What is NCOSH?
The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health is a governmental council of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, created by Council of Ministers Resolution No. 379, dated 7/7/1443 AH, corresponding to February 2022. Its creation was the result of the National Strategic Program for Occupational Safety and Health, promoted by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development of the country.
It is a public governance and coordination body, not a professional association or a private entity. Its official domain is ncosh.gov.sa, corresponding to the Saudi administration.
It is important to distinguish NCOSH precisely from another entity with almost identical acronyms: National COSH (National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, with the domain coshnetwork.org) is a US network of local safety and health committees (COSH, Committees/Coalitions for Occupational Safety and Health) with a union and community base, and no connection whatsoever with the Saudi government council. Both share an acronym and part of the name, but they are organizations of a completely different nature, country of origin, and functions.
Purpose and scope of action
NCOSH declares its vision as leadership in building an integrated occupational safety and health ecosystem that strengthens collaboration among stakeholders, and its mission as building a national benchmark ecosystem in the field through the development of specific regulations.
Its scope of action is the entire Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Council positions itself as a governance body that coordinates the activities of ministries, regulatory agencies, and other agents within the national prevention system, rather than as a direct executor of inspection or surveillance on the ground.
Functions and main lines of work
Among the functions that NCOSH declares in its institutional documentation, the following stand out.
- Governance of the national ecosystem. It coordinates roles and responsibilities among the various public and private agents involved in occupational safety and health in the country.
- Oversight of national policy. Monitors the implementation of the Saudi National Occupational Safety and Health Policy.
- Adoption of international standards. Incorporates international occupational safety and health practices and standards, adapting them to the Saudi labor market.
- Regulatory development. Promotes regulation in areas such as occupational aptitude tests or the management of non-communicable diseases in the workplace.
- Electronic services. It maintains, among other resources, a platform for reporting and investigating workplace incidents and training programs at different levels of specialization.
Contribution to safety and health at work
NCOSH’s contribution is that of a public governance body: it articulates Saudi national occupational safety and health policy and facilitates the incorporation of internationally recognized practices into the country’s regulations, in a labor market with a strong presence of foreign workers and in a context of economic transformation linked to the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 strategy.
Unlike a labor inspection or a regulator with direct sanctioning power, NCOSH functions as a second-level public policy and coordination body, setting the general framework within which Saudi sectoral and control agencies operate.
Relationship with Sabentis
In October 2025, NCOSH and Sabentis publicly announced a joint exploration aimed at digitizing occupational safety and health in Saudi Arabia using AI-based prevention tools. According to Sabentis’s public statement, the collaboration was in the technical analysis and proof-of-concept phase, with the stated objective of strengthening a preventative culture, promoting technological innovation, and supporting the goals of the Vision 2030 strategy. No implementation timeline has been published.
Relationship with the ORP International Foundation
NCOSH represents in the ORP International Foundation’s institutional advisory committee a governance model different from that of technical bodies: it is a government council of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, created in 2022 to govern the national occupational safety and health ecosystem and coordinate the agents involved in that country, closer in its function to a policy coordination body than to a technical institute.
Practical application
For a prevention professional operating in Saudi Arabia or providing services to companies working there, NCOSH is the governance reference to consult to learn about current national policy and the international standards that the country is incorporating into its regulatory framework.
For those working with international occupational safety and health literature or databases, it is important not to confuse NCOSH with National COSH: when searching for information, it is advisable to always verify the domain (ncosh.gov.sa versus coshnetwork.org) and the country of origin before citing either of the two organizations.
