The Sunday-Thursday Work Week in the Middle East

Across much of the Middle East the working week runs Sunday to Thursday, with the weekend falling on Friday and Saturday. For anyone used to a Monday-Friday calendar this inverts the familiar rhythm: Sunday is a normal working day, and Friday, not Saturday, is the start of the weekend. Before going further, one point that catches out older references: the United Arab Emirates' federal government does not use this pattern. Since 1 January 2022 it has worked Monday to Friday, with a short Friday and a Saturday-Sunday weekend.

This guide covers the Sunday-Thursday region country by country, sets out the UAE's current schedule, and works through the practical problems the pattern creates: how a deadline behaves when it lands on a Friday, how many working days a US-Gulf relationship actually shares, and how regional banking follows the local week. For the wider global picture, this guide sits under the broader working week around the world overview. Each country fact below is linked to its government source in the Sources section at the end.

The UAE is the exception: a Saturday-Sunday weekend since 2022

Lead with this, because the UAE changed its government week in 2022 and references written before then describe the old one. Since 1 January 2022 the UAE federal government has worked a four-and-a-half-day week: 7:30 am to 3:30 pm from Monday to Thursday and 7:30 am to 12:00 pm on Fridays, with Saturday and Sunday as the official weekend. The governments of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah adopted a similar system, while Sharjah's government works Monday to Thursday and takes Friday, Saturday and Sunday off.

If you schedule a Dubai or Abu Dhabi government counterpart as though Saturday were a working day there, you will be wrong: Saturday is part of the weekend, and Friday is a short day. Use the UAE business day calculator, which counts Saturday and Sunday as the weekend.

Country by country

The markets where a government rule sets a Sunday-Thursday week, with a Friday-Saturday weekend, include the following.

Saudi Arabia. A royal order of 23 June 2013 set Sunday to Thursday as the official working days, and Friday and Saturday as the weekly holiday, for ministries, government bodies, financial institutions, the central bank, the Capital Market Authority and the stock exchange. The private sector follows the Labour Law, which makes Friday the weekly rest day for all workers and lets the employer, after notifying the labour office, substitute another day for some of its workers. See the Saudi Arabia business day calculator for the Friday-Saturday weekend applied to working-day counts.

Egypt. The government's weekly holiday is Friday and Saturday, under the decision that made Saturday an official holiday across state administrative units, so the government works Sunday to Thursday. Private employers are bound by the Labour Law of 2025, which requires at least 24 full hours of weekly rest after at most six consecutive working days without naming the day. The Egypt business day calculator counts Friday and Saturday as the weekend.

Qatar. Qatar's Emiri Decision No. 57 of 2025 sets the state's working days as Sunday to Thursday, with Friday and Saturday as the weekly holiday. The Qatar business day calculator applies that weekend.

Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, and Iraq. Kuwait's Council of Ministers made Saturday a weekly rest day in place of Thursday from 1 September 2007, and the Central Bank of Kuwait's banking hall opens Sunday to Thursday. Bahrain's national portal lists Friday and Saturday as the weekly holidays, with most government entities working Sunday to Thursday. Oman moved the weekend to Friday and Saturday for employees in both the public and private sectors from 1 May 2013, by a directive of Sultan Qaboos announced in a Council of Ministers statement. Jordan's government portal states that government departments, banks and most other offices close on Friday and Saturday. Iraq's Official Holidays Law of 2024 makes every Friday and Saturday a holiday, while allowing the Council of Ministers to restore work on Saturdays. These countries do not have dedicated calculators on this site, but the working-day logic is the same as Saudi Arabia or Qatar: count Sunday through Thursday and exclude the local public holidays.

Israel: more than one working week

Israel does not have a single working week, so it fits this guide only in part. Government ministries on the five-day week work Sunday to Thursday, and ministries on a six-day week work Sunday to Friday. That is paragraph 31.111 of the Civil Service Regulations (the Takshir), read here in the copy on the National Insurance Institute's site, whose page footer is dated 29 May 2022. The Bank of Israel's payment system runs on the longer week: its ZAHAV RTGS calendar for 2026 says the system's operating days are, as a rule, Sunday through Friday, and that on a short business day, meaning a Friday or a holiday eve, the banking business day ends at 14:00 rather than 18:30. The Bank's Markets Department list for 2026 leaves Saturdays out of its holiday list, includes two Sundays in it (13 September, the second day of Rosh Hashanah, and 20 September, the eve of Yom Kippur), and says the Bank works only until 13:15 on Fridays.

