Alpha Consultancy
Retail & trade · sector data

How many car dealers are in Saudi Arabia?

New and used vehicle dealers.

12.8K

active registrations list car dealers activities — 0.9% of classified registrations.

Ministry of Commerce data · Q3 2026 to 16 Sep

12,754 active commercial registrations in Saudi Arabia list car dealers activities as of 16 September 2026 — 0.9% of all classified registrations, the 49th-largest of the 64 sectors we track.

2,738 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +55.6% on 2024, faster than the +15% across all sectors.

Riyadh (4,876), Jeddah (2,022) and Dammam (676) lead. Relative to its size, Jeddah is the most concentrated: car dealers make up 1.4× the share they hold nationally.

57.6% of these registrations are companies rather than sole proprietorships, and the median company reports SAR 100,000 of paid-up capital.

Active registrations
12,754
0.9% of classified CRs
Registered in 2025
2,738
+55.6% on 2024 · all sectors +15%
Companies
57.6%
7,348 of 12,754
Median company capital
SAR 100k
Paid-up, main registrations
By city

Where car dealers are registered

Loading map…

Column height: car dealers by city · select a highlighted city for its page

Leading cities

Registrations, with concentration vs the national average

  1. Riyadh4,8761.3×
  2. Jeddah2,0221.4×
  3. Dammam6761.2×
  4. Makkah5780.9×
  5. Madinah4851.0×
  6. Buraydah3201.0×
  7. Najran2770.8×
  8. Khobar2580.9×
  9. Taif2060.7×
  10. Hafar Al-Batin1940.8×

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×.

Car dealers: 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.

By region

Active registrations in the sector

  1. Riyadh5,366
  2. Makkah2,953
  3. Eastern Province1,602
  4. Madinah603
  5. Qassim498
  6. Asir493
  7. Najran340
  8. Jazan235
  9. Tabuk182
  10. Hail164
  11. Al Jouf146
  12. Northern Borders112
  13. Al Baha60

Most common activities

Registrations listing each national activity code

  1. Wholesale and retail of new passenger cars3,144Activity code 451011
  2. Wholesale and retail of used heavy trucks1,912Activity code 451014
  3. Wholesale and retail of used passenger cars1,649Activity code 451012
  4. Wholesale and retail of new heavy trucks1,347Activity code 451013
  5. Light vehicle sales agents on commission1,133Activity code 451021
  6. Heavy vehicle sales agents on commission1,005Activity code 451022
  7. Wholesale and retail of new caravans and campers830Activity code 451015
  8. Wholesale and retail of used caravans and campers664Activity code 451016

Business structures

Legal form of registrations in the sector

  1. LLC7,05055.3%
  2. Sole proprietorship5,40142.3%
  3. JSC2001.6%
  4. SJSC430.3%
  5. General partnership310.2%
  6. Limited partnership240.2%
  7. GCC branch4<0.1%
  8. Foreign branch1<0.1%

Car dealers by city

Riyadh (4,876)Jeddah (2,022)Dammam (676)Makkah (578)Madinah (485)Buraydah (320)Najran (277)Khobar (258)Taif (206)Hafar Al-Batin (194)Khamis Mushait (193)

More in retail & trade

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All Saudi company statistics
FAQs

Common questions

How many car dealers are there in Saudi Arabia?

12,754 active commercial registrations list car dealers 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 car dealers?

Riyadh, with 4,876 — 38.2% of the national total. Jeddah follows with 2,022.

Is the number of car dealers growing?

2,738 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +55.6% on 2024, faster than the +15% across all sectors.

Can a foreign investor set up in car dealers 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.

Source & method

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 car dealers?

We confirm the licence conditions for your exact activity code, then take you from MISA licence to commercial registration and municipal licence.

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