The General Investment Authority announced that it has reduced the time required to issue investment licenses from two days and five hours (53 hours) to 3 hours and 59 minutes, through three main measures: restructuring procedures and reducing the number of required documents.

For his part, Ibrahim bin Saleh Al-Suwail, Deputy Governor for Investor Services and Consulting, explained that the reduction in the processing time for investment licenses covered three areas: the issuance of new investment licenses, amending them, and renewing them—processes that previously took much longer than they do now. He noted that while the required documents previously numbered around eight, they are now limited to financial statements, and a commercial register certified by the Saudi Embassy in the country where the company applying for the license is located.

Al-Suwail noted that new investment licenses are now issued in less than a day, down from three days previously, while a request to amend an investment license takes less than 4 hours, He added that investors can renew their investment licenses independently through the self-service portal on the Authority’s website.

It is worth noting that the General Investment Authority is seeking to attract investment by streamlining and improving procedures; over the past two weeks, it has granted 17 licenses to foreign entities.