The Israel business day calculator counts the Bank's week: Sunday to Friday, with Saturday the only weekly rest day. A short Friday or holiday eve counts as a full business day there. A deadline that runs on the ministries' Sunday-to-Thursday week is therefore not this count. For that week, choose Sunday to Thursday (government ministries) under Working week in the calculator: Friday then counts as a weekend day alongside Saturday, and the holidays stay the same.

Why Friday and Saturday

Friday is the weekly rest day that Saudi Arabia's Labour Law names for all workers. The decisions that added Saturday give economic reasons in their own words. Saudi Arabia's 2013 royal order cites the Kingdom's economic position and its international and regional obligations; Oman's 2013 statement speaks of continuity with the outside world on economic matters, especially banking; and Kuwait's 2007 decision was meant to ease the problems caused by differing weekends with countries that rest on Saturday and Sunday, particularly in economic matters. Israel is different again: the Bank of Israel's payment system operates Sunday to Friday, so Saturday is the only day of the week on which it is closed.

When a deadline lands on a Friday

The most common practical question is what happens to a deadline that falls on a weekend day in the region. If a contract gives a Saudi counterparty until a date that turns out to be a Friday, that day is part of the Saudi weekend, so the deadline does not fall on a working day. Whether it moves depends on the contract and the law that governs it; where the agreed rule is to roll a weekend due date to the next working day, the next working day in Saudi Arabia is the following Sunday. The same applies to a Saturday deadline. The mechanics are identical to a Monday-Friday country rolling a Saturday or Sunday due date to Monday, but the days involved are different, and assuming the wrong weekend produces a due date that is off by the whole weekend. The Saudi Arabia business day calculator counts Sunday to Thursday and skips the Friday-Saturday weekend, so a count that would end on a rest day resolves to the next working day.

Cross-border scheduling: the four-day overlap

The practical consequence of the Sunday-Thursday week is that it overlaps a Monday-Friday partner on four working days, not five. A US company working with a Saudi, Egyptian, or Qatari counterpart shares Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday: all four are working days on both sides. The two days that do not line up sit at the edges of the week. Sunday, a normal working day in Riyadh, is a US rest day, and Friday, a US working day, is a Gulf rest day. Israel does not follow this arithmetic where the Bank of Israel's week applies. Its ZAHAV payment system operates Sunday to Friday, so a Monday-Friday partner shares Monday to Friday with it, Friday being a short business day there, and only Sunday is one-sided. An Israeli ministry on the five-day week shares Monday to Thursday, as the Gulf does.

That four-day overlap shapes how cross-border work should be planned. Anything that needs both parties active, a live call, a same-day approval, a back-and-forth negotiation, belongs on Monday to Thursday. Sunday and Friday are one-sided days: each team is at work on one of them, but the other team is not there to answer, so a request sent on either day waits for the next shared day. A project that depends on daily synchronous contact therefore has four live days a week, not five, and timelines should be built on that basis rather than on an assumed five-day overlap.

It also helps to use the one-sided days deliberately. A Monday-Friday team can send on its Friday anything the Gulf side needs when its week opens on Sunday, and the Gulf side can use its Sunday to prepare what the Western partner will pick up on Monday. Naming who owns each handoff, and on which day, turns the two one-sided days from a gap into a predictable rhythm rather than a weekly scramble to find a shared hour.

