Guide
MISA investment registration: requirements, timing and the unpublished fee
Updated
Registration with the Ministry of Investment is the gate. Everything else, the commercial register, the bank account, the visas, follows from it, and its cost is the one number the ministry declines to publish in advance.
What registration is
The service enables an establishment to register for investment in the Kingdom under the Investment Law and its Executive Regulations. Registration is available for approved economic activities open to investment, classified by ISIC4 code, subject to the requirements for the activity category. The Investor Guide gives an estimated processing time of 10 working days (Ministry of Investment, Investor Guide, 13th edition).
The documents
- A copy of the commercial register of the participating foreign establishment, certified by the Saudi embassy.
- Financial statements for the last fiscal year of the foreign company applying, authenticated by the Saudi embassy.
- A copy of the commercial registration of the foreign partner, certified by the Saudi embassy, with the parent company's registration attached where the parent's nationality differs from that of the applying company.
- A copy of the identity document where a partner is an individual holding the nationality of a GCC country and their information is not in the Absher system.
- The requirements specific to the activity being registered, set out in section 05.00 of the guide.
- Holders of the Special Residency Permit are exempt from the first three requirements above.
Why there is no fee on this page
The Investor Guide's Service Fees box for investment registration does not contain an amount. What it contains is a commitment: the applicant commits to paying the registration fee later, as determined by the ministry upon approval of the application, and payment must be made within the notified deadline or the registration is considered void. The guide states that deadline as fifteen business days from notification in its description of the registration service, and as thirty days in its summary table of filing categories.
Any site quoting you a firm MISA registration fee is quoting something the ministry has not published. We are not going to add to that. Ask your adviser what the ministry has charged on recent applications in your activity, and treat it as an estimate until the notification arrives.
The filing categories
- Regular registration of establishments
- The standard route for approved economic activities open to investment.
- Entrepreneurial establishments
- For start-ups building innovative or emerging technology companies, requiring a letter of support or proof of project approval from a Saudi university or accredited business incubator.
- Temporary registration for a government contract
- For foreign companies holding a government or semi-government contract. The registration ends when the contract does.
- Scientific and technical office
- For foreign companies with a Saudi agent or distributor wishing to provide technical services to agents, distributors and consumers of their products.
Every one of these categories carries the same wording on fees: determined by the ministry when the application is approved, payable within the notified deadline.