The first 90 days of a foreign startup in Riyadh

Foreign founders usually arrive with the licence sorted and the assumption that hiring is next. Between those two steps sits a chain of registrations that decides whether your first employee can legally start. I was the first HR hire of a foreign insurance startup in Riyadh, so I went through this chain from the inside. This is the order I would follow again.

Days 1 to 30: registrations

The licence from the Ministry of Investment and the commercial registration create the entity. They do not let you employ anyone. For that, the establishment has to exist on the government platforms the Ministry of Human Resources and the social insurance system run.

Four platforms matter, and each assumes the one before it exists:

• Qiwa is where the establishment is set up, employment contracts are documented, work permits are managed and your Nitaqat position is tracked.
• GOSI registers the establishment and every employee for social insurance and occupational hazard cover.
• Mudad is the payroll and wage protection platform. Salaries are paid and reported through it, so the bank account and payroll cycle need to be ready before the first salary run.
• Muqeem is the residency platform. If you are relocating non-Saudi staff, their residence permits are issued and renewed here, and they cannot start without it.

Done in sequence, with an authorised signatory available, this is a short project. Done out of sequence, it is rejected applications and repeated visits. The single most useful thing a founder can do in month one is name one person who owns this chain end to end.

Days 31 to 60: contracts and policies

Employment contracts must match Saudi labour law and the contract documented on Qiwa. A contract written for another country, translated, is the most common reason a first hire is delayed.

Your first policies need to exist before anyone signs: working hours, leave, probation, conduct, and how pay is calculated and paid. This does not need to be a full handbook yet. A short, clear set of starter policies now is far cheaper than a dispute later, and the full handbook can follow once the team exists.

This is also the month to decide how records will be kept. A spreadsheet works for the first few hires, but every platform above will ask for the same employee data in slightly different forms, and a single source for it saves hours every month. At the startup where I lead HR, we eventually built our own system for exactly this reason.

Days 61 to 90: Saudisation from the first hire

Your Nitaqat position is shaped by your first hires, not your fiftieth. The classification depends on the size and activity of the establishment, and the rules for the smallest establishments differ from those for larger ones, so check the current rules for your activity on Qiwa rather than relying on what a founder in another sector was told.

The practical approach is simple. List the roles you already plan to open in the next year. Mark which of them are a strong fit for Saudi talent today and which need a development path. Sequence the hires so that the target is met with people you would have wanted anyway. Where the Human Resources Development Fund support programmes apply, build them into the plan. This is how we reached 70% Saudisation at the insurer where I lead HR, while hiring for the roles the business needed.

What will bite you later

• An unowned chain. Nobody is responsible for the registrations, so each one waits for a founder's attention.
• Contracts from home. Translated foreign contracts that do not match Saudi labour law or the Qiwa contract.
• Payroll set up after the first hire. The first salary is late because Mudad was not ready.
• Saudisation as a later problem. The first hires close options that were open on day one.

If you are opening a Saudi entity and want the people side ready before day one, the sequence above is what I set up for foreign companies. The shortest way to find out what applies to you is a 30-minute conversation.