Article 20 of the Saudi Civil Service Law

This article protects the employee's salary from attachment and contains three rules:

1. No attachment without an order: no part of an employee's salary may be attached except by order of the competent authority.
2. Maximum attachment: the amount attached must not exceed one-third of the employee's net monthly salary per month. Alimony debt is excluded from this limit; by the article's wording, the one-third cap does not apply to it.
3. An employee detained over a government debt: if the employee is detained because of a claim for a debt owed to the government, he is paid his basic salary.

Note that the cap is calculated on the net monthly salary and on a monthly basis. Also, the rule on paying the basic salary in the last paragraph is, in the current text, limited to detention over a debt owed to the government.

The article does not specify which authority is competent to issue an attachment order, nor the procedures. It relates to Article 19, which provides for half of the net basic salary for an employee who is suspended from duty, detained as a precaution, or detained over private rights, and to Article 21, which provides that an employee is not entitled to salary for days and hours in which he does not perform his work, subject to what other laws and regulations provide.

Anyone whose salary has been attached, or who believes the attachment exceeded the legal limit, would do well to consult a lawyer specializing in enforcement or administrative cases.