The National Day Holiday on 23 September in the Private Sector: How to Draft It in Your Leave Policy

Why public holidays must be named in the leave policy

The Labor Law gives the worker paid leave on the Eids and official occasions, and the executive regulation sets out those occasions and their durations. But the law does not run your establishment for you. The practical job of a leave policy is to translate that rule into operational language that every manager and payroll officer understands: the name of the occasion, how many days, who is entitled, what happens on an overlap, and who has authority to require work on the day. An establishment that writes this down once stops re-opening the debate every year.

The public holidays that the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development announces for the private sector include Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, the Kingdom's National Day and Founding Day. National Day is the first day of Libra, corresponding to 23 September each year, and Founding Day is 22 February. The Eid al-Fitr holiday runs for four days starting from the day following the twenty ninth day of Ramadan, and the Eid al-Adha holiday runs for four days starting from the day of standing at Arafat. Write these occasions into the policy by name, not as a vague cross reference.

• Name each occasion with its known date, then add a sentence tying its duration to what the applicable laws and regulations prescribe and what the competent authority announces each year.
• Do not copy the government sector calendar into your policy. Civil service holidays do not automatically transfer to a private sector worker. Your reference is the Labor Law, its regulation, and what the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development announces for the private sector.
• If your establishment grants extra days as a benefit, state them expressly as a contractual benefit from the employer, so that you can later tell what is a statutory obligation and what is a voluntary enhancement.
• Link the clause to your approved internal work regulation if your establishment is required to have one, so that two internal texts do not contradict each other on the same subject.

Who is entitled to the National Day holiday and who falls outside the policy

The general rule is that entitlement on public holidays follows the employment relationship itself, not the worker's nationality or seniority. Every worker whose relationship with the establishment is governed by the Labor Law is entitled to the holiday on full pay, whether Saudi or non-Saudi, whether on a fixed-term or an indefinite contract, whether full-time or part-time, and whether working from the establishment's premises or remotely. No prior period of service is required, so a worker who started a few days before the occasion is entitled exactly like a long serving colleague.

Nor does entitlement lapse because the worker is on probation. The probation period governs each party's right to end the contract within a defined window, with a maximum of one hundred and eighty days including any extension, and an extension is valid only by written agreement of both parties. It is not a period in which the worker's basic rights are suspended. Write this into the policy expressly, because it is one of the most common points of disagreement inside small establishments.

• Saudi and non-Saudi workers alike: the public holiday is paid leave for both.
• Fixed-term, indefinite and part-time contracts: all fall within the entitlement, noting that the holiday pay of a part-time worker is calculated on the basis of their agreed wage.
• A worker on probation and a newly hired worker: both are entitled without any prior service requirement.
• A remote worker: entitled just like an on-site colleague, and the remote work annex should say so, to prevent work being requested on the basis that they are off-site.
• Anyone governed by a separate framework, such as the domestic workers regulation, or an independent contractor engaged under a services agreement: falls outside the employee leave policy and has its own separate legal reference. Say so in the scope clause of the policy.

Overlaps: the weekly rest day, annual leave and sick leave

What confuses establishments most is the occasion falling on a rest day or inside another existing leave. The logic governing these cases is simple: a public holiday is a standalone benefit that is not absorbed into another leave, and the worker must not lose a rest they were already entitled to because of it. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development has set out these cases, so where the days of the occasion fall on the weekly rest days, the worker is compensated with equivalent days before or after the occasion.

• The occasion falls on the weekly rest day: the worker is compensated with an equivalent day before or after the occasion, and the day is not allowed to dissolve into the weekly rest.
• The occasion falls within a period of annual leave: the annual leave is extended by the number of days of the occasion, so Eid days or National Day are not deducted from the worker's annual balance.
• The occasion falls within sick leave: the worker is entitled to full wages for the days of the occasion without regard to the reduced wage rate applicable to sick leave days.
• National Day coincides with a scheduled Eid holiday: the worker is not compensated with an additional day, because the day is already a paid holiday.

