GOSI for expatriate employees: work-injury cover, no pension, and the wage on your record

The short answer

As a non-Saudi employee in Saudi Arabia, GOSI insures you against one thing: harm caused by your work. It does not build you a pension and it does not pay unemployment benefit. Your employer pays the whole contribution, 2% of your contributory wage, and nothing should come out of your salary for it.

That makes GOSI insurance, not savings. The nearest thing a Saudi job gives you to a retirement accrual is the end-of-service award under the Labour Law, which GOSI does not handle. Plan your pension privately or at home from your first month.

Which branches apply to you

GOSI's own FAQ puts it in one line: "The insurance coverage for the non-Saudi participant lies in the occupational hazards branch only." Non-Saudis cannot opt into the pension branch either; GOSI's FAQ says the law does not allow voluntary contribution for non-Saudis.

Two groups sit outside the table. Under the Social Insurance Law issued in July 2024, non-Saudis who come on a temporary or seasonal work visa of 60 days or less are covered only as GOSI's board decides. Citizens of other GCC states fall under a separate unified GCC law on extending insurance coverage, which this guide does not cover.

What could change, and how quietly. The 2024 law lets the Council of Ministers create new mandatory insurance products for non-Saudi workers (Article 5), change the 2% rate (Article 29) and change the SAR 45,000 wage ceiling (Article 8). None of that needs a new law, so check GOSI before relying on this table.

What the occupational hazards branch pays

The law counts as a work injury any accident during or because of work, on your usual route between home and work, on the way to where you normally eat or pray, or while travelling on a task your employer gave you, plus listed occupational diseases. If one happens, you are entitled to:

• Medical care for as long as your condition requires it, at hospitals and centres GOSI designates. In an emergency you can go elsewhere, but GOSI must be told within three days.
• A daily allowance while you cannot work: 100% of your daily contributory wage from the month before the injury, cut to 75% while GOSI is paying for your treatment in a hospital or centre. GOSI's FAQ says it does not stop if your employment ends.
• A lump sum for permanent disability or death. Saudis receive a monthly benefit; a non-Saudi receives a one-off payment instead, 84 times that monthly benefit for total disability or death and 60 times for partial disability of 50% or more (Article 39 of the 1445H law). The monthly benefit is based on your average contributory wage over the three months before the month of the injury. Below 50% disability, everyone receives a lump sum on a separate formula.
• Repatriation. GOSI pays to prepare and transport home the body of a contributor who dies from a work injury, and to transport home a disabled contributor who needs another person's help.

Ignore the caps in GOSI's occupational hazards FAQ. It still quotes the 1421H law: a ceiling of SAR 330,000 for total disability or death, SAR 165,000 for partial disability, and a below-50% payment that shrinks after age 40. Item 6 of the Royal Decree that issued the 1445H law abolished the disability caps for contributors who remain under the old law, and moved that age to 45, the new law's figure. Article 39 of the new law sets no cap, and GOSI's FAQ on the new law says the disability cap has been cancelled under both laws. Which law governs your claim depends on your history: GOSI says the 1445H law applies to people who joined the labour market from 3 July 2024 with no earlier contribution periods, and anyone with earlier, uncompensated periods stays under the 1421H law as amended by the decree. The decree's wording covers disability, not death, so a family claiming under the old law should ask GOSI whether a cap applies.

Three conditions decide whether you see any of it. You must be registered with GOSI, or inside the window the regulations allow for registering you, when the injury happens. You must tell your employer within seven days, and your employer must report it to GOSI within three days of knowing. And the cover is, as a rule, for injuries inside the Kingdom: GOSI's FAQ says the branch is suspended from the first of the month after you are sent abroad on assignment. Claims also expire: one year for daily allowances, five years for lump sums.

Maternity compensation now reaches residents

GOSI's guide to maternity compensation is addressed to Saudi and resident women covered by the occupational hazards branch, under the old law or the new one, and its maternity FAQ says any contributor to that branch qualifies, citizen or resident. So it applies to expatriate employees. For births from July 2025 it pays 100% of your average contributory wage over the 12 months before the birth, for three months, plus a further month if the child is ill or disabled and needs constant care.

You qualify if you are in work on the date of the birth, have at least 12 months of contributions to the branch in the 36 months before it, and give birth at least six months into the pregnancy. Article 41 of the 1445H law and GOSI's FAQ both say the 12 months can be consecutive or not. They only count from 3 July 2024, when the new law took effect: GOSI's FAQ turns down a woman who had contributed before that date and gave birth in May 2025.

The compensation cannot be combined with your wage, and GOSI's FAQ says the employer must stop paying your wage while it runs. A non-Saudi who leaves on final exit during the payment period still receives the rest.

