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Leave Policy Template: An Internal Document Certified by a Licensed Saudi Lawyer
- Category
- Employment and HR
- Language
- Arabic + English
- Format
- Editable DOCX
CERTIFICATION RECORD
This template was prepared and reviewed by a licensed Saudi lawyer and is kept current as the Kingdom's regulations change.
Where an Arabic and an English text exist, the Arabic text prevails
A written policy setting the annual leave balance, the request and approval route, the notice periods, and how balances are recorded.
Leave is one of the biggest sources of day-to-day friction inside companies, not because the regulations are unclear but because the internal practice is unwritten. With no published policy, every leave request becomes a private negotiation with the line manager, treatment differs from one employee to the next, and the argument over balances surfaces at year end or when service ends. Sighaty template E-15 is a written leave policy that publishes the annual balance and how it rises with length of service, sets the request form and its channel, the notice required before leave and the notice accepted in emergencies, and the system for recording balances, in two parallel languages with the Arabic text prevailing on any difference.
Get the Leave Policy TemplateE-15What this policy is and when you need it
A leave policy is an internal document circulated to employees explaining how leave is requested, how it is decided, and how the balance is computed. It is the practical face of what the Labor Law provides: the law sets the minimum entitlement, and the policy translates it into a procedure that employee and manager both know. A company needs it once its headcount outgrows what verbal understanding can manage, and it is also a supporting document when preparing the internal work regulation, because what is written and published is hard to contest.
- Standardizing how leave requests are treated instead of leaving it to each manager's discretion.
- Publishing the annual balance and how it rises with length of service.
- Governing advance notice, emergency cases, and recording balances in a register.
What the smart-fill asks and what you receive
The questions are few and direct, because the policy itself is standardized and the differences between companies come down to figures and procedures. The smart-fill asks for the company name, then the annual leave balance in days and the balance after five years of service, and in both cases it refuses a figure below the statutory minimum, so you cannot issue a policy that falls short of the set entitlement. It then asks which leave-request system or form you use, the notice required to submit a request before the leave, the notice accepted in an emergency, and the records system where balances are kept.
Within minutes you receive a formatted bilingual policy ready to circulate to employees and editable before approval. The parallel English version is particularly useful in companies employing non-Arabic speakers, so the policy reaches everyone with the same substance without an improvised in-house translation.
Why a lawyer-certified template beats a free download
The danger of a policy copied off the internet is that it may publish an entitlement lower than the law provides, turning the document you wrote to organize work into evidence against you. The Sighaty template is certified by a licensed Saudi lawyer, built on a floor it will not let you go below during fill-in, and drafted for the Saudi context rather than lifted from a foreign company's policy with its different holidays and customs, and it is updated as regulations change. An internal policy reads as a commitment by the employer, so it is better drafted carefully from the start.
Frequently asked questions
Can I set a leave balance below the statutory minimum?
No, and the template blocks it during fill-in: the fields for the annual balance and for the balance after five years will not accept a figure below the set minimum. You can always grant more than the minimum if you wish, since a higher balance is a competitive advantage for the company, but going below it is simply not possible in the template.
How does the policy handle emergency leave?
The template asks for two different notice periods: the usual notice for submitting a leave request ahead of time, and the notice accepted for an emergency. Separating them matters, because judging an emergency by the standard of a planned request makes the policy unworkable in practice, while leaving emergencies ungoverned opens them wide.
How does the leave policy relate to the internal work regulation?
The internal work regulation is the broader document governing the employment relationship inside the company, while the leave policy is a narrower document detailing one part of it as a working procedure. Many companies issue the policy first because it is quicker and solves a live daily problem, then rely on it later when preparing the regulation, finding the hardest part already written.
The content is general guidance, not legal advice; consult a licensed lawyer for your specific case.