Article 80 and 81 of the Saudi Labor Law: dismissal without award vs leaving without notice

Article 80 of the Saudi Labor Law lists the only nine cases in which an employer may end your contract without notice, compensation or end-of-service award. Article 81 is the mirror image: it lists seven cases in which you may leave without notice and keep all your statutory rights, including the full award. Whether your exit falls under one of these articles can change your final settlement by tens of thousands of riyals, as the Saudi gratuity calculator shows when you switch the reason for leaving.

Both articles are quoted here from the consolidated text on the Bureau of Experts site. Neither carries an amendment note from the 2025 changes; the current wording dates from the 1436H amendment.

Article 80: the nine grounds for dismissal without award or notice

The employer may not terminate the contract without award, notice or compensation except in the following cases:

1. The worker assaults the employer, a manager or a direct supervisor during or because of work.
2. The worker fails to perform their essential contractual obligations, obey legitimate orders, or follow safety instructions posted by the employer, despite written warnings.
3. The worker is proven to have committed bad conduct or an act against honour or honesty.
4. The worker deliberately causes material loss to the employer, by act or omission. The employer must report the incident to the competent authorities within 24 hours of learning of it.
5. The worker obtained the job by forgery.
6. The worker is on probation.
7. The worker is absent without a legitimate reason for more than 30 days in one contract year or more than 15 consecutive days (see below).
8. The worker illegally exploits their position for personal gain.
9. The worker discloses the employer’s industrial or commercial secrets.

The list is closed. If none of these applies, the employer can still end the contract, but it must follow the ordinary rules: notice, the full award and, where the termination is unlawful, compensation under Article 77.

Probation (paragraph 6)

Paragraph 6 is different from the others: it involves no fault at all. While a worker is on a probation period agreed in writing, the contract can be ended without award or notice. Probation is limited in length by the law: Article 53 caps it and requires any extension to be agreed in writing. It cannot be used to dismiss someone who has already passed probation. If your probation period has ended, paragraph 6 no longer applies to you.

Absence: 30 days a year or 15 days in a row, and the warnings

Paragraph 7 is the ground people search for most. It is also the one most often quoted wrongly online. The current text allows dismissal without award when the worker is absent without a legitimate reason for:

Many websites still quote 20 days a year or 10 consecutive days. Those were the thresholds in the original 2005 text, and they were replaced. Today the warning comes at 20 and 10 days, and the dismissal right only arises past 30 and 15.

The warning is a condition, not a courtesy. An employer that skips the written warning cannot rely on paragraph 7.

The employer must let you answer first

Article 80 adds a procedural condition to all nine cases: the employer must give the worker the opportunity to state the reasons for their objection to the dismissal. In practice that means being told what you are accused of, and having a chance to respond, before the decision is final.

Keep copies of every warning, investigation note and reply. If the dismissal is later challenged, these documents decide the case.

Article 81: seven cases where you can leave without notice

The worker may leave work without notice and keep all their statutory rights in any of these cases:

1. The employer does not fulfil its essential contractual or legal obligations towards the worker.
2. The employer or its representative used fraud about the conditions of work when the contract was made.
3. The employer assigns work that is essentially different from the agreed work without the worker’s consent, contrary to Article 60.
4. The employer, a member of its family, or the manager assaults the worker or commits an immoral act against the worker or a family member.
5. The employer or its representative treats the worker cruelly, unjustly or in a humiliating way.
6. There is a serious danger to the worker’s safety or health at the workplace, the employer knows of it and has not removed it.
7. The employer’s actions, in particular unfair treatment or breach of the contract, have made the worker appear to be the one ending the contract.

Case 1 covers the most common situation: salaries left unpaid for months. Case 7 covers being pushed out without being formally dismissed.

What you keep under Article 81: the full award

Leaving under Article 81 is not an ordinary resignation. Under Article 85 a resigning worker receives only part of the end-of-service award: nothing below 2 years, one-third from 2 to 5 years, two-thirds from 5 to 10 years. Article 81 instead lets the worker leave while keeping all statutory rights, which means the full award, as if the employer had ended the contract. Our article on resigning vs being terminated explains the resignation shares in detail.

Worked example

An employee on an actual wage of SAR 9,000 a month (basic plus allowances) worked from 1 March 2019 to 28 February 2026, just over 7 years. Here is the award under each route:

The full award is half a month’s wage for each of the first 5 years plus a month’s wage for each year after. These figures come from our calculator with the same inputs.

If the employer cannot prove an Article 80 ground

The burden is on the employer. If it dismisses you under Article 80 but cannot prove the ground, or skipped the warning or the hearing, labour courts generally treat the dismissal as one without a valid reason. In that case you would be owed the full end-of-service award, plus compensation for unlawful termination under Article 77. That outcome reflects law-firm commentary rather than published court guidance, so treat it as the likely result, not a guarantee.

For how that compensation is calculated, see Article 77 compensation in Saudi Arabia. If you think you were wrongly dismissed, raise a claim promptly; labour claims are subject to time limits.

Check what you are owed

Enter your wage and dates in the Saudi gratuity calculator and compare the results for “Terminated by employer”, “I resigned” and “Dismissed for misconduct”. The difference is what is at stake in an Article 80 or 81 dispute. For the full set of Saudi rules, read our Saudi labour law guide.

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