Saudi Arabia capital gains tax: none for individual investors
Saudi Arabia has no general personal capital-gains tax on private investing by a resident natural person, so the tax on your investment gain is zero. Shares listed on the Saudi Capital Market, other private assets and property alike, a disposal outside a taxable activity is not taxed. What matters instead is whether the gain arises inside a business, and property sales carry the 5% Real Estate Transaction Tax on the value, not the gain.
Verified as of 2026-09-18 against ZATCA and the Real Estate Transaction Tax Law.
Current rules
Taxes on selling shares, crypto and property in Saudi Arabia
What you pay when you sell
| Asset | Tax on the gain |
|---|---|
| Shares listed on the Saudi Capital Market (personal investment) | Nothing. Excluded from taxable activity for a resident natural person |
| Other private investments (held outside a business) | Nothing on the gain |
| Property (personal investment) | Nothing on the gain |
| Gains from a taxable activity | Ordinary income-tax items, business and profit-seeking activities remain within the tax framework |
| Real-estate transaction | Real Estate Transaction Tax at 5% of the value, charged instead of the 15% VAT, a transaction cost |
Sourced from the authority pages above, as of 2026-09-18.
Questions
Saudi Arabia capital gains tax questions
Does Saudi Arabia have a capital gains tax?
Not on private investing. Saudi Arabia has no general personal capital-gains tax on private investing by a resident natural person, and ZATCA's Income Tax page expressly excludes trading shares of companies listed on the Saudi Capital Market by a resident natural person from taxable activity. Whether you sell shares after a week or an apartment after twenty years, the gain itself is not taxed.
When would a gain be taxed?
When it arises from a taxable activity. ZATCA states that capital gains from taxable activities are ordinary income-tax items: business and profit-seeking activities remain within the tax framework. The personal exemption does not extend to non-resident and business cases.
What does selling property cost?
The Real Estate Transaction Tax: 5% of the real-estate transaction value. ZATCA states that real-estate sales are exempt from the 15% VAT and subject to the 5% RETT instead. It is charged on the transaction value whether you make a gain or a loss, so it is a transaction tax, not a gains tax.
Do I pay anything when I sell listed shares?
ZATCA imposes no separate personal CGT on private listed-share disposals. The charges you see on a sale, exchange and brokerage fees, are transaction costs, not taxes on the gain.
What exactly does ZATCA say about private investing?
Saudi Arabia has no general personal capital-gains tax on private investing by a resident natural person. ZATCA's Income Tax page expressly excludes trading shares of companies listed on the Saudi Capital Market by a resident natural person from taxable activity. Source: https://zatca.gov.sa/en/Pages/IncomeTax.aspx
How are business gains treated?
Capital gains from taxable activities are ordinary income-tax items: business and profit-seeking activities remain within the tax framework, and non-resident and business cases require separate analysis. Source: https://zatca.gov.sa/en/Pages/IncomeTax.aspx
How are real-estate sales taxed?
Real-estate sales are exempt from the 15% VAT and instead subject to the Real Estate Transaction Tax (RETT) at 5% of the real-estate transaction value. Source: https://zatca.gov.sa/en/RulesRegulations/Taxes/Pages/RETTRegulation.aspx and https://zatca.gov.sa/en/MediaCenter/Publications/Documents/Exemption%20of%20Real%20Estate%20Supplies-%20English.pdf
Does VAT apply instead?
VAT is 15% for taxable supplies; real-estate sales follow the RETT treatment above rather than VAT. Source: https://zatca.gov.sa/en/MediaCenter/Publications/Documents/Exemption%20of%20Real%20Estate%20Supplies-%20English.pdf
Is there a securities-transfer tax on listed shares?
No separate personal CGT on private disposals of listed shares was identified in the ZATCA source; exchange and brokerage charges are transaction costs, not CGT.
Verification
References
Sources
The pages the figures on this page were read from.
ZATCA: Exemption of Real Estate Supplies
Used for VAT and GST. Retrieved .
Used for capital gains tax and income tax. Retrieved .
Official links
The country's tax authority and its capital gains tax pages.
Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA)
Tax authority. Checked .
ZATCA: Simplified Guideline for Income Tax
Capital gains tax. Checked .
How the calculator works and is tested
Every rate, threshold and date on this page comes from 3 dated records covering 2026 to 2026. Each record names the page it was read from and the day it was retrieved. The site uses the record in force on the day and stops with an error when none is, instead of showing an estimate.
Every country has a calculation engine with its own test file of worked cases. Type checks, linting, unit tests and backend tests run on every change, and English page renders are compared with stored snapshots.