¶ Reference — glossary
The vocabulary of Saudi market entry.
Every acronym an entering company meets, defined plainly and linked to where it matters. MISA, ZATCA, Nitaqat, RHQ, zakat — the terms that decide the paperwork, in one place.
01The terms
24 terms
- Articles of Association
- The constitutional document of a company, drafted and notarised before the Commercial Registration is issued. It requires both the licence and attested corporate documents from the parent.Read the related brief →
- Attestation / legalisation
- The multi-office chain that makes a foreign document legally recognisable in the Kingdom: notarisation, foreign-ministry authentication, Saudi embassy attestation, then recognition and certified Arabic translation. Usually the longest single lead time in an entry.Read the related brief →
- Baladiya / municipal licence
- Municipal licensing of premises, required for a physical location and typically run in parallel with the banking wait rather than after it.Read the related brief →
- CIT — Corporate Income Tax
- Levied at 20% on the profit share attributable to non-GCC ownership. For a mixed-ownership entity it applies alongside zakat, each on a different base.Read the related brief →
- Companies Law (2023)
- The modernised corporate-law framework governing company forms, governance, and formation in the Kingdom.Read the related brief →
- CR — Commercial Registration
- The entity's legal 'birth certificate', issued after the Articles of Association are notarised. Trading, banking, and most registrations depend on it.Read the related brief →
- GOSI
- The General Organization for Social Insurance — social-insurance registration required once an entity employs staff.Read the related brief →
- ISIC / activity code
- The international activity classification your business is mapped to. It gates licence scope, required approvals, and your Saudization band — precision here is the cheapest speed you will buy.Read the related brief →
- KYC — Know Your Customer
- The bank's diligence on a foreign-owned entity: full ownership tree, source-of-funds evidence, attested documents, and intended-activity profile. Assembled early it resolves in one onboarding cycle; left late it can take several.Read the related brief →
- Local content
- The weighting given to Saudi labour, materials, and in-Kingdom value-add in procurement scoring. A designable variable — sourcing, hiring, and partnership structure all move the score.Read the related brief →
- MISA — Ministry of Investment
- The authority that issues the foreign-investment licence permitting up to 100% foreign ownership across most activities (a short negative list applies). The MISA licence precedes commercial registration.Read the related brief →
- Negative list
- The short list of activities where foreign ownership is restricted or excluded. Most activities sit outside it and permit up to 100% foreign ownership.Read the related brief →
- Nitaqat
- The framework that sets and enforces Saudi-national employment expectations, banded by sector and company size. Your band governs operational privileges such as visas, transfers, and permit renewals.Read the related brief →
- PIF — Public Investment Fund
- The Kingdom's sovereign wealth fund and the sponsor of many giga-projects; a major driver of demand across construction, systems, and services.Read the related brief →
- Prequalification
- Vetting for technical capability, financial standing, and track record that puts a supplier on a programme's list before specific packages are tendered. Access to major-project work runs through it.Read the related brief →
- RHQ — Regional Headquarters
- A regime offering a 30-year incentive package (including 0% CIT and 0% withholding tax on qualifying activities, announced December 2023) plus conditioned government-procurement access, in exchange for genuine regional substance located in the Kingdom.Read the related brief →
- SAMA / CMA
- The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) and the Capital Market Authority (CMA) — the principal regulators of banking, insurance, and capital markets.Read the related brief →
- Saudization
- The broad policy of increasing Saudi-national participation in the workforce, operationalised through Nitaqat bands. A hiring-plan input from the first headcount, not a year-end exercise.Read the related brief →
- UBO — Ultimate Beneficial Owner
- The natural person(s) who ultimately own or control an entity. Establishing the full ownership tree up to the UBO is central to bank onboarding and compliance.Read the related brief →
- VAT — Value Added Tax
- A transactional tax at 15% on most goods and services, collected through the supply chain and independent of an entity's profit or ownership. Administered by ZATCA.Read the related brief →
- Vision 2030
- The Kingdom's national transformation programme and the policy frame beneath the reforms, incentives, and giga-projects that shape the entry landscape.Read the related brief →
- WHT — Withholding Tax
- Tax withheld on certain payments to non-residents. Qualifying RHQ activities carry a 0% withholding rate under the RHQ package.Read the related brief →
- Zakat
- An Islamic levy of ~2.5% applied to the Saudi/GCC ownership share, computed on the zakat base (not accounting profit). Administered by ZATCA.Read the related brief →
- ZATCA
- The Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority — administers zakat, corporate income tax, VAT, and customs, and handles registration and filing for each.Read the related brief →
No term matches that.
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