The Labour Law separately gives 12 weeks of maternity leave on full pay (Article 151, as amended). GOSI pays on your contributory wage, which is not the same as full pay. GOSI does not say who covers the gap: its FAQ says the employer's own obligations are governed by the Labour Law, and it refers questions about wages above the compensation to HRSD. Ask your employer how it handles this before you go on leave.

Every payment runs on one number

GOSI calculates everything on your contributory wage: basic pay, housing allowance and monthly commissions, up to SAR 45,000 a month. Transport and other allowances are not on GOSI's list. Your employer enters the figure; you do not.

Take a hypothetical package of SAR 10,000 basic, SAR 2,500 housing and SAR 1,000 transport. The correct contributory wage is SAR 12,500. If the employer registers SAR 6,000 instead, three months of maternity compensation comes to SAR 18,000 rather than SAR 37,500, and every injury payment shrinks in the same proportion.

An under-declared wage is worse than it looks, for three reasons:

• It is hard to fix later. GOSI's FAQ says a registered wage is not normally corrected once the deadline for submitting it has passed, unless GOSI finds the employer did not set it properly. Check it in your first month, not your last.
• It is not your end-of-service wage, but it is a record. The Labour Law calculates the end-of-service award on your last wage and defines wage as the actual wage: basic pay plus the other amounts due under your contract. A low GOSI figure does not change that in law. It does put a government record that contradicts your contract into any dispute. See our labour law guide, and run your own figures through the end-of-service calculator.
• It is tied to your wage protection record. GOSI's FAQ says an employer cannot lower your registered wage below the wage in the wage protection file.

Keep your signed contract and your payslips. If the GOSI figure and your contract ever disagree, they are your record of the wage you actually agreed and were paid.

How to check what GOSI holds for you

1. Sign in to your individual account on the GOSI website or the GOSI app. GOSI's individual portal asks individuals to sign in through Nafath, the National Single Sign-On: you enter your iqama number and approve the request in the Nafath app.
2. Issue a wage e-certificate. GOSI describes it as showing the contribution periods and wages of Saudi and non-Saudi contributors. It is free and issued immediately.
3. Check three things. The employer should be the legal entity on your contract. The start date should be your entry into the Kingdom, or the date your services were transferred if you changed employer. The wage should equal basic plus housing, plus any monthly commission.
4. If anything is wrong, raise it with HR in writing first. GOSI also has an "Edit Engagement Period" service for an inaccurate joining date, but its service page says a joining date more than six months in the past cannot be changed. There is also a petition and objection service for GOSI decisions, which has to be used within 30 days of the decision.

GOSI's service pages give 199044 as the customer service number from inside the Kingdom.

Where it goes wrong

• A GOSI deduction on your payslip. Non-Saudis are in neither the pension nor the SANED branch, and the hazards contribution is the employer's alone. GOSI's FAQ says a non-Saudi wrongly registered in the pension branch has the period cancelled and the contributions refunded, and that an employer who deducted contributions from workers not subject to them must give the money back. Ask what the line is.
• A registered wage of basic pay only. This is the commonest way the number comes out low, and it sounds plausible enough that few people question it.
• No registration on the day you are hurt. Compensation depends on it. GOSI's FAQ says a non-Saudi receives a subscription number on entering the Kingdom and the employer must then complete the data, and that non-Saudis are not added retroactively.
• Late reporting. You have seven days to tell your employer. Do it in writing.
• Assuming GOSI follows you abroad. On a posting or assignment outside the Kingdom, it generally does not.
• Planning retirement around GOSI. For a non-Saudi there is nothing to plan around.

Questions to ask before you sign

1. What wage will you register with GOSI for me, and does it include my housing allowance?
2. Will anything be deducted from my salary for GOSI? The answer should be no.
3. Which legal entity will register me, and from what date?
4. If I am injured at work, who reports it, and through which internal process?
5. If I travel or am posted outside Saudi Arabia, what insurance covers me there?
6. Is there a company pension or savings plan, given that GOSI provides none for me?
7. If I plan a family, how do you handle any gap between GOSI maternity compensation and full pay?

How to raise these without souring an offer is covered in negotiating a Saudi job offer.

Sources

• GOSI: Social Insurance Law overview
• GOSI FAQ: contributors, employers, contributions, occupational hazards
• GOSI FAQ (Arabic): maternity compensation, the 1445H law (who it applies to; the cancelled lump-sum cap for non-Saudis)
• GOSI: individual e-services (wage e-certificate, Edit Engagement Period, petitions and objections)
• GOSI: individual portal sign-in (Nafath)
• GOSI: maternity compensation guide (Arabic)
• Social Insurance Law 1445H, official text (Bureau of Experts), Royal Decree M/273 items 2, 4 and 6, and Articles 5, 6, 8, 28 to 42, 54 and 63
• Saudi Labour Law, official text (Bureau of Experts), Articles 2, 84 and 151

General information, not legal advice. Rules change and cases vary by nationality, profession and employer.