How to File a Complaint for Unpaid End of Service in Saudi Arabia (HRSD / Qiwa)

If your job in Saudi Arabia has ended and your end of service benefit (ESB) has not been paid, the law is on a clock — and so are you. Article 88 of the Saudi Labour Law (Royal Decree No. M/51) sets out exactly when your employer must settle your wages and your end of service entitlement:

• If the employer ended the relationship, or your fixed-term contract simply expired, all of your wages and entitlements must be settled within one week of the end date.
• If you ended the relationship (you resigned), your employer must settle everything within two weeks.

Your end of service benefit is part of those "entitlements," so the same window applies to it. Once that one- or two-week period has passed with no payment — and no genuine settlement of your final dues — the non-payment is a breach of Article 88, and you have a clear basis to act.

Knowing the exact figure you are owed makes your complaint far stronger. Before you file anything, work out what the law actually entitles you to using our KSA EOSB Calculator, then confirm the employer's number is short with our Settlement Checker. A complaint that says "I am owed SAR X and was paid SAR Y" carries more weight than "I think I was underpaid."

The amount itself is set by Article 84 (the accrual — half a month's wage per year for the first five years, one month per year after that, on your last actual wage including fixed allowances) and, if you resigned, reduced by Article 85. Those calculations are covered in full in our guide to claiming EOSB in KSA and our Qiwa calculator walkthrough; this guide is about what to do when the money simply does not arrive.

The Friendly Settlement and Labour Court processes both run on documents. The stronger your file before you start, the faster and cleaner the outcome. Pull together the following:

• Your employment contract — the Qiwa / authenticated contract that shows your start date, salary, and contract type. Your registered salary is what the ESB is calculated against, so this is central.
• Proof of your service dates — your Iqama (residency permit) history, joining letter, and anything that establishes your exact start and end dates. Partial years count pro-rata, so dates matter.
• Bank statements and payslips — to show your actual monthly wage (basic plus fixed allowances) and to prove what was, and was not, paid. If your ESB was paid in part, the deposits show the shortfall.
• The end-of-service settlement or "clearance" the employer gave you, if any — including any figure they quoted. A low or zero figure on paper is direct evidence.
• Your passport copy and your employer / sponsor details — the Labour Office expects these for any grievance.
• Any written communication — emails, WhatsApp messages, or letters where you asked for payment and the employer delayed, refused, or made promises.

Put a one-page summary at the front of this file: your dates of service, your last monthly wage, the ESB figure you are owed (from the calculator), what the employer actually paid, and the difference. This is the spine of your complaint. Our Letter Generator can turn this into a clear written demand you can send to the employer first — sometimes a properly worded letter, with the law cited, is enough to get paid without a formal complaint at all.

In Saudi Arabia you do not go straight to court. Labour disputes — including unpaid end of service — start with an Amicable (Friendly) Settlement stage run by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (HRSD). This is the official first step, and it is filed online.

How to File

1. Try a direct written demand first. A documented request for payment, citing the Article 88 deadline and the exact amount, often resolves matters before any formal process. Keep a copy — it strengthens your file either way.
2. Log in to the official portal. File the dispute through the HRSD / Qiwa labour services platform — log in at hrsd.gov.sa or qiwa.sa with your Iqama number (authenticated via Absher / Nafath).
3. Select the dispute type. Choose to file a labour complaint / settlement request and specify the category — an unpaid wages / end of service dispute. Enter the employer's details and the amount you are claiming.
4. Attach your evidence. Upload the contract, service-date proof, payslips/bank statements, and your one-page summary. Everything you submit is preserved digitally in the system.
5. Attend the settlement sessions. The Friendly Settlement office notifies both you and the employer and mediates to reach an agreement both sides accept. There are dedicated Friendly Settlement offices across the Kingdom.

If you need help filing or do not have easy access to the portal, HRSD runs a toll-free multilingual helpline on 19911 (with support in English, Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Bengali and Arabic) that can guide you through lodging a complaint.

The aim of this stage is a settlement without going to court. If the employer agrees to pay what you are owed here, you are done — and you have avoided the time and effort of litigation entirely.

If the Friendly Settlement stage does not produce an agreement, the case does not simply stall. Where reconciliation is not reached, the matter is referred on to the Labour Court — and the timeline is built in: referral happens within around 21 working days (roughly three weeks) of the first filing.

The Labour Court is a specialist court for employment disputes. The digital file you built during the Friendly Settlement stage — your contract, evidence, and the record of the failed mediation — carries over, so you are not starting from scratch. The court hears the dispute and issues a binding judgment on what you are owed.

Two practical points worth knowing:

• Article 88 has teeth. Because non-payment within the one- or two-week window is itself a breach, the court can do more than order the unpaid amount — it can impose a penalty on an employer who delayed your dues without justification. Late payment is a violation, not a grey area.
• Keep your timeline tight. Labour claims are time-sensitive. File your dispute promptly after the Article 88 deadline passes rather than waiting months, and keep every document and notification you receive through the process.

Most genuine unpaid-ESB cases — where the figures are clear and the evidence is in order — are resolved at or before the Friendly Settlement stage precisely because the law and the numbers are not really in dispute. The court exists for the cases where the employer refuses to pay what is plainly owed.

When you file, claim everything the law entitles you to — not just the headline end of service figure. A complete claim typically includes:

• Your end of service benefit in full — calculated under Article 84, and reduced under Article 85 only if you resigned and fall in a reduction tier. If your exit was a termination or a contract expiry, no Article 85 reduction applies, and the full accrued award is due.
• Any unpaid wages — salary for your final period of work that was never paid.
• Payment for accrued, untaken annual leave — leave you earned but did not take is payable on exit.
• Any other contractual dues — for example a return air ticket, or other benefits your contract promised on termination.

Pin down the exact end-of-service figure first: run your numbers in the KSA EOSB Calculator so your claim states a specific amount. Then use the Settlement Checker to show precisely where the employer's figure falls short of the law. A claim that points to a clear, calculated gap — "the law entitles me to SAR X, I was paid SAR Y, the shortfall is SAR Z" — is the kind that gets settled quickly.

If you would like the underlying rules in full before you file — the accrual rates, the resignation tiers, and the force-majeure and female-employee exceptions that can restore a reduced award — read our complete guide to claiming EOSB in KSA.