In force Last amended 22/9/1445 AH
Saudi Civil Status Law
نظام الأحوال المدنية
The Civil Status Law of Saudi Arabia. This page presents the official Arabic text of each article with plain-English explanations for residents and businesses.
- Articles
- 96
- In force
- 96
- Amended
- 24
- Issued
- 20/4/1407 AH
Issued by: مرسوم ملكي رقم م/7 بتاريخ 20 / 4 / 1407 · قرار مجلس الوزراء رقم 1 بتاريخ 11 / 1 / 1407
Each article shows the official Arabic text, which is the only legally binding version, followed by our plain-English explanation.
Browse Civil Status Law by topic
Definitions in the Civil Status Law10 articlesCivil Register and Event Registers26 articlesRegistering Civil Events12 articlesCorrecting and Amending Civil Status Entries10 articlesBirth Registration12 articlesNaming a Newborn1 articleRegistering a Foundling2 articlesRegistering Marriage and Divorce6 articlesDeath Registration and Burial17 articlesNational ID13 articlesFamily Record10 articlesLoss of ID or Family Record1 articlePlace of Residence2 articlesCivil Status Violations and Penalties11 articles
Articles of the Saudi Civil Status Law
- Article 1The article names the law the Civil Status Law and explains that it is concerned with regulating the civil status of Saudi citizens and recording civil events of foreigners inside the Kingdom.
- Article 2The article defines the terms of the Civil Status Law, including event, civil status, registers and committees, and the personal ID card in both its physical and digital forms.Amended M/198
- Article 3The article makes the civil status departments and offices the bodies that register civil statuses and events and issue personal ID cards and family record books under the law and its regulations.
- Article 4The article provides for establishing civil status offices by decision of the Minister of Interior as needed to assist the departments, with the decision determining the department to which each office is attached.
- Article 5The article makes the Kingdom's representations responsible for registering Saudis' events abroad and recognizes a foreign state's registration if it does not conflict with the Kingdom's laws, with a duty to enter it within 180 days.
- Article 6The article establishes a central civil register in which the civil status of every Saudi citizen, inside or outside the Kingdom, is recorded, under an arrangement approved by the Minister of Interior.
- Article 7The article requires event registers to be prepared in the civil status offices to record Saudis' events, and other separate registers for foreigners' events inside the Kingdom.
- Article 8The article requires the event registers for Saudis and foreigners to include a births register, a deaths register and a marriage and divorce register, and others may be added by decision of the Minister of Interior.
- Article 9The article requires the pages of the event registers to be numbered and stamped with the Directorate's official seal, and the number of pages to be recorded at the start and end of each book and sealed.
- Article 10The article makes the civil registers, their copies and the official documents based on them authoritative in proving what is recorded, unless the contrary or their invalidity is established by a court judgment or a competent official decision.
- Article 11The article makes the civil registers' data confidential and prohibits moving them; if a judicial or investigating authority decides to inspect them, a judge is delegated or the investigator goes to where they are kept.
- Article 12The article refers to the Implementing Regulations the relationship between the central civil register and the events registers, and the forms of registers, cards, family record books, certificates and documents.
- Article 13The article provides that entry in the central civil register is by allocating a separate space to each Saudi family, and entry in the events registers is in order of priority of notification.
- Article 14The article sets the rules of writing in the events registers and the certificates extracted from them, prohibits scraping and alteration, and allows correcting an oversight during registration by a light strike-through and a signed marginal note.
- Article 15The article prevents amending the main civil event entries after registration is complete except by decision of the sub-committee, and allows amending the derived data on the basis of official documents.Amended
- Article 16The Article requires the biometric features of Saudis who have reached the age of six to be recorded when entries are amended or civil statuses and events are registered, and leaves the rules to the Implementing Regulations.Amended M/198
- Article 17The Article requires every citizen holding a family record book to go to the civil status office with the information and documents needed to register himself and his family, and every citizen to report future events within the legal period.
- Article 18The Article requires registrars to record every civil event as soon as it is reported, with the date of the entry, and the entry must include the reporter's name, surname, age, residence, capacity and the date of the report.
