How many food and beverage wholesalers are in Saudi Arabia?
Wholesale of food, beverages and tobacco.
56K
active registrations list food & beverage wholesalers activities — 3.9% of classified registrations.
Ministry of Commerce data · Q3 2026 to 16 Sep
55,955 active commercial registrations in Saudi Arabia list food & beverage wholesalers activities as of 16 September 2026 — 3.9% of all classified registrations, the 18th-largest of the 64 sectors we track.
10,725 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +10.8% on 2024, in line with the +15% across all sectors.
Riyadh (17,254), Jeddah (10,112), Makkah (3,455) lead. Relative to its size, Jeddah is the most concentrated: food and beverage wholesalers make up 1.6× the share they hold nationally.
41.1% of these registrations are companies rather than sole proprietorships, and the median company reports SAR 100,000 of paid-up capital.
- Active registrations
- 55,955
- 3.9% of classified CRs
- Registered in 2025
- 10,725
- +10.8% on 2024 · all sectors +15%
- Companies
- 41.1%
- 22,974 of 55,955
- Median company capital
- SAR 100k
- Paid-up, main registrations
Where food and beverage wholesalers are registered
Column height: food and beverage wholesalers by city · select a highlighted city for its page
Leading cities
Registrations, with concentration vs the national average
- Riyadh17,2541.0×
- Jeddah10,1121.6×
- Makkah3,4551.2×
- Madinah2,9661.4×
- Dammam2,6171.1×
- Taif1,1921.0×
- Buraydah1,1590.8×
- Khobar1,1250.9×
- Khamis Mushait1,0931.1×
- Najran7850.5×
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×.
Food & beverage wholesalers: 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
- Food and beverage wholesale7,764Activity code 463076
- Fruit wholesale5,481Activity code 463011
- Bottled water wholesale3,402Activity code 463071
- Food and beverage distribution centers3,221Activity code 463077
- Spice wholesale3,081Activity code 463054
- Bakery products wholesale2,413Activity code 463060
- Meat wholesale2,401Activity code 463041
- Coffee and tea wholesale2,272Activity code 463053
Business structures
Legal form of registrations in the sector
- Sole proprietorship32,95958.9%
- LLC22,10639.5%
- JSC6731.2%
- SJSC810.1%
- General partnership600.1%
- Limited partnership540.1%
- GCC branch20<0.1%
- Foreign branch2<0.1%
Food & beverage wholesalers by city
More in retail & trade
Common questions
How many food and beverage wholesalers are there in Saudi Arabia?
55,955 active commercial registrations list food & beverage wholesalers 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 food and beverage wholesalers?
Riyadh, with 17,254 — 30.8% of the national total. Jeddah follows with 10,112.
Is the number of food and beverage wholesalers growing?
10,725 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +10.8% on 2024, in line with the +15% across all sectors.
Can a foreign investor set up in food & beverage wholesalers 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 food & beverage wholesalers?
We confirm the licence conditions for your exact activity code, then take you from MISA licence to commercial registration and municipal licence.