Accounting, VAT and ZATCA e-invoicing for Riyadh businesses

Riyadh is the centre of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 build-out — giga-projects, contracting, professional services, retail and the regional-headquarters programme that requires multinationals to base their MENA HQ in the Kingdom to win government contracts. Every one of those entities issues invoices under ZATCA's e-invoicing regime, and the compliance bar is higher than anywhere else in the GCC.

In practice that means two things. First, 15% VAT with monthly filing once annual taxable supplies exceed SAR 40 million and quarterly below that, due by the last day of the following month. Second, Phase 2 integration: standard B2B invoices must be cleared with the FATOORA platform in real time carrying a UUID, previous-invoice hash and cryptographic stamp, while simplified B2C invoices are reported within 24 hours with a TLV-encoded QR code. Arabic on the face of the invoice is mandatory.

Riyadh employers also carry the heaviest payroll admin in the region: GOSI contributions, Qiwa contract matching, Saudization (Nitaqat) ratios and Mudad wage-protection uploads all have to agree with the payroll ledger. GulfAccount generates the stamped XML, keeps the hash chain intact, and produces payroll files that reconcile to GOSI and Qiwa records.