How many recruitment agencies are in Saudi Arabia?
Recruitment, staffing and manpower supply.
17.2K
active registrations list recruitment & manpower agencies activities — 1.2% of classified registrations.
Ministry of Commerce data · Q3 2026 to 16 Sep
17,243 active commercial registrations in Saudi Arabia list recruitment & manpower agencies activities as of 16 September 2026 — 1.2% of all classified registrations, the 46th-largest of the 64 sectors we track.
4,248 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +21.3% on 2024, faster than the +15% across all sectors.
Riyadh (5,315), Jeddah (2,754), Makkah (1,484) lead. Relative to its size, Makkah is the most concentrated: recruitment agencies make up 1.7× the share they hold nationally.
33.9% of these registrations are companies rather than sole proprietorships, and the median company reports SAR 25,000 of paid-up capital.
- Active registrations
- 17,243
- 1.2% of classified CRs
- Registered in 2025
- 4,248
- +21.3% on 2024 · all sectors +15%
- Companies
- 33.9%
- 5,851 of 17,243
- Median company capital
- SAR 25k
- Paid-up, main registrations
Where recruitment agencies are registered
Column height: recruitment agencies by city · select a highlighted city for its page
Leading cities
Registrations, with concentration vs the national average
- Riyadh5,3151.0×
- Jeddah2,7541.5×
- Makkah1,4841.7×
- Madinah7561.1×
- Dammam7270.9×
- Khobar4761.3×
- Taif3671.0×
- Najran3140.7×
- Buraydah2880.7×
- Tabuk2871.0×
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×.
Recruitment & manpower 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
- General services activities10,224Activity code 781014
- Saudi employment mediation1,519Activity code 781012
- Temporary domestic worker agencies1,430Activity code 782001
- Temporary foreign labor agencies1,412Activity code 782002
- Foreign worker recruitment mediation1,073Activity code 781011
- Coordination council of recruitment companies883Activity code 783001
- Temporary staffing agencies for Saudis637Activity code 782003
- Other human resources provision41Activity code 783000
Business structures
Legal form of registrations in the sector
- Sole proprietorship11,38866%
- LLC5,00829%
- JSC7854.6%
- SJSC370.2%
- General partnership150.1%
- Limited partnership6<0.1%
- GCC branch3<0.1%
- Foreign branch1<0.1%
Common questions
How many recruitment agencies are there in Saudi Arabia?
17,243 active commercial registrations list recruitment & manpower 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 recruitment agencies?
Riyadh, with 5,315 — 30.8% of the national total. Jeddah follows with 2,754.
Is the number of recruitment agencies growing?
4,248 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +21.3% on 2024, faster than the +15% across all sectors.
Can a foreign investor set up in recruitment & manpower 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 recruitment & manpower agencies?
We confirm the licence conditions for your exact activity code, then take you from MISA licence to commercial registration and municipal licence.