How to Improve Your Nitaqat Band: Moving From Red or Low Green to Platinum

To improve your Nitaqat band, you raise the counted Saudi share of your workforce until it passes the next band's threshold. There are only a few ways to do that, and they differ sharply in speed and cost. This page shows how to size the gap, which moves work fastest, how salary changes the count, how timing works and which mistakes cost employers a band.

How do I calculate the gap to the next band?

Compute your current percentage, find the next threshold on Qiwa, then solve for the hires or replacements that close the difference.

Important: MHRSD publishes the threshold constants by economic activity, band and year, and this site does not reproduce them. Every threshold below is illustrative and is not an MHRSD figure. Use the live threshold shown in your Qiwa account and the Nitaqat calculator guide.

The developed Nitaqat program uses five bands: Platinum, High Green, Medium Green, Low Green and Red. Each threshold follows a logarithmic formula, so the required percentage changes continuously with workforce size and differs by economic activity. See how Nitaqat is calculated for the formula.

Illustrative example. An entity has 120 employees: 25 Saudis and 95 non-Saudis. Of the Saudis, 14 earn SAR 4,000 or more, 8 earn SAR 3,000 to 3,999 and 3 earn under SAR 3,000. We assume, for the example, that every employee counts as one in the total and that the next threshold is 18%.

Whether the guide weights half-count employees in the denominator is something to confirm on Qiwa, so treat the output as a planning estimate and test the real case in the calculator.

Which formulas size the move?

To reach a target percentage t from S counted Saudis out of N employees:

• Adding full-count Saudis: hires needed = (t x N minus S) / (1 minus t), rounded up.
• Replacing non-Saudi positions with full-count Saudis: replacements needed = t x N minus S, rounded up.
• Lifting half-count Saudis to full count: each lift adds 0.5, so lifts needed = (t x N minus S) / 0.5.

With the example numbers, these give the options below.

How can a company improve its Nitaqat rating?

Check pay first, then replace, then hire. In rough order of speed:

Illustrative cost comparison for the example above, at SAR 4,000 a month: lifting 8 Saudis averaging SAR 3,500 costs 8 x 500 x 12 = SAR 48,000 a year. Five new hires at SAR 4,000 cost SAR 240,000 a year before on-costs. The numbers are placeholders; use your own payroll. The point is the shape: pay reviews usually buy a count more cheaply than a new head.

How does salary affect the Saudi count?

A Saudi is weighted by monthly wage, as reported from the 2026 program by Al Tamimi and set out on our counting rules page.

The sources word the lower boundary slightly differently, so check how Qiwa treats exactly SAR 3,000. Three further points:

• A counted Saudi needs a contract documented electronically on Qiwa, a requirement MHRSD set from 15 April 2026. See Qiwa contracts and Nitaqat.
• Profession rules use their own floors: SAR 5,500 for marketing and SAR 8,000 plus SCE accreditation for engineering. A raise to SAR 4,000 fixes Nitaqat but not those rules. See salary thresholds.
• HRDF Employment Support applies to wages of SAR 4,000 to 15,000, so a raise to SAR 4,000 can also open eligibility; see Hadaf wage support.

How does timing work, and how long before my band changes?

MHRSD's guide defines the ratio using averages of Saudi and non-Saudi workers, not a single day's headcount. We could not confirm the averaging period from the sources we checked, and MHRSD has not published a fixed recovery period there.

Practical consequences:

1. A hire or pay change moves the ratio gradually, so act well before a date that matters, such as a visa need or a work permit expiry.
2. A late fix cannot be assumed to reverse a band at once. Check what Qiwa shows after each change.
3. Thresholds rise as the workforce grows, so hire ahead of headcount, not after.
4. The current cycle runs from April 2026 to December 2028, so a durable fix beats a one-quarter patch.

What restrictions lift as I move up?

Moving from Red to Low Green restores work permit renewal and incoming transfers. Moving to Medium Green or higher restores new visas and profession changes. The table summarizes what our sources state; the Qiwa account is the final record.

The sources we checked do not give separate benefits for Platinum or High Green beyond these, so we state none. For the full picture of what each restriction means in practice, see Low Green and Red Nitaqat and the Nitaqat bands page. HRDF's Tamheer program asks for a Green band or higher, which is one more reason to leave the lower bands.

What mistakes stop employers from improving their band?

• Hiring Saudis at SAR 3,000 to 3,999 and expecting full counts. They count as half.
• Forgetting the Qiwa contract. A salary on payroll is not enough without documentation.
• Short, repeated contracts. Reports of Qiwa's criteria limit contracts per 52 weeks and per 365 days, which can remove a person from the count.
• Expecting an instant jump. The ratio is averaged.
• Growing non-Saudi headcount without a Saudi plan. Each addition raises the target.
• Fake Saudization or ghost employees. MHRSD treats these as violations that can lead to exclusion from Nitaqat and penalties under labor regulations; see penalties.
• Treating Nitaqat as the only test. A good band does not satisfy profession rules; see Saudization rates by profession.

For the full plan across both tests, read how to meet Saudization targets. This page describes published rules and is not legal advice for your entity.