How to Sell Online in Saudi Arabia: A Step-by-Step Guide

Selling online in Saudi Arabia is simpler than it looks from the outside. Tens of thousands of businesses are already registered to sell online, and most of them started small.

You need four things: a place to sell, the right paperwork, a Saudi-friendly checkout and a way to deliver. Then you need Arabic listings and a launch plan.

I'll walk you through each step in the order that works for most brands, from choosing a channel to your first 90 days. Foreign companies, Chinese sellers and expats get their own notes near the end.

New to the market itself? Start with the Saudi Arabia ecommerce guide for the opportunity, then come back here for the how-to.

What do you need to sell online in Saudi Arabia?

You need a sales channel, a legal status, a checkout that takes mada, and delivery. Everything else builds on those four.

Your legal status depends on who you are:

• Saudi or GCC citizen selling goods. Get a CR, then add your store to it and authenticate it on the Business Platform.
• Saudi citizen selling services or home-made goods. The free Freelance Document can be enough.
• Expat living in the Kingdom. You need your own MISA registration and CR. Borrowing a Saudi's licence isn't an option.
• Company abroad. No Saudi entity needed to start. Sell through a marketplace's cross-border programme or ship parcels in.

Then pick your route. Most sellers take one of three:

• Marketplace first. List on Amazon.sa or noon. They bring the shoppers, take the payments and can store and ship your stock.
• Own store. Build on Salla, Zid or Shopify. You keep the customer data and more margin, but you bring the traffic.
• Cross-border. Sell from abroad and ship parcels in. It's the quickest test for a foreign brand, with slower delivery.

Most brands end up combining two of these. The steps below work for all three.

Step 1: Choose your sales channel

Pick one main channel for launch. You can add others once you have sales data.

	Amazon.sa / noon	Salla or Zid	Shopify	Cross-border parcels
Best for	Testing demand fast	Saudi-based sellers, Arabic-first	Brands selling in several countries	Foreign brands testing the market
Monthly cost	Plan fee waived on Amazon; free on noon	From SAR 99 (free basic plans)	Shopify plan + gateway fees	Your existing store
Sales commission	Yes, by category	None	0.2–2% extra fee in KSA	None
Brings shoppers
Needs a Saudi CR	Not for cross-border sellers	Yes, in practice	For local mada
Delivery speed	1–2 days with FBA/FBN	1–5 days via couriers	1–5 days via couriers	5–20 days

Here's how I'd choose:

• No audience yet? Start on a marketplace. Amazon.sa is the most-visited shopping site in the Kingdom, and noon is the biggest home-grown marketplace.
• Saudi resident with a CR? A Salla or Zid store is the cheapest way to own your channel. Both include mada, Apple Pay, Tabby, Tamara and COD.
• Selling in several countries? Shopify handles languages and currencies best. Just plan for a Saudi gateway.

Not sure which platform fits your products and budget? Answer a few questions:

Still torn? The fee and audience details are in noon vs Amazon and Shopify vs Salla vs Zid.

Step 2: Get your legal setup right

If you sell from inside Saudi Arabia, you need a CR (commercial registration), the basic business licence. It's an online application and it's quick.

The E-Commerce Law calls a CR holder a "merchant". Someone selling without one is a "practitioner", and both must follow the same consumer rules.

Get a CR

A Saudi or GCC citizen can register a sole establishment through the Ministry of Commerce or the Saudi Business Center. You log in with Nafath, reserve a trade name, add your National Address and choose the online-trade activity.

The sole-establishment CR is issued instantly once you pay. It also registers you automatically with ZATCA, GOSI and the Chamber of Commerce.

Register and authenticate your store

Once you launch, add your store's URL to your CR on the Ministry of Commerce site. Then authenticate it on the Saudi Business Center's Business Platform, which replaced Maroof in 2023.

Authentication needs a valid CR or Freelance Document and a commercial bank account linked to the store. Shoppers can check your certificate, so show it in your footer.

Register for VAT when you need to

Saudi VAT is 15%. Resident businesses must register once taxable sales pass SAR 375,000 a year. You can join voluntarily from half that.

