How many advertising and marketing agencies are in Saudi Arabia?
Advertising agencies, media buying and market research.
41.7K
active registrations list advertising & marketing agencies activities — 2.9% of classified registrations.
Ministry of Commerce data · Q3 2026 to 16 Sep
41,697 active commercial registrations in Saudi Arabia list advertising & marketing agencies activities as of 16 September 2026 — 2.9% of all classified registrations, the 28th-largest of the 64 sectors we track.
9,691 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +13% on 2024, in line with the +15% across all sectors.
Riyadh (18,884), Jeddah (7,899), Makkah (2,637) lead. Relative to its size, Jeddah is the most concentrated: advertising and marketing agencies make up 1.7× the share they hold nationally.
49.8% of these registrations are companies rather than sole proprietorships, and the median company reports SAR 50,000 of paid-up capital.
- Active registrations
- 41,697
- 2.9% of classified CRs
- Registered in 2025
- 9,691
- +13% on 2024 · all sectors +15%
- Companies
- 49.8%
- 20,759 of 41,697
- Median company capital
- SAR 50k
- Paid-up, main registrations
Where advertising and marketing agencies are registered
Column height: advertising and marketing agencies by city · select a highlighted city for its page
Leading cities
Registrations, with concentration vs the national average
- Riyadh18,8841.5×
- Jeddah7,8991.7×
- Makkah2,6371.3×
- Dammam1,8781.0×
- Madinah1,3490.8×
- Khobar1,2401.4×
- Buraydah5840.6×
- Taif5720.6×
- Hafar Al-Batin4620.6×
- Khamis Mushait3770.5×
Concentration compares the sector's share of a city's registrations with its share nationally; 1.0× is average. Highlighted cities are above 1.15×.
Advertising & marketing agencies: registrations by year of creation
Still-active registrations by the year they were created, 2015–2025. Older years read lower because cancelled registrations drop out.
Most common activities
Registrations listing each national activity code
- Marketing services on behalf of others24,605Activity code 731013
- Advertising agencies7,489Activity code 731011
- Neon sign assembly and installation3,804Activity code 731030
- Calligraphers and painters3,782Activity code 731012
- Market research and opinion polling1,875Activity code 732000
- Aerial advertising138Activity code 731014
- Other advertising and market research activities4Activity code 731090
Business structures
Legal form of registrations in the sector
- Sole proprietorship20,82850%
- LLC20,27348.6%
- JSC2540.6%
- SJSC1740.4%
- Foreign branch920.2%
- General partnership410.1%
- GCC branch18<0.1%
- Limited partnership17<0.1%
Common questions
How many advertising and marketing agencies are there in Saudi Arabia?
41,697 active commercial registrations list advertising & marketing agencies activities as of 16 September 2026, according to Ministry of Commerce data. A registration can list several activities, so it may also count in related sectors.
Which city has the most advertising and marketing agencies?
Riyadh, with 18,884 — 45.3% of the national total. Jeddah follows with 7,899.
Is the number of advertising and marketing agencies growing?
9,691 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +13% on 2024, in line with the +15% across all sectors.
Can a foreign investor set up in advertising & marketing agencies in Saudi Arabia?
Most activities are open to 100% foreign ownership with a MISA investment licence, though some carry conditions such as minimum capital, a Saudi partner or sector-regulator approval. Alpha Consultancy confirms the conditions for your exact activity code before you apply.
Figures are Alpha Consultancy's analysis of the Ministry of Commerce's open datasets on the Saudi Open Data Platform (open.data.gov.sa): the register of active commercial registrations (CRs) as of 16 September 2026.
Active CRsinclude main and branch registrations, as in the Ministry's own totals. Registered in a period counts CRs created in that period that were still active on 16 September 2026; registrations since cancelled are not in the source file, so older periods read lower than the number originally issued.
Partial quarter. The Ministry's Q3 2026 file is labelled as the quarter end but only contains registrations created up to 16 September 2026, so every figure here is as of that date and the latest quarter in the charts (marked *) is incomplete.
Sector figures cover the 1,443,322 active registrations (74.7%) that appear in the Ministry of Commerce's activity association file, which lists activities for registrations created up to 31 December 2025. Registrations created after that date are not yet classified. A registration counts once in each sector it is active in, so sectors overlap.
No individual business is identified on these pages; only aggregate counts are published.
Starting a business in advertising & marketing agencies?
We confirm the licence conditions for your exact activity code, then take you from MISA licence to commercial registration and municipal licence.