Nitaqat 2026–2028: what changed on 26 April, and the checklist HR teams are running now

Last reviewed: July 2026 · General information, not legal advice — always verify against the current official texts and your Qiwa account.

Saudi Arabia's Saudization framework entered a new phase on 26 April 2026, and it is the most consequential recalculation in years. If your entity's compliance position was comfortable in March, that tells you very little about where it stands today — the bands, the ratios, and even what counts as a Saudi employee have all moved.

Here is what changed, who it touches, and the checklist worth running this week.

What actually changed

Higher required ratios across most sectors. The 2026–2028 phase raises Saudization values across the majority of activity classifications, with the increases phased through the period. An entity that sat mid-band under the old numbers may find itself at the edge — or over it — under the new ones.

The Yellow band is gone. The framework's middle ground for borderline companies has been eliminated. The practical meaning is blunt: entities that would previously have landed in Yellow now fall directly into Red, with everything Red status implies for work permits, transfers, and government services.

Profession-specific quotas — roughly 269 roles. Beyond entity-level ratios, the framework now applies localization percentages to specific professions: about 69 administrative roles carry 100% Saudization, and functions such as marketing and sales carry targets around 60%. Entity-level compliance no longer guarantees role-level compliance.

Counting rules tightened. Since 15 April 2026, a Saudi employee counts toward your Nitaqat position only when the employment contract is documented on Qiwa — a signed paper file is not enough. And a SAR 4,000 monthly wage threshold governs whether an employee counts fully in the calculation.

The direction of travel is explicit. The program's stated ambition is the localization of 340,000+ jobs over three years, with sector deadlines already landing — engineering's 30% milestone passed on 30 June 2026.

The checklist HR teams are running now

1. Re-locate your entity — post-April, not from memory. Pull your current band from the official portal and compare it against the new thresholds for your activity classification. The question is not "were we compliant?" but "are we compliant under the recalculation?"
2. Audit Qiwa documentation for every Saudi employee. Any Saudi colleague whose contract is not documented on Qiwa is, for Nitaqat purposes, invisible. Close that gap before it decides your band.
3. Screen your roles against the profession quotas. List the ~269 quota-carrying professions that exist in your structure — the administrative roles at 100% deserve first attention.
4. Check the wage threshold. Employees below the SAR 4,000 line may not count as you expect; review compensation structures where counting matters.
5. Build the pipeline, not just the headcount. With ratios rising through 2028, this phase rewards documented development: structured career paths for Saudi employees are both a genuine retention tool and the evidence trail the framework's direction increasingly expects.

The team-of-one reality

If all of this lands on one HR professional — as it does in most SMEs — the workload is less about understanding the rules than about producing the paperwork the rules demand: localized contracts and offers, documented development plans, statutory dates tracked per employee. That document layer is exactly what we build for: bilingual, Saudi-labor-law-aware offer letters, career-path plans that double as nationalization pipeline evidence, and probation reviews that count the statutory days for you. One free use for every tool — judge the output yourself.

Quick answers

When did the new Nitaqat phase take effect? 26 April 2026, covering the 2026–2028 period. Is there still a Yellow band? No — borderline entities now fall directly into Red. Do all Saudi employees count toward Nitaqat? Only with a Qiwa-documented contract, and the SAR 4,000 wage threshold affects how fully an employee counts. Where do I verify my entity's current position? Through the official Qiwa portal and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development's published resources.

This guide is general information for HR professionals, not legal advice. Rules evolve — verify against the current official texts before acting.