For these rules to work in practice, the leave policy must already have fixed the weekly rest day for each job category or each work site. An establishment running a store seven days a week on shifts cannot apply the compensation rule if each worker's rest day is not recorded in their contract or in the approved shift schedule. Fix the day first, then apply the compensation rule to it.

If a worker must work on National Day

Many small establishments cannot close on the day: a restaurant, a pharmacy, a retail store, a technical support team, or a production line tied to a customer contract. Having a worker work on the occasion is not prohibited, but it changes the legal characterisation of that day's hours. All working hours performed on holidays and Eids are treated as overtime working hours, and the worker is entitled to additional pay at the rate set by the Labor Law and its executive regulation. These hours may not be treated as an ordinary shift merely because the establishment is open that day.

The available alternative is compensatory leave, meaning a paid day off instead of the overtime pay. But that alternative is conditional on the worker's consent and is not a decision the establishment takes alone. The leave policy should therefore state that compensatory leave is granted by written agreement, and should set a window within which the compensatory balance is used, so that it does not accumulate indefinitely and turn into a financial claim at the end of service. Avoid wording that forfeits the compensatory balance automatically with no substitute, because that may be seen as reducing a right the worker already holds.

1. Decide well before the occasion which teams and sites will actually operate, and do not leave the list open until the morning of the day itself.
2. Issue a written assignment decision for each worker required to attend, stating the date, the expected hours and the reason for operating, approved by the line manager and by HR.
3. Choose the treatment: additional pay for that day's hours, or paid compensatory leave with the worker's written consent, and do not combine both for the same hours.
4. Record actual attendance by the hour from the time clock or the shift sheet, because additional pay is calculated on hours actually worked, not on an estimate.
5. Include the amount due in the payroll of the month in which it accrued, as a clearly separate line on the payslip so the worker sees it and no dispute arises later.

Ready clauses for the leave policy

The following clauses are proposed wordings that can serve as the basis for the public holidays clause in your establishment's leave policy, to be adjusted to your line of business and your shift schedule. They are a draft that needs legal review before adoption.

How the holiday and the time off in lieu are recorded in your records

The text alone does not protect you if its effect does not appear in the records. An establishment that writes an excellent clause and then logs National Day as "absence" or "annual leave" in the attendance system has cancelled the clause with its own hand. Make the recording path fixed and known to whoever runs payroll, and review it straight after each occasion while the data is still fresh.

1. Create a separate leave code in the attendance system named "paid public occasion", distinct from annual leave, absence and sick leave.
2. Create a second code named "compensatory leave" to track the balance arising from work on the occasion, with the date it arose and the date it is used.
3. Before closing the month's payroll, reconcile the list of those who actually worked on the occasion against the written assignment decisions, and resolve any attendance without a decision before payment.
4. Show the item on the payslip under a clear name and do not merge it into "other allowances", because clarity here prevents most grievances.
5. Keep the written consents to compensatory leave in the worker's file, and include any unused balance among the items reviewed when preparing the final settlement.

From the policy to the certified document

The public holidays clause is not a standalone document. It is part of a complete leave policy covering annual leave, sick leave, personal occasion leave, and the request, approval and carry-over procedures. Template E-15, the Leave Policy, is built on that sequence and produces a bilingual Arabic and English document after smart-fill questions about your line of business, your rest days and your internal approval path.

• Adopt the policy internally and communicate it to workers by a means you can prove, because a policy that has not been communicated is hard to rely on against a worker.
• Align the policy with your approved internal work regulation if your establishment is required to have one, and make sure the two texts do not conflict on rest days and occasions.
• Review the policy annually before the start of the year, and update the occasions schedule according to what the competent authority announces for the private sector.
• Keep a signed copy or an acknowledgment of receipt from each worker, and add that acknowledgment to the onboarding path so a new employee receives the policy with their contract.
• Put the draft in front of your legal counsel before adoption, because this document will later be read by the competent authorities in any dispute.

Frequently asked questions