Court Costs in Saudi Arabia: Brackets, Fixed Fees, and Exemptions

The short answer

Judicial costs on financial claims follow regressive brackets: 5 percent below SAR 100,000, then 4, 3, and 2 percent for higher tiers, capped at SAR 1,000,000 per lawsuit. Unquantified cases carry fixed fees between SAR 2,000 and 10,000 by case type. The losing party generally bears the costs, with exemptions for workers, personal status, bankruptcy, and government bodies, and reductions or waivers on settlement.

6 min read

The Judicial Costs Law (نظام التكاليف القضائية), enacted by Royal Decree No. M/16 together with its Executive Regulations, introduced a calculated, tiered fee structure for litigation in Saudi Arabia. Its stated aims are to shift the financial burden of litigation to the losing party, relieve the state budget, and incentivize alternative dispute resolution such as mediation and arbitration. As part of the Najiz guides on Hala Law, this page presents the financial-claim brackets, the fixed fees, appellate and execution fees, settlement incentives, and the exemptions, as documented by the Judicial Costs Portal and the Law. For an estimate on specific inputs, the court fees calculator on Hala Law applies these rules.

Financial claim brackets: regressive rates, SAR 1,000,000 cap

For claims with a quantified monetary value, the cost is a percentage of the claim value, and the percentage decreases as the value rises. The base is the monetary amount the plaintiff requests, or in real estate disputes the value of the disputed asset per historical Ministry of Justice data.

Claim value bracket	Applied percentage	Cap
Less than SAR 100,000	5 percent of the claim value	None
SAR 100,000 to 499,999	4 percent of the claim value	None
SAR 500,000 to 999,999	3 percent of the claim value	None
SAR 1,000,000 and above	2 percent of the claim value	SAR 1,000,000

The absolute maximum fee for any single lawsuit is SAR 1,000,000. The regressive design is deliberate: the higher 5 percent rate on small claims pushes minor disputes toward out-of-court settlement, while the 2 percent rate and the cap keep costs from becoming a barrier in large-scale litigation.

Worked example: an SME files a commercial lawsuit against a vendor for SAR 200,000. The value falls in the 100,000–499,999 bracket, so 4 percent applies: 200,000 times 0.04 equals SAR 8,000. If the plaintiff wins entirely, this cost is ultimately borne by the losing defendant.

Fixed fees for unquantified claims

Lawsuits with an indeterminate or non-monetary value carry fixed flat fees by court or case type:

Court / lawsuit type	Fixed cost (SAR)
Private criminal cases	10,000
Commercial courts and circuits	5,000
General courts	3,000
Urgent lawsuits (any jurisdiction)	3,000
Labor disputes (non-exempt parties)	2,000
Execution disputes	3,000

Appellate motions and incidental requests

Costs for procedural requests and appeals are assessed independently of the core lawsuit fee, to curb unfounded delays and frivolous challenges. Article 7 of the law provides that these requests carry costs not exceeding SAR 10,000 — a ceiling per request, not a cumulative one: a party who appeals (5,000) and then seeks cassation (7,000) pays both. The Regulation fixes each request's amount within that ceiling.

Request	Cost (SAR)
Petition for reconsideration	10,000
Motion for cassation before the Supreme Court	7,000
Motion for appeal	5,000
Incidental requests or cross-claims during trial	1,000
Joinder, judge recusal, stay of execution, correction or interpretation of a judgment	2,000
Request to resume a suit stayed by agreement, before the agreed period ends	100
Replacement copy of judicial documents	100
Certified copies of case files or documents	100
Viewing electronic or paper records	50

To protect the finality of arbitration, an action seeking to annul an arbitral award is charged 1 percent of the awarded amount if the nullity claim is denied, up to the SAR 1,000,000 cap. Example: a construction firm loses a SAR 150,000,000 arbitration and files a nullity action that is denied; the raw calculation is SAR 1,500,000, which exceeds the cap, so exactly SAR 1,000,000 is payable.

Execution court fees

The enforcement phase has its own schedule:

Execution disputes: a flat fee of SAR 3,000 for disputes arising during the execution phase.
Direct execution requests for non-monetary compliance: SAR 500.
Financial execution requests: 2 percent of the demanded amount, with a minimum of SAR 500 and a maximum of SAR 10,000.

Worked example: a business wins a final judgment for SAR 400,000 and files an execution request. 400,000 times 0.02 equals SAR 8,000, within the 500–10,000 band, and this cost adds to the debtor's ultimate liability.

Who else does not pay

Beyond the statutory exemptions, the Council of Ministers decision adopting the Regulation provides that the State bears the judicial costs owed by social security beneficiaries.

Costs are computed in Saudi riyals, and fractions of a riyal are not counted in the assessment (Article 10 of the Regulation).

Settlement incentives and the reinstatement penalty

The framework rewards amicable resolution and penalizes procedural neglect:

Settlement before the first hearing: judicial costs are waived entirely.
Settlement after the first hearing but before judgment: costs are reduced to 25 percent of the calculated amount — a 75 percent discount.
Case reinstatement (Article 4): if a case is struck out for improper formatting or dismissed for lack of prosecution and the plaintiff asks to reinstate it, a supplementary fee equal to 25 percent of the original cost applies, borne by the plaintiff alone regardless of the eventual outcome.

