The new Enforcement Law: what has changed?

If someone owes you money, your question today is a direct one: has the way to collect it changed?

If you are the one who owes, your questions are heavier, and the first two are about detention and travel.

The Enforcement Law (1447H) took effect 180 days after its publication in the Official Gazette, Umm Al-Qura, on 1 May 2026, that is, in late October 2026. It replaced the previous Enforcement Law of 1433H and its amendments.

Much of what is said about it is right at its core, but some of it is overstated in ways that can cost anyone who acts on it.

When did it take effect, and what survives from the old law?

Article 65 of the Enforcement Law provides that it comes into force 180 days after the date of its publication in the Official Gazette. The count runs from publication, not from the date of the royal decree, and anyone who counted from the decree arrived at a date that is too early.

The Implementing Regulation of the Enforcement Law was published on 23 October 2026 and applies from the date the Law took effect.

The royal decree did not retire the old law entirely. It kept two parts of it alive for now:

• the rules on precautionary attachment, until they are moved into the Law of Sharia Procedure;
• the insolvency rules, until legislation on civil insolvency is issued.

Judgments, orders and decisions issued before the new Law took effect remain valid under the rules that applied before it.

As for enforcement requests already pending when the Law took effect, neither the Law, nor its Regulation, nor the decree contains an express rule on which regime governs them. Do not build on assumptions; ask about your own file.

The two laws side by side

These are the main differences between the two texts.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column

Read the table as a whole and one thing stands out: for money debts, the pressure has moved from the debtor’s person to the debtor’s assets.

If you are the creditor, start with the paper in your hand

Article 7 of the Enforcement Law limits enforcement instruments to eight types, including final judgments, arbitral awards, cheques, and contracts and acknowledgements notarized under the Notarization Law.

Bills of exchange and promissory notes qualify only when they are registered on the national electronic platforms approved by the Ministry of Justice, and registering a note requires the consent of the person bound by it.

If you hold a paper note issued before the Law took effect, you have a grace period of one year after it took effect. During that year the note remains an enforcement instrument, provided it meets every legal condition except registration.

Next, check the clock. Article 11 of the Enforcement Law provides that no enforcement request will be accepted under an instrument more than ten years past its due date. For instalments, the period is counted for each instalment separately.

Before filing, you must in four cases notify the debtor and demand payment at least 5 working days in advance. The most important for business is where the debtor is a company.

Once the payment period has passed, notice to the credit-information bureaus and attachment of the debtor’s present and future assets begin immediately.

Where there are signs that assets are being hidden or smuggled, you can ask the court to interrogate those suspected of receiving them. You can also ask it to set aside the debtor’s gifts and unusual transactions up to the amount of your debt. Both are covered in Your company’s receivables under the new Enforcement Law.

If you are paid outside the enforcement process, Article 46 of the Implementing Regulation of the Enforcement Law requires you to close your request within one working day of being paid.

If you are the debtor, these are your duties and your rights

From the day you are served with the enforcement order, you have 5 working days to disclose your assets, including unregistered assets, assets outside the Kingdom, and whatever others hold for you.

You have the same period to pay. If you provide a bank guarantee sufficient to cover the debt, you get 10 more working days.

The home where you and your dependants live, and your means of transport, cannot be attached if they do not exceed what you need, unless one of them is mortgaged to the creditor or is the creditor’s own property. If either is sold because it exceeds what you need, part of the proceeds is set aside for you, enough to buy a replacement.

From your salary, only half can be attached for a maintenance (nafaqa) debt and a third for other debts. From a pension, half for maintenance and a quarter for other debts. Government subsidies cannot be attached.

But salary or pension that built up in your account before the attachment, beyond what you need to support yourself and your dependants, is not covered by this protection.

A travel ban is issued only at the creditor’s request, and only if the court could not attach assets of yours sufficient to cover the debt. Each order lasts no more than 3 years, and the total may not exceed 6 years.

The court must lift the ban if you need medical treatment abroad under an approved medical report, if your profession requires travel, if the ban would harm you, if you disclose assets sufficient to pay, or if the unpaid balance does not exceed SAR 50,000.

If an attachment, a travel ban or a fine is ordered against you, you may file a grievance with the court president within 10 working days from the day after the decision is made available to you. The decision on the grievance is final.

A grievance or an enforcement dispute does not, by itself, stop enforcement unless the competent authority orders a stay.

And if it is the creditor who refuses to accept a specific debt that has fallen due, Article 10 of the Enforcement Law lets you ask the court to order the creditor to accept payment.

Detention: what ended and what remains?

The line heard most often these days is that debtor imprisonment has been abolished. That goes further than the text.

The accurate statement is that the Enforcement Law does not make detention a tool for compelling payment of money debts. The compulsory measures against assets listed in Article 18 of the Enforcement Law include no detention.

Detention remains, however, in direct enforcement, meaning enforcement of an instrument that requires someone to do something or to refrain from doing something.

There, at the applicant’s request, the court orders the detention of a person who refuses to comply once 30 working days have passed since compulsory measures were taken, for up to 180 days, which may be extended. This is the period that gets misreported as detention for an unpaid debt.

No one may be detained under this rule if they are 18 or younger, if an approved medical report shows they cannot bear detention, if they are pregnant or the mother of a child not older than two, or if they are an ascendant or descendant of the applicant.

Criminal penalties also remain. Anyone who hides or smuggles assets, deliberately obstructs enforcement, refuses to disclose, or knowingly gives false information faces up to 3 years in prison, a fine of up to SAR 1 million, or both.

A debtor who squanders assets, where the assets are large, faces up to 15 years in prison, even if insolvency is proven.

Insolvency claims are still governed by the old law’s provisions, which the decree kept alive, and each case has to be assessed on its own facts.

What people say, and what the text says

• “The travel ban is automatic, and the maximum is 3 years.” Not accurate. It requires the creditor’s request, and 3 years is the limit for a single order; with extensions the total can reach 6 years.
• “Paper promissory notes stopped working overnight.” Wrong. Notes issued before the Law have a grace year after it took effect.
• “Cheques now have to be registered too.” The Law lists cheques among enforcement instruments with no such condition.
• “The Law names a specific platform for registering notes.” Neither the Law nor its Regulation names one. They require a national platform approved by the Ministry of Justice.
• “The daily fine is SAR 5,000 with no ceiling.” Article 18 of the Implementing Regulation of the Enforcement Law caps the total at the amount of the debt being enforced.
• “Protection of the home and car is new.” The protection is old. What is new is the sufficiency standard, the replacement allowance, and the addition of pensions and government subsidies.
• “Enforcement disputes must be decided within 15 days under Article 48 of the Law.” The period sits in Article 48 of the Implementing Regulation, not the Law. It is 15 working days from referral of the dispute to the court, unless necessity requires otherwise.
• “Old service suspensions have been lifted automatically.” We found no official text saying so. Check the status of your file before you rely on it.

If you hold an old instrument that may be running out of time, or an enforcement file opened before the new Law, now is the time to review it with a lawyer before your next step.