Nitaqat Calculator: How to Calculate Your Band Using Qiwa

What is the Nitaqat calculator?

The Nitaqat calculator is MHRSD's free online service for working out your band, and you reach it through Qiwa. MHRSD describes it as helping employers determine their establishment's current or expected position and accurately calculate the Saudization rate. We do not build a calculator on this site. The official tool applies constants and rules that only MHRSD publishes, so we explain how to use it.

These details come from MHRSD's service page for the calculator.

What inputs does the calculator need?

MHRSD lists three requirements: your economic activity, and your worker and employee numbers. In practice you should have the following ready.

The interface can change, so the screens you see may differ from this description. The headline logic does not change: activity plus headcount gives thresholds and a position. Our page on how Nitaqat is calculated explains what happens behind the screen.

How do I use the official Nitaqat calculator on Qiwa, step by step?

1. Sign in to Qiwa with your employer account through single sign-on. MHRSD lists the access route as the Qiwa SSO page.
2. Find the Nitaqat calculator among the Qiwa services. MHRSD lists it as a service with its own page.
3. Select your economic activity. Use the activity registered for your entity. A wrong activity gives you the wrong constants.
4. Enter your headcount. Use entity-wide numbers across branches in the same activity, with Saudis and non-Saudis separated.
5. Run the calculation and read the Saudization rate and the position it shows.
6. Run scenarios. Change the numbers to test hires, replacements or exits and see the band they would give you.
7. Record the result with the date and the inputs you used, so you can reproduce it for HR planning.

How do I check my official band, not just a scenario?

Your official band is shown in your Qiwa account, and the Nitaqat overview explains how bands are set. MHRSD also lists an establishment assessment service, which helps employers identify the band of their entity and of the establishments that belong to it, and a separate service for querying an establishment's scope. Use these for the record and use the calculator for planning.

Some older MHRSD service descriptions still use legacy labels, such as Yellow. The 2026 guide has five bands: Platinum, High Green, Medium Green, Low Green and Red. See Nitaqat bands.

What should I do before trusting a calculator result?

• Count Saudis correctly. Al Tamimi reports that a Saudi earning SAR 4,000 or more counts as one, SAR 3,000 to 3,999 as half, and below SAR 3,000 as nothing. A raw headcount can overstate your position. See counting rules.
• Use entity totals. Branch figures alone will mislead you.
• Check the year. Constants step up across 2026, 2027 and 2028.
• Reconcile with Qiwa records. If a Saudi employee is missing or recorded at a lower salary, fix the record before you plan hiring. See how Qiwa contracts feed your count.

Worked example: testing a hire before you make it

These numbers are for illustration only. The thresholds are invented and are not MHRSD figures.

An entity has 100 workers: 18 Saudis counting fully and 82 non-Saudis. The calculator shows a Saudization rate of 18.0%. Suppose your activity's illustrative Low Green threshold is 20%.

In the tool you would enter each scenario and read the position it returns. The point is to find the smallest change that crosses a threshold, and to see whether your plan survives next year's higher constants. If you are already in Low Green or Red, see what the restrictions mean.

How many Saudi employees does my company need to hire?

Enter your economic activity and headcount in the calculator to see the gap to the next threshold. As a rule of thumb, to reach a target percentage t from S counted Saudis out of N workers, adding Saudis needs (t x N minus S) / (1 minus t) hires, and replacing non-Saudi positions needs (t x N minus S). Profession rules add their own counts: see the rates database and how to improve your Nitaqat band.

What can the calculator not tell you?

The calculator covers Nitaqat. It does not test your profession rules, which are separate. A Medium Green result says nothing about whether you meet the 70% project management rule or any other occupation decision, because MHRSD calculates those on their own. It also cannot show you the effect of a change you have not entered, such as a Saudi resignation or a branch closure, so rerun it whenever your workforce changes. Check profession percentages in the rates database.

Are third-party Nitaqat calculators reliable?

Treat them as estimates. Several free tools exist, but they depend on whoever maintains them, and they may use old rules or constants. The 2026 program changed the unit of assessment and the thresholds, so an out-of-date tool can be wrong in either direction. Only MHRSD's calculator and your Qiwa account are authoritative. For a wider readiness check, use our Saudization readiness checklist.

This page describes the service as MHRSD publishes it. It is not legal advice.