Foreign sellers are different: there's no threshold. The notes for foreign companies below explain when that applies.

What about the Freelance Document? It's free, but it covers services like design and app development, not general goods retail. Handicrafts and productive-family goods are the narrow exceptions. For other physical products, get a CR, and follow the full walkthrough in Saudi business registration.

Step 3: Set up payments

Saudi shoppers pay digitally. Your checkout needs mada, Apple Pay and cards, plus a BNPL option and cash on delivery for new customers.

mada is the national debit network behind almost every Saudi bank card. Online, it mostly appears inside Apple Pay on an iPhone.

Here's the mix to offer:

• mada and Apple Pay. These are non-negotiable. Saudi gateways publish mada rates around 1%, against roughly 2.2–2.9% for credit cards.
• Visa and Mastercard. Smaller share, but important for bigger orders.
• Tabby or Tamara. Buy now, pay later lifts basket size. Together they handle about 95% of Saudi BNPL.
• STC Pay. A popular local wallet, now part of STC Bank. It needs its own integration.
• Cash on delivery. Wallets and cards dominate, but COD still wins over first-time buyers of unknown brands.

To take domestic mada, you need a Saudi-licensed gateway such as Tap, HyperPay, Moyasar or Geidea. They ask for a CR or Freelance Document, a Saudi IBAN and a store with a refund policy. Approval at Moyasar takes 2–5 business days.

Salla and Zid include payments in their plans. On a marketplace, the platform collects for you and pays out on its own cycle.

Gateway fees, payout times and setup steps are side by side in the Saudi payments guide.

Step 4: Ship and fulfil your orders

You have two choices: ship from where you are today, or hold stock in Saudi Arabia. Most sellers start with the first and move to the second once products sell.

• Ship it yourself. Saudi residents book local couriers through Salla, Zid or an aggregator like OTO. A Riyadh to Jeddah parcel costs about SAR 14–22.
• Use marketplace fulfilment. Amazon FBA and noon FBN store your stock and deliver in a day or two. A standard parcel up to 1 kg costs about SAR 8–10 per unit on either.
• Use a 3PL. A third-party logistics warehouse in Riyadh serves your own store and every marketplace from one stock pool.

Where should your stock live? In Riyadh first. It's the biggest delivery market by far, and a Riyadh warehouse reaches Jeddah and Dammam in one to three days.

One rule changed this year. Since 1 January 2026, every parcel needs a valid Saudi National Address, and couriers can refuse parcels without one. Make the 8-character Short Address a required field at checkout.

Shipping from abroad? Personal orders under SAR 1,000, including shipping, pay no customs duty. The 15% VAT and a SAR 15 fee still apply, so build them into your price.

When you're ready to move stock in, compare Saudi fulfilment options on price and speed.

Step 5: List your products in Arabic

Saudi customers buy in Arabic. A bilingual listing reaches expats too, but the Arabic version is what converts Saudi shoppers.

Get these right on every product page:

• Arabic titles and descriptions written by a native Gulf copywriter. Shoppers spot machine translation fast.
• SAR prices that include 15% VAT. Most stores end prices in 9 or 99. The total, including delivery, must show before payment.
• A clear delivery promise, like "arrives Tuesday in Jeddah".
• Arabic labels on the product itself. Regulated products also need a SABER certificate before they can enter the country.

Your store also has legal must-haves under the E-Commerce Law:

• Your name, contact details, CR number and VAT number, plus privacy and complaints policies.
• A returns policy that reflects the 7-day cancellation right and lists your exempt items.
• A pay button that makes the commitment clear, such as "Place order and pay".
• A receipt showing the carrier, tracking number and delivery date.

Deliveries matter here too. If an order arrives more than 15 days after the promised date, the customer can cancel for a full refund. Promise realistic dates.

Use the templates in Saudi product pages for listings, and the Saudi E-Commerce Law guide for the full rulebook.

Step 6: Market your launch

Saudi shoppers live on their phones, so start with the channels they open every day. Then add search once people know your name.