- Article 19The Article sets the procedure when a registrar refuses to record a civil event: he refers the matter within 7 days, the head decides within 30 days, and the interested person may file a grievance with the sub-committee.Amended
- Article 20The Article regulates recording a civil event reported late: before its first year ends the registrar records it after verification; after a year it is recorded only by decision of the local committee.Amended
- Article 21The Article requires the reporter to be given a copy of the entry for the event on the prescribed form, the registrar and the reporter to sign the entry and its copy, and a refusal to sign to be recorded in the presence of two witnesses.
- Article 22The Article prevents the registrar from recording an event in which he is the reporter, requester or witness, or which concerns him or his relatives up to the fourth degree, unless the head of the department orders it.Amended
- Article 23The Article allows every person to obtain an official copy of entries concerning himself, his ascendants, descendants or spouse, and allows the competent authorities and anyone with an established interest to request a copy of any entry.
- Article 24The Article stops recording in the event registers at the end of the last day of Dhu al-Hijjah each year, closes them by a signed record with no blank space, and opens the new year's registers on the first of Muharram.
- Article 25The Article requires special safes in civil status departments and offices for keeping the event registers, and the transactions of addition, amendment and deletion to be kept in the interested person's base file.Amended
- Article 26The Article requires the local committee to examine the event registers when they are deposited for keeping, sign them, and draw up a record of the result and submit it to the Authority within 15 days.Amended
- Article 27The Article makes civil register clerks responsible for alteration, forgery, addition and erasure in their registers, requires the offender to be pursued and a correction suit filed before the Authority, and allows an interested person to file it and claim compensation.
- Article 28The Article allows a Saudi head of family and his family to be registered at any civil status department, events to be recorded at any office, and Saudis living abroad to register at the representation or any department they choose inside the Kingdom.
- Article 29The Article defines the domicile of a person residing in the Kingdom, for exercising his civil rights and receiving notices, as the place where he habitually lives, and treats the place where he continuously works as his domicile too.
- Article 30محل إقامة المرأة المتزوجة هو محل إقامة زوجها إذا كانت العشرة مستمرة بينهما، ومحل إقامة القاصر هو محل إقامة والده أو الوصي عليه.
- Article 31The Article allows any person to choose a special domicile at which to receive notices relating to particular subjects or transactions, in addition to his general domicile.
- Article 32The Article requires all births in the Kingdom, and all Saudi births abroad, to be reported within the periods set by the Civil Status Law.
- Article 33الأشخاص المكلفون بالتبليغ عن المواليد هم: أ - والد الطفل إذا كان موجودا في البلد يوم الولادة أو إذا حضر أثناء مدة التبليغ. ب - الأقرب درجة…
- Article 34The Article requires births to be reported at a civil status office within 15 days of birth, extended to 30 days if the birthplace is more than 50 kilometers away.Amended
- Article 35The Article requires a birth that occurs while traveling outside the Kingdom to be reported within 15 days of arrival, to the Saudi representation in the destination country or to any civil status office on return.
- Article 36As an exception, the Article allows a birth abroad in a place far from the Saudi representation to be reported by registered mail, provided a birth certificate from the competent authority containing the entry data is attached.
- Article 37The Article requires twins to be reported each on his own and recorded separately, stating the hour and minute at which each was born.
- Article 38The Article requires the birth of a newborn who dies before being recorded to be registered, followed by his death, and requires a child born dead after the sixth month of pregnancy to be recorded in the register of deaths as stillborn.Amended
- Article 39The Article requires anyone who finds a newborn foundling to notify the police or the administrative governor at once, and regulates the report of the incident and handing the child to a care body or to the finder if he is shown to be fit.
- Article 40The Article requires whoever is entrusted with a foundling's care to notify the civil status office within 15 days, provides for handing over his birth certificate without stating that he is a foundling, and for correcting his entry when his parents become known.Amended
- Article 41The Article requires the births registrar, after registering a birth, to draw up a birth certificate in two copies bearing the entry number and date, one handed to the reporter and the other sent to the department.
- Article 42The Article requires the births registrar to notify his department weekly with a statement of birth events and the certificate copies, and requires the department to record them within three days on the child's father's page.
- Article 43The Article requires the birth certificate to be presented within 15 days of receiving it to one of the civil status departments, to check it, stamp it with the directorate's seal and add the newborn to the family record book.
- Article 44The Article requires hospitals, other places where births occur and licensed birth attendants to keep birth books and notify civil status monthly, without relieving those required to report.
