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Good practice Imported

Saudi Arabia's Regional Headquarters (RHQ) Programme — Mandating Multinational Companies to Base in Riyadh

Saudi Arabia · Riyadh · See the Saudi Arabia profile · See the Riyadh profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 64% 62/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Saudi Arabia's RHQ Programme offers multinationals 30-year tax breaks to base their regional headquarters in Riyadh, and since 2024 has restricted government contracts to compliant firms; licences grew from 350 in early 2024 to over 600 by 2025, ahead of the original 2030 target.

350+
RHQ licences issued (by February 2024)
600+
RHQ licences issued (by 2025)
500
Original licence target (originally set for 2030)
15 staff (incl. 3 senior regional managers)
Minimum full-time staff required per licensed RHQ, incl. senior regional managers (within first year)
Saudi Arabia's Regional Headquarters (RHQ) Programme — Mandating Multinational Companies to Base in Riyadh

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC) & Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia (MISA)
Period
2021–present (mandate effective 2024)
Keywords
foreign direct investment, corporate relocation, regional headquarters, tax policy

Context

Launched in 2021 by the Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC) and the Ministry of Investment (MISA), the RHQ Programme offers multinationals that base their Middle East regional headquarters in Riyadh a 0% corporate tax and 0% withholding tax for up to 30 years, a ten-year Saudization exemption, unrestricted visas and streamlined licensing.

Objectives

Concentrate multinational regional-management functions in Riyadh, initially through tax incentives and, since 1 January 2024, by restricting Saudi government contracts to RHQ-licensed foreign firms (with limited exemptions).

Activities

RCRC and MISA jointly administer licensing; licensed RHQs must begin operations within six months and employ at least 15 full-time staff, including three senior regional managers, within their first year.

Results

Licence counts grew from over 350 by February 2024 to more than 600 by 2025, exceeding the programme's original 2030 target of 500 several years early.

Conclusions

Growth is real and well documented, but much of it is plausibly driven by the government-procurement mandate rather than the tax incentives alone, and the reported figures are licence registrations rather than independently verified economic activity — a mechanism that also depends on Saudi Arabia's unusually large state-procurement leverage and is not straightforwardly transferable to jurisdictions without it.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Very high (> €5M)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC) and Ministry of Investment (MISA) jointly administer licensing, Ministry of Finance procurement rules enforce the government-contracting mandate since January 2024

Conditions for success

  • A large state-procurement market that gives government agencies real leverage to require RHQ licensing of contractors
  • Long-duration (up to 30-year) tax certainty to justify a multinational's relocation decision

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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