• Snapchat. It reaches about 73% of the population, which makes it a core Saudi channel. Ads start at USD 5 a day.
• TikTok. Great for discovery and cheap reach. Agencies report CPMs of about SAR 2–3 for Saudi beauty and food brands.
• Google. Google handles about 94% of Saudi searches. Shopping ads run in SAR with Arabic feeds.
• Influencers. Saudi creators need a Mawthooq licence from the media regulator. Ask to see it, and make sure paid posts are labelled as ads.
• Marketplace ads. On Amazon.sa and noon, sponsored listings are often the fastest way to your first reviews.

Planning a sale? Apply for a discount licence first. Each item must be at least 10% off, and a partial sale must cover at least half your products.

Set your first budgets with the benchmarks in the best marketing channels in the Gulf.

Step 7: Plan your first 90 days

Your first three months are for learning what sells, not for perfection. Here's a rhythm that works for new brands.

Timing matters. If you start in late October, you'll go live just before White Friday in November.

Then Ramadan 2027 begins around 8 February. Stock needs 10–12 weeks to arrive and check in, so book it in November.

What does it cost to launch?

Here's a lean first month for a Saudi citizen selling home goods on a Salla store. It assumes 100 orders at about SAR 200 each.

The fixed costs are tiny: just the CR and the plan.

Delivery and ads are the lines to watch. So I'd price delivery into the product or set a free-shipping threshold, and stop ads that don't convert after two weeks. For a full cost model, see what a Saudi store costs.

Your Saudi launch checklist

Tick these off as you go:

Notes for foreign companies

You can sell to Saudi shoppers without a Saudi company. The law still applies to you: the E-Commerce Law covers sellers outside the Kingdom who sell to Saudi consumers.

• Marketplaces are the easy door. Amazon Global Selling says you "may not need" a local company. noon runs its own cross-border programmes.
• Payments. A foreign gateway charges mada cards as Visa or Mastercard, so expect more declines. A marketplace avoids the problem.
• VAT. A non-resident has no registration threshold. If you hold stock in the Kingdom and sell to consumers, register within 30 days of your first sale and provide a security to ZATCA.
• Importing stock. Bulk goods need an importer of record with a Saudi CR. Amazon won't act as one, so use a 3PL or broker that offers it.
• Your own Saudi company. A 100% foreign trading company needs SAR 30 million in capital under MISA rules. Most SMEs grow through marketplaces or a distributor first.

The full set of routes is in foreign company requirements.

Notes for Chinese sellers

Chinese brands are among the most welcome sellers in Saudi Arabia right now. Both big marketplaces run programmes for you.

• Amazon. Register through the China Global Selling team, and claim the cross-border inbound incentives before they end in December 2026.
• noon Global Shipping. With a Chinese business licence, you drop goods at noon's Shenzhen hub. noon handles freight, duty and VAT and pays you a USD transfer price.
• Getting paid. LianLian Global, WorldFirst and Payoneer all collect marketplace payouts from Saudi stores.
• Compliance. Most regulated goods need SABER certificates and Arabic labels before shipping.

Freight, SABER and payout options are covered in selling in Saudi Arabia from China.

Notes for UAE-based companies

A UAE company is a strong base for Saudi sales. Many Gulf brands test Saudi Arabia from Dubai before opening there.

• noon's UAE-to-KSA Global store lets a UAE VAT-registered seller list in Saudi Arabia without a Saudi CR or Saudi VAT.
• Shopify Payments works in the UAE, but it charges Saudi mada cards as international cards.
• Land delivery from Dubai to Riyadh takes about 2–5 days. Open a Riyadh node once delay or refusals start costing you sales.

When you're ready to open in Riyadh, follow the UAE to Saudi expansion guide.

Notes for expats living in Saudi Arabia

Expats can't use the Freelance Document, which is for Saudi citizens. Borrowing a Saudi's CR is concealment, with the penalties above.

You have two legal routes. Register with MISA and get your own CR, or supply a Saudi company that sells under its own CR. Special Residency holders skip some of the MISA document requirements.

A Saudi business setup consultant can map the cheapest legal route for your products.