- Article 45The Article prevents two brothers or two sisters by the same father, or a son and his father, from sharing the same name while both are alive, and prevents registering citizens' names that conflict with Sharia.
- Article 46The Article requires marriage contracts, and divorce, revocation, khul and dissolution documents and judgments, to be presented to civil status within two months if one party is a Saudi.
- Article 47The Article requires the husband or wife to report marriage, divorce, revocation, dissolution and khul, allows their parents or relatives to do so, and lifts this duty where there is an electronic link with the competent court.
- Article 48The Article requires the civil status department to record the content of a marriage contract, or a revocation, divorce, dissolution or khul document or judgment, on the spouses' entry as soon as it receives it.
- Article 49The Article refers the registration of a marriage in which one spouse is Saudi and the other is not to rules set by the Implementing Regulations.
- Article 50The Article allows either spouse to request the family register from civil status, and makes the husband responsible if it is not requested within sixty days of the marriage contract, as the Implementing Regulations specify.
- Article 51The Article requires authorized marriage officiants and court clerks to notify civil status weekly of marriage, divorce, revocation, dissolution and khul events and judgments establishing lineage and declaring a missing person dead.
- Article 52The Article requires reporting, within the legal periods, every death in the Kingdom and every Saudi who dies abroad, including children born dead after the sixth month of pregnancy.
- Article 53The Article names those required to report a death, starting with electronically linked health facilities, then relatives and others, with responsibility following the order so that it lapses for any group when the group before it exists.
- Article 54The Article sets the period for reporting a death at fifteen days at any civil status office, and thirty days if the death occurs in a place more than fifty kilometers from the nearest office.
- Article 55The Article requires a death occurring outside the Kingdom to be reported within fifteen days of arrival, to the competent Saudi representation or, on return, to any civil status office in the Kingdom.
- Article 56As an exception, the Article allows a death abroad, far from the seat of the Saudi representation, to be reported by registered mail, provided a death certificate from the competent authority there is attached.
- Article 57The Article requires the deaths registrar to draw up a death certificate in two copies without stating the cause of death unless the interested person wishes, to hand one copy to the reporter and send the other to the deceased's file.
- Article 58The Article requires the death certificate, with the deceased's card and the family record book, to be presented to civil status within fifteen days of its issue, to be stamped, the card withdrawn and the book annotated.
- Article 59The Article requires hospitals, quarantine stations, nursing homes, prisons, shelters and other bodies concerned to send the death certificate to civil status if the death occurred with them and they carried out the burial.
- Article 60The Article allows the Minister of Interior, three months after a ship sinks, a plane crashes or a disaster, to issue a decision that those aboard are missing; their death is established only by a Sharia judgment.
- Article 61The Article makes military commanders responsible for drawing up the death certificate of soldiers, employees and volunteers who die during war operations and the like, in the form set out in Article 57.
- Article 62The Article requires the administrative governor, when a death sentence is carried out on a person, to draw up a death report and send it to civil status to record and issue its certificate, without waiting for the relatives to report and without stating the cause.
- Article 63The Article requires the police or the emir of the village or center, on finding a body, to draw up a report of the deceased's description and the circumstances of finding him and send it to civil status to issue the death certificate.
- Article 64The Article prohibits burying any deceased without a burial permit from an approved doctor, or from the emir of the village or center where there are no doctors, and requires a report and notice to the emir of the region where there is suspicion.
- Article 65The Article requires the deceased to be buried promptly where possible, except where death or its causes are in doubt or unnatural, in which case burial is postponed to verify and the health doctor sets its date.
- Article 66The Article makes obtaining the burial permit a duty of those required to report the death, requires whoever supervises transport of the body to check it, and the cemetery keeper to receive a copy before burial.
- Article 67The Article requires every Saudi who has completed fifteen to obtain a personal card, with procedures handled by his guardian, custodian or agent, and makes it optional between six and fifteen.Amended M/198
- Article 68The Article allows Saudis residing abroad to apply for the personal card, renew it and report its loss or damage at the Saudi representation, as the Implementing Regulations specify.
- Article 69The Article requires every citizen to carry his personal card at all times and produce it in transactions that call for proof of his identity and to public authority officers whenever they ask.
- Article 70The Article prohibits government, educational and private bodies and individuals from accepting, employing or retaining any Saudi who has completed fifteen as an employee, student or in any capacity unless he holds a personal card.
