Foreign Business Setup in Saudi Arabia’s Consulting Sector: Guide for 2025
Wondering how to start a consulting business in Saudi Arabia? Our step-by-step guide covers everything, including how to register and much more.
Business setup in Saudi Arabia's consulting industry continues to accelerate at a rapid pace. Saudi Arabia now boasts one of the fastest-growing consulting industries in the region. This industry continues to draw in foreign professionals, together with a significant influx of businesses.
According to the 2025 Saudi Market Entry Report by AstroLabs, the Gulf’s leading business expansion platform, consulting ranked among the top three sectors attracting foreign businesses last year.
Here, we outline the main steps to registering a 100% foreign-owned consulting business in Saudi Arabia and the legal requirements involved with the process.
Steps to Incorporate a Foreign Consulting Business in Saudi Arabia
Below is a comprehensive breakdown of the three-phase process for establishing a business presence in Saudi Arabia.
The complete incorporation procedure generally requires between 3 and 6 months to finalize.
Legal Entity Establishment (Projected timeline: 1 month)
The first step in launching your consulting business in Saudi Arabia is creating a robust legal foundation to support your operations and ensure compliance with local regulations.
- Secure a MISA Investor License
- Complete Name Reservation Procedures
- Prepare Local Articles of Association (AoA)
- Acquire Commercial Registration (CR)
- Complete the Chamber of Commerce (CoC) Registration
Authorization and Hiring (Projected Timeline: 2 months)
Once the legal entity is established, the next phase focuses on securing operational approvals and building a local workforce.
- Secure a company seal
- Complete Ministry of Labor registration
- Register with the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI)
- Complete National Address registration
- Process a GM Visa
- Complete registration with the General Authority of Zakat and Tax (GAZT) and VAT Registration
Residency and Banking (Projected timeline: 3 months)
Finally, the process concludes with finalizing residency requirements and establishing the essential processes for an operational corporate banking account.
- Enable the Chamber of Commerce (CoC) account
- Secure Health Insurance
- Complete a medical checkup
- Process the GM's Iqama
- Complete Muqeem registration
- Register with the Absher platform
- Complete Qiwa registration
- Register with the Mudad system
- Establish a bank account
IT: Top Sector for Foreign Consulting Businesses in Saudi Arabia
IT stands out as the most popular market segment within consulting. The ongoing wave of digital transformation in Saudi Arabia has created significant growth opportunities for IT consultants across AI, data analytics, and smart city solutions.
Presently, the Saudi ICT sector remains the largest in the MENA region, with a market value surpassing $48 billion (SAR180 billion) in 2024.
Over the past six years, the Kingdom has invested over $24.8 billion in digital infrastructure. It has recently announced plans to establish multibillion-dollar ventures to support the sector’s upward trajectory.
These investments perfectly align with Vision 2030's objectives to expand the IT sector by 50% by 2030 and increase its GDP contribution by SAR 50 billion ($11 billion).
In response to the heightened demand for specialized consulting services, Speridian Technologies, a global IT consulting firm, expanded its operations into Saudi Arabia in 2022 with support from AstroLabs.
Within a year of operations, Speridian has expanded its client base in Saudi Arabia, growing from 3 to 20 leading entities.
Moreover, the Kingdom's increasing investment in AI development and deployment is triggering a ripple effect of innovation across industries.
With that in mind, the Kingdom has become an increasingly appealing destination for companies like Artefact, an international AI consulting company.
The company's rapid footprint expansion into Saudi Arabia reflects a steadfast commitment to empowering businesses to leverage AI capabilities for strategic decision-making. Artefact counts among AstroLabs’ expansion clients.
For Saudi Arabia, AI is not merely an industry but a powerful economic lever, with the potential to contribute $135 billion to the Saudi economy by 2030.
