VisaSaudi domestic-worker stoppage rules distinguish exit from transfer within sixty days
Current official guidance makes the worker’s time since entry central to the response after absence-related termination. A Musaned transfer request still needs the appropriate approvals and valid status.
Official source date: 2026-03-08
Edited and checked by the VisaWand editorial team
The two-year point changes the published response to work stoppage
Saudi Arabia’s Human Resources and Social Development Ministry describes different consequences when an individual employer terminates a domestic worker’s contract because of absence from work. Its Work Stoppage Service announcement of 8 March 2026 says that, within the first two years after the worker’s entry, the worker must leave permanently within sixty days. After two years, the stated alternatives are permanent departure or transfer to another employer within sixty days of work stoppage.
This is current deadline guidance on that existing service, not a new November amnesty. The ministry warns that failure to regularise the position within the relevant period results in non-compliance with applicable residence and labour rules. An affected worker should establish the entry date, recorded termination or stoppage date and current status promptly. The announcement concerns absence-related termination under this service; it should not be treated as the rule for every resignation, contract expiry or employment dispute.
An ordinary individual-to-individual transfer includes the worker’s consent
The ministry’s Domestic Labor Transfer from Individual to Individual service identifies Musaned as the application channel. The current employer selects the service and worker, then enters the new employer’s details. The worker logs in to accept the request and contract conditions, followed by the new employer’s acceptance. This makes the worker’s own response a stated part of the ordinary transaction rather than an informal agreement solely between two employers.
The checklist requires a valid Iqama, a new employer qualified under recruitment regulations and salary or bank-statement evidence. Those conditions matter before treating transfer as an available solution to a status problem. A worker already recorded absent should establish whether the ordinary transfer service is appropriate or a separate correction procedure is required. The page labels its service fee as 100 but does not provide an itemised all-inclusive transfer cost in the reviewed text. Confirm the actual payable amounts within the official transaction rather than quote that figure as the entire price.
Company-to-individual transfers follow a different completion sequence
The separate company-to-individual domestic-worker transfer service begins with the recruitment company’s Musaned access, selection of the worker and entry of the employer and contract information. The employer accepts the request and makes the applicable payment. The ministry then directs the parties to AlJawazat to complete the transfer. It likewise requires valid residence, a qualified new employer and salary or bank evidence.
This service is listed as free, but its steps still mention payment. That should be read as a distinction requiring clarification about the transaction, not a promise that every associated immigration or transfer charge is zero. For illustration, a household taking over a worker through a recruitment company should follow the company-to-individual process, not assume that the ordinary individual-employer sequence completes all stages. The ministry’s service page provides the direct Musaned link and identifies the final immigration step. Neither service listing guarantees that a case with a status restriction will be completed immediately.
Use platform records to establish the case rather than infer approval
The ministry’s September 2026 Musaned update reports more than 122,000 transfer requests during the first half of the year. That is a count of requests, not evidence that every request was approved or completed. The same update describes sixteen digital salary-payment channels, which give employers and workers more ways to document the payment history relevant to their contractual relationship.
The ministry’s Support Labor Sector guide distinguishes contract authentication, salary tracking, ordinary transfers and correction of absent domestic-worker status as separate platform services. That guide is useful for identifying the correct next action when the record no longer shows an ordinary active employment relationship. Retain the contract, payment records and request notifications, and seek the instruction applicable to the recorded status before the sixty-day deadline where it applies. The reviewed resources do not say that submitting a request automatically pauses that clock, removes an absence record or authorises starting with another household before the required process is completed.