- Article 71The Article requires those in charge of hotels, shelters and places that house the public to record the card details of every guest who has completed fifteen in their registers.
- Article 72The Article requires every Saudi head of family, subject to Article 50, to go to civil status within three years of the Law coming into force to obtain the family record book issued from the central civil register.
- Article 73The Article prohibits a citizen from having more than one entry in the central civil register, more than one personal card or family record book, or using a card or book that is not his.
- Article 74The Article gives the family record book for an unlimited period, with a replacement book for heirs on its holder's death, refers the validity period of the personal card to the Regulations and requires renewal within 180 days before expiry.Amended
- Article 75The Article requires a citizen, within sixty days of any civil event that changes the details of his card or family record book, to present them to civil status for amendment or replacement, and prohibits fraudulently using the old detail.
- Article 76The Article requires reporting the loss or damage of the national ID or family record book within 15 days, sets graded fines by number of times and delay, and exempts losses from fire, accidents, theft and disasters officially established.Amended
- Article 77The Article requires, when a holder loses Saudi nationality, the personal card and family record book to be presented to civil status to withdraw the card and annotate or withdraw the book as the Regulations specify.
- Article 78The article punishes violators of the Civil Status Law with the penalties set out in the following articles, without prejudice to any harsher penalty under other laws.
- Article 79The article punishes with imprisonment of up to six months and a fine of up to SAR 10,000, or either, anyone who gives incorrect information under the Law or violates Article 73.
- Article 80The article sets a fine not exceeding SAR 10,000 for anyone who violates the provisions of Articles 32, 39, 45, 52, 70 and 71 of the Civil Status Law.
- Article 81The article sets a fine not exceeding SAR 5,000 for violating the remaining provisions of the Civil Status Law, its Implementing Regulations and the decisions implementing them.
- Article 82The article provides for local committees in civil status departments and offices and sub-committees in the regions, formed by decision of the Minister of Interior, and states their members from the Interior, Justice and Health.Amended
- Article 83The article sets the jurisdiction of the local committees (Articles 20 and 26) and of the sub-committees: correcting entries, grievances against refusal of registration, investigating violators and referred matters.Amended
- Article 84The article requires a sub-committee to send a copy of each decision to the Directorate within a week, and allows the Directorate and any interested party to appeal before the Civil Status Authority within 60 days.
- Article 85As an exception to Article 84, the article lets those sentenced file a grievance before the Board of Grievances against sub-committee decisions imposing a fine, imprisonment or both, within 60 days of notification.Amended
- Article 86The article establishes a central authority in the General Directorate of Civil Status, chaired by the Director General, with a counselor from the Board of Grievances, a legal adviser and a physician.
- Article 87The article sets the jurisdiction of the Central Civil Status Authority: deciding appeals against sub-committee and local committee decisions, ratifying record inspection minutes, and giving opinions on matters referred by the Minister of Interior.Amended
- Article 88The article leaves to the Implementing Regulations the procedures for the work of the committees and the Civil Status Authority, including submitting and deciding requests, grievances and appeals.
- Article 89The article makes population registers issued before the Law the basis for registering citizens in the central civil register unless their validity is doubted, and sets out the verification procedure.
- Article 90The article allows population registers to be relied on until withdrawn and replaced within four years of the Law taking effect, after which they are considered cancelled unless the Minister of Interior extends the deadline.
- Article 91The article provides that the head of the family, for purposes of applying the Civil Status Law, is the father or the mother with respect to minor children.Amended
- Article 92The article requires birth and death certificates to be issued under the Law after it takes effect, with the health offices continuing to issue them until jurisdiction is gradually transferred to civil status offices within five years.
- Article 93As an exception to the reporting periods in the Law, the article allows the Minister of Interior to specify cases in which the reporting period is extended, according to controls set by the Implementing Regulations.
- Article 94The article gives the Minister of Interior the power to issue the regulations and implementing decisions of the Civil Status Law, and requires them to be published in the Official Gazette.
- Article 95The article repeals the Population Department Law, the Births and Deaths Law and everything conflicting with the Law, while Royal Decree No. M/52 of 1405 AH stays in force until rules on amending the date of birth are issued.
- Article 96The article requires the Civil Status Law to be published in the Official Gazette and to take effect one year after the date of its publication.
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