Article 7 of the Saudi Civil Status Law

المادة 7 من نظام الأحوال المدنية

The 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.

Official text (Arabic)

This article has not been amended since the law was issued.

تعد بمكاتب الأحوال المدنية سجلات لتسجيل الواقعات المدنية للسعوديين وسجلات أخرى مستقلة للأجانب تدون فيها الواقعات المدنية التي تحصل لهم داخل المملكة.

This is the official Arabic wording, the only legally binding version. We do not translate the law itself; the explanation below is ours. Official source: Bureau of Experts at the Council of Ministers

Article 7 explained in plain English

This article explains how event registers are organized in the civil status offices, and provides for separating two groups:

Registers for Saudis: the civil events of citizens are recorded in them.
Separate registers for foreigners: the civil events that occur to them inside the Kingdom are recorded in them.

This separation applies what Article 1 provides, that the law is concerned with regulating the civil status of the Saudi citizen and with recording the civil events that occur to foreigners inside the Kingdom. It also complements Article 6, which establishes the central civil register to record the civil status of Saudi citizens.

Article 8 then sets out what the event registers must include for both groups: a register of births, a register of deaths and a register of marriage and divorce, with the possibility of adding others by decision of the Minister of Interior.

In practice, a foreigner who has a baby or loses a relative inside the Kingdom has the event recorded in a register specific to foreigners, not in the citizens' registers.

Practical example

A foreign worker died in the city of Riyadh, so the death is recorded in the separate registers prepared for foreigners in the civil status office, whereas the death of a Saudi citizen is recorded in the event registers for Saudis.

Translated from our Arabic explanation with machine assistance. For guidance only; it does not replace advice from a lawyer on your situation.

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