Banking and payment cutoffs

Several of the region's banking weeks run Sunday to Thursday. Saudi Arabia's 2013 royal order put financial institutions and the central bank on it, the Central Bank of Kuwait's banking hall opens Sunday to Thursday, and Jordan's government portal lists banks among the offices that close on Friday and Saturday. That creates a predictable trap for partners on a Monday-Friday calendar. A payment initiated from a Monday-Friday country late on a Thursday arrives as the Gulf weekend begins, so it may not settle until the receiving banks reopen on Sunday. In the other direction, a payment sent from the Gulf on its Sunday reaches a Monday-Friday market on that market's weekend and may wait until Monday. The two weekends overlap only on Saturday, so between them they close three days of every week: Monday to Thursday are the only days both banking weeks share. For anything time-sensitive, count the cutoff against the destination's banking week and allow for the weekend gap on whichever side it falls.

Ramadan and the regional calendar

Two regional features compound the work-week effect and are worth planning around. The first is Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, when several labour laws shorten the working day for the whole month. Saudi Arabia's Labour Law caps Muslim workers at six hours a day or 36 a week during Ramadan, against eight and 48 normally; Qatar's Labour Law sets 36 hours a week at six a day in Ramadan, against 48 and eight; and the UAE reduces private-sector working hours by two hours a day. A project scheduled across Ramadan should assume reduced hours even on working days, not just the usual Friday-Saturday weekend. Because Ramadan follows the Islamic lunar calendar, its Gregorian dates move earlier every year, so check them for the specific year you are planning.

The second is the set of public holidays themselves. The major Islamic holidays, Eid al-Fitr at the end of Ramadan and Eid al-Adha, are multi-day closures that also move on the Gregorian calendar from year to year; where a government has not yet announced the dates, this site marks them as approximate. National days and other fixed-date holidays layer on top of these. The practical consequence is that the Friday-Saturday weekend is only the baseline; for an accurate working-day count in any of these countries you also need the year's holiday calendar, which the country calculators on this site maintain. Combine the right weekend with the right holiday set, and a regional deadline becomes reliable rather than a source of avoidable surprises. When in doubt on a high-stakes date, confirm directly with your counterpart.

FAQ

Which Middle Eastern countries use a Sunday-Thursday work week?

Government rules set a Sunday-Thursday working week with a Friday-Saturday weekend in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, and Iraq, and Egypt's government works Sunday to Thursday as well. Israel has more than one week: government ministries on the five-day week work Sunday to Thursday (Civil Service Regulations, paragraph 31.111, in the National Insurance Institute's copy dated 29 May 2022), while the Bank of Israel's ZAHAV payment system operates Sunday to Friday, and this site's Israel calculator counts that Sunday-to-Friday week with Saturday the only weekly rest day. The UAE federal government does not: since 1 January 2022 its weekend has been Saturday and Sunday.

Does the UAE still use a Sunday-Thursday week?

No. Since 1 January 2022 the UAE federal government has worked Monday to Thursday from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm and Friday from 7:30 am to 12:00 pm, with Saturday and Sunday as the official weekend. Most emirate governments adopted a similar system, and Sharjah's government works Monday to Thursday with a Friday-to-Sunday weekend.

If a deadline falls on a Friday in Saudi Arabia, when is it actually due?

Friday is part of the Saudi weekend, so a deadline landing on a Friday does not fall on a working day. Whether it moves depends on the contract and the governing law; where the rule is to roll a weekend due date to the next working day, that day in Saudi Arabia is the following Sunday. The same applies to a Saturday deadline. A business day calculator set to Saudi Arabia skips the Friday-Saturday weekend automatically.

How many working days do a US and a Gulf business share each week?

Four: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Sunday is a working day in the Gulf but a US rest day, and Friday is a US working day but a Gulf rest day, so on those two days only one side is at work. Plan synchronous coordination for Monday to Thursday.

Why is the Middle Eastern weekend on Friday and Saturday?

Friday is the weekly rest day Saudi Arabia's Labour Law names for all workers, and the decisions that added Saturday give economic reasons: Saudi Arabia's 2013 royal order cites the Kingdom's economic position and its international and regional obligations, Oman's 2013 statement continuity with the outside world on economic matters, especially banking, and Kuwait's 2007 decision the problems caused by differing weekends. Israel is a separate case: the Bank of Israel's ZAHAV payment system operates Sunday to Friday, which leaves Saturday as its only weekly rest day.

Sources