآت بتوثيق عقود عامليها عبر منصة قوى، بدايةً من تسجيل العقد وتحديث بيانات المهن والأجور والمؤهلات إلى إنهاء أو انتهاء العلاقة التعاقدية»

Unofficial translation: "Establishments are required to document their workers' contracts through the Qiwa platform, from registering the contract and updating occupation, wage and qualification data to the termination or expiry of the contractual relationship." The decision is reproduced in the Ministry's procedural guide to contract documentation.

In other words, documentation follows the contract through every stage: at hiring, when the occupation, wage or qualification changes, and when the relationship ends. The same procedural guide says documented contracts were moved from GOSI to Qiwa on 10 June 2022, and any contract after that date must be documented on Qiwa by the establishment.

Why documentation matters for your establishment

• Counting Saudis in Nitaqat. The Ministry announced that Saudization rates in the Nitaqat programme are calculated on employment contracts documented electronically on Qiwa from 15 April 2026, that documenting Saudi employees' contracts is a basic condition for counting them in Saudization rates, and it called on establishments to complete documentation to ensure accurate calculation and avoid any effect on the establishment's classification.
• The link with GOSI. According to the procedural guide, documenting, amending or ending a contract on Qiwa is sent directly to the General Organization for Social Insurance to register the subscriber, update their data or exclude them.
• The wage clause as an executive instrument. For a contract documented on Qiwa on the unified executive contract form, with an execution number from the Ministry of Justice documentation centre, the wage clause can be put forward for execution on Najiz in defined cases. Details are in the unified contract and executive instrument guide.
• Clear obligations for both sides. The unified model for each contract type contains the basic data and each party's rights and obligations (Article 52), which the employee sees in their account before accepting.

Who does it apply to?

It applies to establishments subject to the Labor Law and to their workers' contracts. The ministerial decision speaks of the contracts of "their workers" without distinguishing Saudis from non-Saudis, and the Law requires a non-Saudi's contract to be written and fixed-term (Article 37). For government and public-institution workers, Article 51 says the appointment decision or order takes the place of the contract. This guide does not cover civil servants, the military, or the categories excluded by Article 7 of the Labor Law, such as domestic workers.

Conditions and practical notes

• The service requires the establishment to be active and the employee not to have an active contract on Qiwa.
• The contract can be amended before the employee accepts it. After acceptance the establishment can still amend it, but the amendment needs the employee's approval.
• If the employee does not respond within 10 days of the request being created, the contract status becomes "cancelled" (no response from the employee), and the establishment can amend it and send it again, according to the procedural guide and the service page.
• When the occupation, wage or qualification changes, the contract is updated on Qiwa, because the ministerial decision covers "updating occupation, wage and qualification data".
• If the employee's GOSI subscription is not activated within 24 hours of documentation, the procedural guide points to Qiwa technical support.
• The contract is written in Arabic; if a foreign language is used alongside it, the Arabic text alone is authoritative (Article 9).

A hypothetical example with round numbers

These numbers are hypothetical and for illustration only. An establishment has ten Saudi employees; eight of their contracts are documented on Qiwa and two are not. Under the Ministry's announcement, documenting a Saudi employee's contract is a basic condition for counting that employee in Saudization rates, so the two employees whose contracts are not documented do not meet that condition until their contracts are documented.

The example does not show how Nitaqat rates themselves are calculated; the programme sets its own rules for that.

Common misconceptions

• "Documentation is a one-off task." The ministerial decision makes it run from registering the contract, through updates to occupation, wage and qualification, to the end or expiry of the relationship.
• "The date has passed, so documentation is no longer required." Documentation is an obligation under Article 51, its Regulation and the ministerial decision, and is not tied to one date. The Nitaqat calculation on documented contracts has applied since 15 April 2026.
• "An undocumented contract is worthless." Article 51 says the contract exists even if it is not written, and the worker alone may prove it and the rights arising from it by all means of proof. Documentation is an obligation on the establishment, not a condition for the employment relationship to exist.
• "Registering with GOSI is enough." According to the procedural guide, Qiwa is the approved platform for documenting employment contracts, and the data passes from Qiwa to GOSI.

Related articles

• Article 51: writing the employment contract in two copies and documenting it.
• Article 52: the unified model for each type of employment contract, explained in the unified contract and executive instrument guide.
• Article 37: a non-Saudi's contract is written and fixed-term.
• Article 17: the records and files the employer keeps, detailed in the employee file checklist.
• Article 9: Arabic in contracts, records and files.

Official sources

• The Labor Law on the Bureau of Experts platform, including Articles 9, 37, 51 and 52.
• The Executive Regulation of the Labor Law and its annexes on the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development website (Arabic), including Article 18.
• The contract management service page on the Ministry's website.
• The procedural guide to contract documentation (Arabic), which reproduces Ministerial Decision No. 75506.
• The Ministry's announcement on calculating Saudization rates on Qiwa-documented contracts (15 March 2026 in the Arabic edition).

English renderings on this page are unofficial; the Arabic texts published in these sources are the reference.