Selling into the giga-projects
NEOM, the Red Sea, Qiddiya, Diriyah and the wider government pipeline are a tender market measured in the hundreds of billions. Winning any of it is a presence play, not an export one — here's the stack you clear, and the local-content scorecard that now decides awards.
One national portal, plus a portal per giga-project
Government and quasi-government spend flows mainly through Etimad (portal.etimad.sa), the unified national procurement platform established under the Government Tenders & Procurement Law (GTPL) of 2019, amended in 2026. The scale is enormous: more than SAR 336 billion in tenders were published on Etimad in 2024, against a 2026 government budget of SAR 1.3 trillion, with roughly $196 billion of giga-project contracts awarded in 2025 alone. The giga-projects also run their own supplier portals — you register where the buyer sits.
| Buyer | Focus | Where you register |
|---|---|---|
| Government & SOEs | General public procurement | Etimad |
| NEOM | The northwest megacity & regions | NEOM supplier portal |
| Red Sea Global | Luxury tourism & coastal development | RSG portal |
| Qiddiya | Entertainment, sport & culture | Qiddiya portal |
| Diriyah (DGDA) | Heritage & cultural district | DGDA portal |
| Saudi Aramco | Oil, gas & energy | Aramco iSupplier (IKTVA scoring) |
What you clear before you can bid
A Saudi entity
MISA registration and a Commercial Registration. A foreign company usually can't bid meaningfully without local presence.
Etimad registration
Register as a supplier on the national portal — and on the relevant giga-project portal.
Sector classification
For construction, a grade from the Saudi Contractors Authority; for engineering, Saudi Council of Engineers registration.
Prequalification
Project-specific prequalification for large tenders — 6 to 12 months for giga-projects.
The documents Etimad checks
- Valid Commercial Registration
- MISA licence (foreign entities)
- ZATCA / Zakat clearance certificate
- GOSI social-insurance certificate
- Saudization (Nitaqat) certificate
- Classification certificate (construction)
Nitaqat and the RHQ mandate decide eligibility first
You must be Green
- Only Green or Platinum establishments can bid on Etimad
- A Red band locks you out before price is even read
- Certificates are checked at submission, not just at award
MNCs need an RHQ
- Since January 2024, multinationals need a Saudi RHQ for most government contracts above SAR 1 million
- It applies to the group, not just the bidding entity
- Narrow exemptions exist — but plan as if it applies
A cheaper foreign bid increasingly loses
The single biggest shift for foreign bidders is that price is no longer the sole determinant. The Local Content & Government Procurement Authority (LCGPA) now weights a bidder's local-content score directly in award decisions on Etimad, and the thresholds keep rising. Local content is measured across four pillars — goods & services (invoice-level spend with Saudi suppliers), Saudi workforce, assets & capital, and profits & investments — and certified through an LCGPA Local Content Certificate, signed by a SOCPA-licensed local-content auditor, valid for around 19 months and uploaded to Etimad.
Mandatory product list
From 1 March 2026, public construction projects must source listed goods from domestic manufacturers; from 1 August 2026, minimum local-content percentages apply to 233 specific products.
Consulting & IT scored
From April 2027, management-consulting tenders of SAR 10 million or more require a 30% minimum company-level local-content score, later extending to SAR 5 million; IT services move into weighted evaluation.
IKTVA (Aramco)
Aramco's In-Kingdom Total Value Add programme reached ~70% local content in 2026 and targets 75% by 2030 — the model the rest of procurement now follows.
Giga-project thresholds
NEOM, Red Sea and the others write minimum local-content thresholds (commonly 40–70%) into their contracts.
It must be designed into the bid and the execution plan — Saudi hiring in substantive roles, local sourcing, training, genuine in-Kingdom value-add. The 2026 procurement law pushes local-content coordination upstream, into advance planning, precisely so it shapes the requirement rather than being appended at the end. Increasingly, the higher-local-content bid wins even at a higher price.
It's a presence play, not an export play
Saudi procurement is designed to build domestic capability, not simply import solutions, and every lever — the RHQ mandate, the Nitaqat gate, the LCGPA scorecard — points the same way. The realistic route into the giga-projects is a Saudi entity, the right classification, an early and designed-in investment in local content, and, for multinationals after public contracts, an RHQ. “We'll set up once we win a contract” fails here: you generally can't win the work without the footprint, and the footprint — entity, classification, Etimad registration, Nitaqat band, local-content credentials — takes months to build. Start before the tender you want, not after it closes.
Where the score actually comes from
The LCGPA score is not a single number you can buy at the last minute — it is built from four weighted pillars, and understanding them is what lets a foreign bidder move the needle. The first is goods and services: invoice-level spend with Saudi-registered suppliers, itself weighted by each supplier's own local-content score, which rewards cascading the requirement down your subcontractor chain. The second is Saudi workforce: nationals in substantive, well-paid roles, not token headcount — payroll classification is one of the highest-leverage and most underused levers. The third is assets and capital deployed in the Kingdom, and the fourth is profits and investments retained and reinvested locally.
The practical implication is that local content is an operating-model decision, not a proposal paragraph. A foreign vendor that sources from Saudi suppliers who themselves score well, employs Saudis in real roles, and invests in-Kingbdom will out-score a cheaper competitor that imports everything and flies people in. Because the four pillars compound, the firms that win are the ones that design the supply chain, the payroll and the capital plan around the score from the bid stage — which is exactly why “we'll localise later” loses to a rival who localised from day one.
Questions we get asked first
Can a foreign company bid without a Saudi entity?
Rarely in any meaningful way. Serious bidding generally requires a Saudi entity with a MISA registration and CR, Etimad registration, and — for construction — a contractor classification. Some defined-scope government contracts can be delivered on a temporary investment licence.
What is Etimad?
The unified national e-procurement portal for Saudi government and state-owned-entity tenders, under the Government Tenders & Procurement Law. More than a million contracts have been processed through it, and the giga-projects also run their own supplier portals.
Do I need an RHQ to win government work?
If you're a multinational, effectively yes — since January 2024 most Saudi government contracts above SAR 1 million require the group to have a licensed RHQ, with narrow exceptions.
How does local content affect who wins?
Heavily. The LCGPA weights local-content scores directly in Etimad award decisions, certified via a Local Content Certificate valid ~19 months. Mandatory product lists, a coming 30% minimum for large consulting tenders, and giga-project thresholds of 40–70% all mean a higher-local-content bid increasingly beats a cheaper foreign one.
Which Nitaqat band do I need to bid?
Green or Platinum. A Red-band company cannot bid on Etimad, and compliance certificates — Zakat, GOSI, Saudization, classification — are checked at submission.
How long does prequalification take?
For giga-projects, commonly 6 to 12 months. Local content and classification cannot be retrofitted — they must be built before the bid.
You can't win the job without the footprint
Entity, classification, Etimad registration, a Green Nitaqat band, designed-in local content and — for multinationals — an RHQ are prerequisites to bidding, not consequences of winning. The LCGPA scorecard has made local content a primary commercial input, not a back-office filing. Build the stack early, design local content into the bid, and the SAR-1.3-trillion pipeline opens.
Targeting the giga-project pipeline?
We build the footprint that lets you bid — entity, classification, Etimad registration and a local-content plan — before the tender you want closes.
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This article is general information, current as of 2026, and is not legal or tax advice for any specific situation. Confirm current rules and official Arabic texts with the relevant authority before acting.