How many car rental companies are in Saudi Arabia?
Rental of cars, trucks and buses without driver, including app-based rental.
11.1K
active registrations list car rental activities — 0.8% of classified registrations.
Ministry of Commerce data · Q3 2026 to 16 Sep
11,132 active commercial registrations in Saudi Arabia list car rental activities as of 16 September 2026 — 0.8% of all classified registrations, the 53rd-largest of the 64 sectors we track.
2,930 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +37% on 2024, faster than the +15% across all sectors.
Riyadh (4,722), Jeddah (1,619) and Makkah (671) lead. Relative to its size, Khobar is the most concentrated: car rental companies make up 1.4× the share they hold nationally.
73.5% of these registrations are companies rather than sole proprietorships, and the median company reports SAR 100,000 of paid-up capital.
- Active registrations
- 11,132
- 0.8% of classified CRs
- Registered in 2025
- 2,930
- +37% on 2024 · all sectors +15%
- Companies
- 73.5%
- 8,183 of 11,132
- Median company capital
- SAR 100k
- Paid-up, main registrations
Where car rental companies are registered
Column height: car rental companies by city · select a highlighted city for its page
Leading cities
Registrations, with concentration vs the national average
- Riyadh4,7221.4×
- Jeddah1,6191.3×
- Makkah6711.2×
- Dammam5971.2×
- Madinah3910.9×
- Khobar3511.4×
- Buraydah2941.1×
- Jubail2640.8×
- Taif1610.7×
- Khamis Mushait1340.7×
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 rental: 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
- Passenger car rental without driver3,339Activity code 771010
- Truck rental without driver2,243Activity code 771020
- Online car rental brokers1,930Activity code 771042
- Car rental brokers1,890Activity code 771041
- Bus rental without driver1,326Activity code 771030
- Online car rental399Activity code 771043
- Other vehicle rental without driver5Activity code 771090
Business structures
Legal form of registrations in the sector
- LLC7,82670.3%
- Sole proprietorship2,93526.4%
- JSC2982.7%
- SJSC310.3%
- General partnership180.2%
- Limited partnership100.1%
- Foreign branch100.1%
- GCC branch4<0.1%
Common questions
How many car rental companies are there in Saudi Arabia?
11,132 active commercial registrations list car rental 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 rental companies?
Riyadh, with 4,722 — 42.4% of the national total. Jeddah follows with 1,619.
Is the number of car rental companies growing?
2,930 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +37% on 2024, faster than the +15% across all sectors.
Can a foreign investor set up in car rental 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 car rental?
We confirm the licence conditions for your exact activity code, then take you from MISA licence to commercial registration and municipal licence.