Active registrationsColumn height: active commercial registrations
01/
A register of 1.9 million — growing more slowly
1,912,733
active commercial registrations on 30 June 2026
On 30 June 2026 the Ministry of Commerce's register held 1,912,733 active commercial registrations. Two-thirds (1,278,333) are sole proprietorships — 'establishments' registered directly to an individual — and 630,356 are companies. Branches of GCC and foreign companies add 4,044. About 17% of all registrations are branch CRs attached to a main registration.
The register is still growing, but new issuance has slowed. The Ministry's quarterly bulletins counted more than 128,000 new registrations in Q3 2025 and 123,000 in Q4 2025, then just over 71,000 in Q2 2026, against more than 80,000 a year earlier. The register itself tells the same story: 236,976 registrations created in the second half of 2025 were still active in June 2026, compared with 133,986 created in the first half of 2026.
The chart counts registrations by the quarter they were created. Registrations cancelled since then are not in the source file, so earlier quarters read lower than what was originally issued — about 95% of Q2 2026 registrations and roughly 70% of those issued in 2024 were still active at the end of June.
New commercial registrations by quarter of creation
Still-active CRs, Saudi Arabia. Cancelled registrations are excluded, so earlier quarters read lower.
02/
Where new businesses are forming
22.8%
of new registrations went to the Makkah region, against 20.7% of the stock
Riyadh remains the largest region by a wide margin, with 663,253 active registrations and 22,099 new ones in the quarter. But its share of new formation (32.8%) is below its share of the register (34.7%), and the Eastern Province shows the same gap (14.1% against 15.8%).
The Makkah region is where new formation is concentrating. It took 22.8% of the quarter's new registrations against 20.7% of the stock. Makkah city alone added 5,484 registrations — 8.1% of the national total from a city that holds 5.1% of active registrations. Measured against its existing base, that is the fastest formation of any major city: new registrations equal to 5.6% of its stock in a single quarter, against 3.5% nationally.
Najran is the quarter's outlier. The region holds 3.1% of active registrations but took 4.8% of new ones, and it has an unusually high share of companies for its size: 24,811 LLCs, close to the 28,297 in Qassim, a region with well over twice the population. The open data does not say why; it is a pattern worth watching rather than explaining.
Share of new registrations vs share of all registrations
A positive gap means the region is gaining weight in new business formation
| Region | All CRs | New CRs | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Makkah | 20.7% | 22.8% | +2.1 pts |
| Najran | 3.1% | 4.8% | +1.6 pts |
| Madinah | 4.9% | 5.2% | +0.3 pts |
| Asir | 5% | 5.2% | +0.2 pts |
| Hail | 2.3% | 2.5% | +0.1 pts |
| Jazan | 3.3% | 3.3% | +0.1 pts |
| Northern Borders | 0.9% | 0.9% | +0.0 pts |
| Qassim | 5.3% | 5.2% | -0.1 pts |
| Al Baha | 0.7% | 0.5% | -0.2 pts |
| Tabuk | 2.2% | 1.9% | -0.3 pts |
| Al Jouf | 1.1% | 0.8% | -0.4 pts |
| Eastern Province | 15.8% | 14.1% | -1.6 pts |
| Riyadh | 34.7% | 32.8% | -1.9 pts |
03/
How founders are structuring
47.5%
of active companies are single-person entities
Two in three new registrations are still sole proprietorships (44,943 in the quarter). Companies made up 33.2% of new registrations, the same share they hold of the register, so the long-run shift from establishments to companies is not accelerating in the data. The mix varies sharply by city: 71% of registrations in Jubail are companies and 52% in Riyadh, against about one in nine in Jazan city.
Within companies, the limited liability company is close to universal: 608,579 of 630,356 active companies are LLCs, and 22,207 of the quarter's 22,344 new companies. Nearly half of all companies (47.5%) are single-person entities, and 5.6% are holding companies.
The simplified joint stock company, introduced by the 2023 Companies Law for venture-backed businesses, remains niche: 2,164 are active and 89 were created in Q2 2026 — still more than four times the number of new traditional joint stock companies (19). More than half of all SJSCs (1,165) are registered in Riyadh city.
New registrations by legal form
Created in the quarter, still active at quarter end
- Sole proprietorship44,94366.8%
- LLC22,20733%
- SJSC890.1%
- Foreign branch340.1%
- General partnership24<0.1%
- JSC19<0.1%
- GCC branch8<0.1%
- Limited partnership5<0.1%
04/
Capital: small by default, with regional exceptions
51.3%
of companies report paid-up capital under SAR 10,000
Most Saudi companies are registered with very little paid-up capital. The median across 543,981 companies with a main registration is SAR 5,000; 51.3% report under SAR 10,000. At the other end, 7.3% report SAR 500,000–5 million and 6.2% report SAR 5 million or more.
The median varies sharply by region. In Riyadh and the Eastern Province it is SAR 5,000; in the Makkah region it is SAR 100,000, driven by Jeddah, where the median company reports SAR 100,000 of capital. Madinah (SAR 40,000) and Jazan (SAR 50,000) also sit well above the national figure.
05/
What this means for foreign investors
4,044
active branches of foreign and GCC companies
The open register does not record shareholder nationality, so foreign-owned LLCs cannot be separated from Saudi-owned ones. What it does show is the branch route: 3,497 branches of foreign companies and 547 branches of GCC companies were active at the end of June, and 42 new ones were registered in the quarter. Two-thirds of them (2,667) are in Riyadh city, and 574 in Jeddah.
For most foreign investors the practical choice is between a single-person or multi-shareholder LLC and an SJSC for venture-backed businesses, with a branch where the parent needs to operate under its own identity. Riyadh remains the default for government-facing and regional headquarters activity, while the Makkah region — Jeddah and Makkah city in particular — is where new formation is currently growing fastest.