Businesses in the Kingdom are in the middle of a busy tax season. A VAT filing deadline, a wide programme of field inspections and a fines amnesty that is nearing its end all fall within the same few weeks, while the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) draws heavy search interest. The nearest date is Saturday 31 October 2026, the last day set by the authority to file returns and pay the tax.
According to ZATCA's notice of 20 October, firms with annual supplies above SAR 40 million file a return for September alone, while those at or below that level file for the whole third quarter. Filing late carries a fine of between 5% and 25% of the tax that should have been declared.
What some taxpayers may miss is that the fines cancellation and penalty exemption initiative, extended by a Minister of Finance decision from 1 July to 31 December 2026, does not cover fines on any return due after 30 June 2026. In other words, a late third-quarter return falls outside it. The initiative covers fines for late registration, late payment, late filing and VAT return corrections for earlier periods, provided the taxpayer is registered, has filed all required returns and has paid the principal tax, with instalments available on request during the initiative. Tax evasion fines are excluded.
On the ground, ZATCA teams made more than 59,000 inspection visits in the third quarter, covering retail, gold and tobacco shops. The most common violations were failing to issue electronic invoices, not collecting VAT and selling tobacco products without tax stamps. The authority pays people who report a violation 2.5% of the value of the violations and fines, from a minimum of SAR 1,000 to a maximum of SAR 1 million, under set conditions.
The authority also featured in stock market filings this week. On 26 October, Easy Works (Al-Ashghal Al-Maysara) disclosed a 36-month contract with ZATCA worth about SAR 15.995 million including VAT, for cleaning, maintaining and running customs administration buildings at Jeddah Islamic Port and Rabigh port. On Thursday the same company announced a second deal, a five-year contract worth about SAR 6.3 million with the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu to run logistics at its warehouses in Jubail.
