How many travel agencies are in Saudi Arabia?
Travel agencies, tour operators and reservation services.
21.1K
active registrations list travel agencies activities — 1.5% of classified registrations.
Ministry of Commerce data · Q3 2026 to 16 Sep
21,113 active commercial registrations in Saudi Arabia list travel agencies activities as of 16 September 2026 — 1.5% of all classified registrations, the 44th-largest of the 64 sectors we track.
5,315 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +20.1% on 2024, faster than the +15% across all sectors.
Riyadh (7,814), Jeddah (3,740), Makkah (3,103) lead. Relative to its size, Makkah is the most concentrated: travel agencies make up 3.0× the share they hold nationally.
65% of these registrations are companies rather than sole proprietorships, and the median company reports SAR 100,000 of paid-up capital.
- Active registrations
- 21,113
- 1.5% of classified CRs
- Registered in 2025
- 5,315
- +20.1% on 2024 · all sectors +15%
- Companies
- 65%
- 13,718 of 21,113
- Median company capital
- SAR 100k
- Paid-up, main registrations
Where travel agencies are registered
Column height: travel agencies by city · select a highlighted city for its page
Leading cities
Registrations, with concentration vs the national average
- Riyadh7,8141.2×
- Jeddah3,7401.6×
- Makkah3,1033.0×
- Madinah1,2181.5×
- Dammam8110.9×
- Khobar5341.2×
- Buraydah2950.6×
- Taif2680.6×
- Tabuk2130.6×
- Jubail2090.3×
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×.
Travel 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
- Travel and tourism agencies4,375Activity code 791101
- Ticketing for sports, entertainment, exhibitions and conferences3,489Activity code 799020
- Airline agency activities3,234Activity code 791102
- Tour organization2,879Activity code 791223
- Medical treatment coordination between patients and hospitals1,478Activity code 799042
- Hospitality unit booking1,247Activity code 799014
- Services for Umrah pilgrims and Prophet's Mosque visitors from abroad1,161Activity code 791211
- Tour guides1,089Activity code 799032
Business structures
Legal form of registrations in the sector
- LLC13,37163.3%
- Sole proprietorship7,32034.7%
- JSC1910.9%
- SJSC750.4%
- Foreign branch550.3%
- General partnership520.2%
- Limited partnership290.1%
- GCC branch200.1%
Common questions
How many travel agencies are there in Saudi Arabia?
21,113 active commercial registrations list travel 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 travel agencies?
Riyadh, with 7,814 — 37% of the national total. Jeddah follows with 3,740.
Is the number of travel agencies growing?
5,315 were registered in 2025 and are still active — +20.1% on 2024, faster than the +15% across all sectors.
Can a foreign investor set up in travel 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 travel agencies?
We confirm the licence conditions for your exact activity code, then take you from MISA licence to commercial registration and municipal licence.