Nitaqat and Saudization: Where Your Company Stands

Nitaqat is the Saudi Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (MHRSD) system that places every private employer in a band, based on the share of Saudi nationals in its workforce. Your band decides what the Ministry will do for you, including whether you can request new work visas and renew work permits. If you run a Saudi SME, you should know your band before you plan any hire.

What is Nitaqat and who runs it?

Nitaqat means "bands" in Arabic. MHRSD runs it and groups private employers by how many Saudis they employ compared with a target. That target depends on your economic activity and your company size, according to a law-firm summary of the system.

The programme has been rebuilt as Nitaqat Mutawar, which has run since 2021. In 2026, MHRSD announced a new phase. It runs for three years and aims to localise more than 340,000 additional private-sector jobs. The details sit in MHRSD's procedural guide.

Saudization is the wider policy of employing more Saudi nationals. Nitaqat is the scoring tool that turns it into a band for your company.

What are the Nitaqat bands?

There are five bands: Platinum, High Green, Mid Green, Low Green and Red. Secondary sources agree on this list. Yellow no longer exists, and its establishments were reclassified as Red. Many older guides still mention Yellow, so check the date on anything you read.

The exact percentage for each band is not one number. It changes with your activity, your headcount and the year.

How is the required Saudization percentage set?

The minimum share for each band comes from a formula that uses the natural logarithm of your headcount. A law-firm guide that summarises the procedural guide gives it as m × ln(headcount) + c. The constants are set per economic activity (it counts 41) and per year. I could not confirm the constants in the guide itself, so treat the formula as background and use the official calculator for real numbers.

Three points matter for an SME:

• Bigger firms need a different share than smaller ones. Headcount is part of the formula.
• The target moves each year. The guide has separate constants for 2026, 2027 and 2028. For many activities the constant rises by one to five points a year, according to Teamed. It warns that a Low Green company can fall to Red in 2027 without changing its headcount.
• Tiny companies have a simple rule. With 5 or fewer employees, Tasis says you need at least one Saudi. The formula applies from 6 employees.

Here is a worked example from the same source. For a 10-person consulting company, the Low Green threshold is about 36% in 2026. Thirty-six percent of 10 people is 3.6, so rounding matters. Check how the calculator treats it before you decide to hire three or four.

What does your band mean for visas and services?

Mid-Green and above can renew work permits, apply for new permanent work visas, transfer employees between departments and change profession classification. Red cannot apply for new visas, use transfer visas, renew work permits or open new files for branches. That comes from Qiwa's own page. It looks older than the 2026 guide, so use it as background.

Low Green is where sources differ in detail. Secondary sources say Low Green loses new visas and profession changes but keeps permit renewals.

Treat the Low Green column as a guide only. Confirm it on Qiwa before you act.

A hypothetical example

Say a Riyadh trading company has 12 staff, 3 of them Saudi. That is 25%. It wants to hire two sales coordinators from abroad. If the calculator puts it in Low Green, the visa requests are blocked. The company would have to raise its Saudi share first, then request the visas.

If it falls to Red, the problem is bigger. It could not renew the permits of staff it already employs.

How do you check your Nitaqat band?

You can check your band in the MHRSD calculator, and then confirm it on Qiwa. The Nitaqat Calculator is an electronic service that finds your current or expected band and calculates your Saudization rate. Its inputs are your headcount, your economic activity and your number of employees. The service page shows a release date of 8 September 2026.

1. List every employee on your establishment file, with nationality, from your own records.
2. Confirm your economic activity as registered with the Ministry. A wrong activity gives a wrong target.
3. Enter headcount, activity and employee numbers in the MHRSD calculator.
4. Note your current band and the Saudization rate it shows.
5. Run it again with the hires or exits you plan. The calculator also covers expected bands.
6. Log in to Qiwa and check how your establishment is classified there. Report any gap to the Ministry.
7. Repeat after every hire or resignation, and at the start of each year.

Step 5 is the useful one. Test a hire before you make it.

What mistakes do Saudi SMEs make with Nitaqat?

Most problems come from not looking until a visa request fails. These are the ones to avoid:

• Planning on this year's target. The constants change in 2027 and 2028, so a band that holds today may not hold next year.
• Trusting old guides. Anything that mentions Yellow pre-dates the current system.
• Wrong activity code. The target depends on activity. A mismatch moves your threshold.
• Ignoring resignations. One Saudi employee leaving can change your band. The same is true of a team that grows only with expats.
• Counting from memory. Use a current staff list, not last quarter's.
• Treating secondary blogs as final. Law-firm and HR blogs are useful, but the procedural guide and Qiwa are the rule.

Where does software help?

Software cannot set your band. Only MHRSD and Qiwa do that. What software can do is keep your staff records clean, so the numbers you enter are right.

The Quickship HR module tracks visa and document expiry, leave and payroll inputs in one place. That means your staff list, with permit dates, is current when you open the calculator. It does not calculate your Nitaqat band.

Keep any staff data you hold in line with the Saudi PDPL.

What to do this week

Open the MHRSD calculator and enter your real figures. Write down your band and your Saudization rate. Then test your next planned hire. If the result moves you down a band, solve that before you submit the visa request.

Read the procedural guide for your activity's constants, because the rules for 2027 and 2028 are already in it.