https://arab.news/2d4ud
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia is set to introduce significant changes to its business registration system when the new Law of Commercial Register and Law of Trade Names take effect on April 3.
Abdulrahman Al-Hussein, the Ministry of Commerce’s official spokesperson, highlighted that one of the major changes includes the abolition of subsidiary registers, making a single commercial register sufficient, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
The laws, announced in September, also eliminate the requirement to specify the city of registration, meaning a single commercial registration will be valid across all regions of the Kingdom, Al-Hussein added.
The changes comes as Saudi Arabia saw a 60 percent increase in commercial records in 2024, with 521,969 issued compared to the previous year, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
The moves also align with the Kingdom’s economic diversification efforts, aimed at reducing reliance on oil and increasing the private sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product from 40 percent to 65 percent by 2030.
Al-Hussein said the Law of Commercial Register “cancels the expiration date for the commercial register, requiring only an annual confirmation of the data.”
He underlined that the commercial registration number will now serve as the establishment’s unified number, starting with “7.”
Existing subsidiary registers will have a five-year grace period to comply with the new regulations.
Additionally, the updated Trade Names Law now permits the reservation and registration of trade names in English, including letters and numbers, a shift from the previous rule, which only allowed Arabic names without foreign characters or digits.
The change also allows trade names to be managed separately from the establishment, enabling their ownership transfer. It prevents the registration of identical or similar names for different businesses, regardless of their activities.
Al-Hussein added that this law includes provisions for reserving family names as trade names and sets standards for prohibited or misleading names.
The Saudi Cabinet approved these changes on Sept. 17, with the government aiming to streamline business operations and improve the overall working environment.
In a post on his X account at the time, Commerce Minister Majid bin Abdullah Al-Qasabi emphasized that the changes would streamline the procedures for reserving and registering trade names, thus protecting and enhancing their value, in line with the economic and technological advancements outlined in Vision 2030.