Saudi Arabia opens 30-day window for individual property VAT refunds

Summary

• Saudi Arabia began accepting VAT refund claims from individuals on real-estate supplies made between 2018 and 2020.
• Claims must be filed through the Hiyad electronic litigation portal within 30 days of gazette publication on 13 October 2026.
• Eligibility is limited to natural persons, excluding anyone trading property as a regular income-generating activity.

The latest

Individuals who paid value-added tax on property sales between 1 January 2018 and 4 October 2020 can now claim that money back from the Saudi state, under a mechanism published in the Official Gazette on 13 October 2026. The General Secretariat of the Zakat, Tax and Customs Committees has begun receiving claims, Argaam reported on Wednesday 14 October 2026. The window runs 30 days.

Details

• The deadline: Claims are accepted for 30 days from the date of publication in the Official Gazette, which fell on Tuesday 2 Jumada al-Awwal 1448H, corresponding to 13 October 2026. The announcement does not indicate any provision for extending the period beyond that window.
• The covered period: The mechanism applies to real-estate supplies carried out between 1 January 2018 and 4 October 2020, a window that ends the day before the kingdom's real-estate transaction tax replaced VAT on property transfers. Supplies outside those dates fall outside the refund mechanism.
• The legal basis: According to Argaam, the mechanism rests on Royal Order No. 54152 dated 5/7/1447H and on a resolution of the board of directors of the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority. Both the order and the implementing procedure were carried in the Official Gazette.
• How to file: Claims are submitted through the "Hiyad" electronic litigation portal rather than through the tax authority's own service channels, routing the process through the committees that adjudicate zakat, tax and customs disputes. No alternative filing channel was named in the announcement.
• Who qualifies: The claimant must be a natural person who actually paid the tax to the Authority on the real-estate supply in question. A second condition requires that the claimant did not deduct the input tax related to the property, which would otherwise mean the amount had already been recovered.
• Who is excluded: Anyone engaged in selling property as a regular and continuing activity intended to generate income is barred from the refund, which confines the measure to one-off or occasional sellers rather than professional dealers and developers.
• The frequency test: Individuals who made more than one real-estate supply within 12 consecutive months, with a combined value exceeding the mandatory registration threshold set in the GCC Unified VAT Agreement, are also excluded. That threshold is the same benchmark that obliges a supplier to register for VAT.
• The size: No aggregate refund amount and no per-claim ceiling were announced, leaving the fiscal scale of the measure undisclosed. The announcement also does not set out a timetable for processing claims or disbursing approved amounts.

Background

Saudi Arabia tripled VAT to 15% in July 2020 before removing property transfers from the VAT regime in October 2020 and placing them under a separate real-estate transaction tax, leaving sellers in the preceding period taxed under rules later superseded.

Between the lines

The eligibility conditions read as a filter rather than a general amnesty: by barring regular traders, input-tax deductors and repeat sellers above the registration threshold, the mechanism targets individuals who were taxed as if they were businesses. The 30-day limit, running from gazette publication rather than from any notification to affected sellers, puts the burden of discovering the window on claimants themselves.

What's next

The filing window closes 30 days after the 13 October 2026 gazette publication. Watch for any clarification from the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority on documentation requirements, and for the first decisions issued by the committees on submitted claims.

Source: Argaam