Statutory exemptions

The general rule is that the defeated party bears the judicial costs, but the Law sets express exemptions preserving access to justice:

Category or case type	Scope of exemption
Workers subject to the Labor Law, those exempted from it, and their beneficiaries	Full exemption in claims arising from the employment contract
Personal status cases	Exempt from filing costs, except cassation (SAR 7,000) and reconsideration (SAR 10,000)
Bankruptcy Law proceedings	Exempt from judicial filing fees
Prisoners and detainees at the time fees become due	Exempt in non-criminal financial cases, as plaintiff or defendant
Ministries and official government bodies	Exempt from judicial costs
Public criminal and disciplinary cases	Outside the scope of the fee system entirely

Note that a worker's exemption does not erase the cost for the other side: if an exempt worker wins against a non-exempt employer, the losing employer remains obligated to pay the applicable costs to the state. Example: an expatriate engineer files a claim for SAR 150,000 in end-of-service benefits and withheld salaries; the upfront cost to the employee is SAR 0, and if the company loses it is invoiced the cost calculated on the claim (150,000 times 4 percent equals SAR 6,000).

Before filing: estimate the figure first

Because the cost shifts with the bracket, court type, exemptions, and settlement timing, estimating the figure in advance is a natural part of any litigation decision. The court fees calculator on Hala Law applies the brackets and limits above to your inputs, and the official reference for the schedule is the Ministry of Justice Judicial Costs Portal cited in the sources.

When do you need a licensed lawyer?

The information here is a general presentation of the fee schedule as published by official sources, not an assessment of any specific case. A matter moves closer to needing a licensed professional when:

A single case mixes monetary and non-monetary claims and each request's classification affects the cost.
The choice between proceeding and settling turns on how the cost changes with settlement timing.
The matter involves an arbitral-award nullity action or a time-bound challenge where the step carries a significant cost.
An exemption may apply and its scope needs careful reading against the facts.

In these situations, the outcome depends on the facts and classification of each case — matters assessed case by case.

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Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to file a financial lawsuit in Saudi Arabia?

Costs are a percentage of the claim value: 5 percent below SAR 100,000, 4 percent from 100,000 to 499,999, 3 percent from 500,000 to 999,999, and 2 percent from SAR 1,000,000 upward, with an absolute cap of SAR 1,000,000 per lawsuit.

Who ultimately pays the judicial costs?

The general rule under the Judicial Costs Law is that the defeated party bears the judicial costs. If the plaintiff wins entirely, the assessed cost is ultimately borne by the losing defendant.

Are labor claims exempt from judicial costs?

Workers subject to the Labor Law, those exempted from it, and their beneficiaries are exempt from judicial costs in claims arising from their employment contracts. If an exempt worker wins against a non-exempt employer, the losing employer still owes the applicable costs to the state. Labor cases for non-exempt parties carry a fixed fee of SAR 2,000.

What happens to the costs if the parties settle?

If the dispute is settled before the first hearing, judicial costs are waived entirely. If it is settled after the first hearing but before judgment, the costs are reduced to 25 percent of the calculated amount.

Do personal status cases carry judicial costs?

Personal status cases — marriage, divorce, custody, alimony — are exempt from filing costs. The exemption does not cover cassation requests (SAR 7,000) or petitions for reconsideration (SAR 10,000).

Official sources

Source	Article / reference	As of
Judicial Costs Portal (بوابة التكاليف القضائية)	Executive Regulation of the Judicial Costs Law — the costs schedule and the criteria for assessing them	2026-06-26
Judicial Costs Law (نظام التكاليف القضائية)	Royal Decree M/16	2026-06-26

Change log

2026-07-26Withdrew a wrong correction we made the same day and restored both figures to SAR 2,000. We read the Regulation's «ألفا ريال» as one thousand; it is the dual form, two thousand. Article 6 settles it: item (4) writes ألفا for joinder, recusal, stay-of-execution and judgment-correction requests, and item (5) on the very next line writes ألف for an incidental request — two different words for two different amounts. So labour claims for non-exempt parties are SAR 2,000 under Article 3(6) and those requests are SAR 2,000 under Article 6(4), which is what the page said originally. This page's FAQ had said 2,000 all along and so contradicted the table after our edit — that contradiction was the evidence. The live calculator is corrected with it. The separate correction describing the SAR 10,000 figure as a per-request ceiling stands and is right, under Article 7 of the law.
2026-07-26(The two figure changes in this entry were withdrawn the same day — see the entry above.) Corrected one misdescribed ceiling against the Executive Regulation issued by Council of Ministers Decision 519. The SAR 10,000 figure is a ceiling per request under Article 7 of the law, not a cumulative cap. Added execution disputes at 3,000, resuming a stayed suit at 100, inspection at 50, replacement copies at 100, the execution-request rules, the State bearing costs for social security beneficiaries, and that fractions of a riyal are not counted. Deep-linked the sources in place of the portal homepage.
2026-07-07First edition

Content on this site is general legal information, not legal advice, and is no substitute for consulting a licensed lawyer. We link you to official sources and do not represent any government body.