How many catering companies are in Saudi Arabia?
Event catering and contract food services.
40.3K
active registrations list catering & event food activities — 2.8% of classified registrations.
Ministry of Commerce data · Q3 2026 to 16 Sep
40,303 active commercial registrations in Saudi Arabia list catering & event food activities as of 16 September 2026 — 2.8% of all classified registrations, the 29th-largest of the 64 sectors we track.
11,487 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +36.3% on 2024, faster than the +15% across all sectors.
Riyadh (13,055), Jeddah (6,501), Makkah (5,404) lead. Relative to its size, Makkah is the most concentrated: catering companies make up 2.7× the share they hold nationally.
56.9% of these registrations are companies rather than sole proprietorships, and the median company reports SAR 100,000 of paid-up capital.
- Active registrations
- 40,303
- 2.8% of classified CRs
- Registered in 2025
- 11,487
- +36.3% on 2024 · all sectors +15%
- Companies
- 56.9%
- 22,925 of 40,303
- Median company capital
- SAR 100k
- Paid-up, main registrations
Where catering companies are registered
Column height: catering companies by city · select a highlighted city for its page
Leading cities
Registrations, with concentration vs the national average
- Riyadh13,0551.1×
- Jeddah6,5011.5×
- Makkah5,4042.7×
- Madinah2,1161.4×
- Dammam1,5280.9×
- Khobar1,0621.2×
- Taif8651.0×
- Buraydah6290.6×
- Khamis Mushait5380.8×
- Jubail4610.4×
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×.
Catering & event food: 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
- Banquet catering kitchens for events13,630Activity code 562111
- Food service contractors10,075Activity code 562901
- Concession canteens and cafeterias in workplaces, hospitals and schools9,296Activity code 562903
- Concession catering at sports and similar venues2,821Activity code 562902
- Airline catering contractors2,650Activity code 562904
- Hajj and Umrah catering contractors1,831Activity code 562112
Business structures
Legal form of registrations in the sector
- LLC22,49255.8%
- Sole proprietorship17,34143%
- JSC2800.7%
- SJSC820.2%
- General partnership360.1%
- Limited partnership350.1%
- Foreign branch300.1%
- GCC branch7<0.1%
Common questions
How many catering companies are there in Saudi Arabia?
40,303 active commercial registrations list catering & event food 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 catering companies?
Riyadh, with 13,055 — 32.4% of the national total. Jeddah follows with 6,501.
Is the number of catering companies growing?
11,487 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +36.3% on 2024, faster than the +15% across all sectors.
Can a foreign investor set up in catering & event food 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 catering & event food?
We confirm the licence conditions for your exact activity code, then take you from MISA licence to commercial registration and municipal licence.