The new framework: 100% ownership, registration not licensing
Under the new Investment Law (Royal Decree M/19), in force since February 2025, foreign and local investors now sit under one framework with equal treatment. The old foreign-investment 'license' regime was abolished and replaced by a 'registration' with the Ministry of Investment (MISA); 100% foreign ownership is available in most activities — except those on the excluded (negative) list — with no Saudi partner required.
Two further shifts complete the picture: an LLC can now be formed by a single shareholder, and foreign-owned entities may own commercial and industrial real estate in designated areas from 21 January 2026 (under a separate law, M/14).
The 7-step path from registration to operations
- 1) Investor eligibility check (parent company or qualifying track record).
- 2) MISA registration (this replaced the old license).
- 3) Trade-name reservation.
- 4) Incorporation: Articles of Association + Commercial Registration via the Saudi Business Center.
- 5) Government registrations: GOSI, ZATCA, MHRSD, Qiwa, and Muqeem.
- 6) Corporate bank account.
- 7) General Manager (GM) visa and residency issuance.
Timeline: where the time actually goes
Setting up a foreign-owned LLC typically takes 6 to 12 weeks. Issuing the Commercial Registration itself is fast, but the longest — and least accelerable — stage is attesting the parent company's documents in the home country (embassy and MoFA legalisation) plus certified translation. Preparing those documents early is what actually saves weeks.
The real cost: modest government fees, the rest is elsewhere
Inflated figures for 'government setup fees' are common; the truth is simpler. For a standard LLC the government tariffs are modest: trade-name reservation (200 SAR Arabic / 500 foreign) and the Unified Invoice bundling the Commercial Registration, first-year Chamber membership and municipality license (about 1,825–2,100 SAR) — usually 2,000 to 8,000 SAR in total, depending on activity and premises. The investment-license fee (historically about 12,000 SAR/yr) is currently waived, but provision for its return.
The larger cost isn't government at all: attesting the parent company's documents and certified translation (country-dependent), then your first-year operating base — rent, payroll, GOSI and medical insurance. We pass every government fee through at actual cost with no markup, and price the rest against signed quotations, not estimates.
Government fees are passed at cost; the rest is priced against signed quotations.
One execution partner beats five middlemen
The journey cuts across several authorities and systems, and running it through separate agents (license, incorporation, tax, hiring, banking) doubles the time and fragments accountability. A single execution partner that owns the process end-to-end keeps documents consistent, responses to authorities fast, and delivers a ready-to-operate entity with no gaps.