Business Valuation in Saudi Arabia: Taqeem, IVS and Cross-Border Deals

By Bill Anderson, FCCA, Chief Executive Officer, Assetica — 2026-07-01

Direct Answer: In Saudi Arabia valuation is a regulated profession overseen by the Saudi Authority for Accredited Valuers, known as Taqeem. For regulated purposes inside the Kingdom, such as court matters, regulatory filings and certain tax and zakat positions, the valuation must be prepared by a Taqeem-accredited valuer working to International Valuation Standards. For cross-border purposes, such as a UAE or international buyer assessing a Saudi business, an independent IVS-compliant valuation is standard practice.

Saudi Arabia is the largest economy in the GCC and an increasingly active market for mergers and acquisitions. Valuation there works differently from the UAE in one important respect: it is a formally regulated profession. Understanding when that regulation applies, and when it does not, saves owners and investors a great deal of time and money.

What Taqeem is and why it matters

Taqeem, the Saudi Authority for Accredited Valuers, regulates the valuation profession in the Kingdom. A valuer performing valuations for regulated purposes inside Saudi Arabia must be accredited by Taqeem and must follow its rules, which incorporate the International Valuation Standards.

That makes Saudi Arabia one of the strictest valuation jurisdictions in the region. In the UAE, credibility comes from the standards a report is prepared to and the independence of whoever prepared it. In Saudi Arabia, for regulated purposes, it also comes from who is on the register. A technically excellent report from an unaccredited firm will simply not be accepted for those purposes.

When a Taqeem-accredited valuer is required

The practical test is the purpose, not the size of the business or the nationality of the owner. If the valuation will be submitted to a Saudi court, to a government authority, or used for a regulated domestic purpose, engage a Taqeem-accredited firm. There is no workaround, and a non-accredited report prepared for a regulated purpose is wasted expenditure.

If you are not certain whether your purpose is regulated, establish that before commissioning anything. It is a question for Saudi counsel or for Taqeem directly, and the answer determines who can do the work. Getting this wrong is the single most expensive mistake in Saudi valuation, because it is discovered only when the report is rejected.

When an IVS-compliant valuation is enough

A great deal of Saudi-linked valuation work is not a regulated domestic filing at all. It is commercial analysis for a party outside the Kingdom.

A UAE or international buyer assessing a Saudi target. The buyer needs a defensible view of value for its own investment committee.
Board and shareholder reporting where the holding entity sits outside Saudi Arabia.
Financial reporting for a foreign parent consolidating a Saudi subsidiary, which is an IFRS question. See our guide to valuation for financial reporting.
Pre-deal price formation before anything is filed anywhere.
Internal planning ahead of a sale, a restructuring or a succession decision.

For those, an independent IVS-compliant valuation prepared outside the Kingdom is standard practice and entirely appropriate. The two routes are complementary rather than competing, and many cross-border transactions use both at different stages.

How the Saudi position differs from the UAE

Question	Saudi Arabia	UAE
Is valuation a regulated profession?	Yes, through Taqeem	No single licensing authority for valuers
What makes a report acceptable	Accreditation plus IVS compliance for regulated purposes	Standards, methodology and independence
Who decides if the report is accepted	The receiving authority or court	The receiving party, bank, authority or court
Cross-border commercial work	IVS-compliant report is standard	IVS-compliant report is standard

Neither approach is better. They answer to different institutional histories. What matters for anyone working across both is knowing which applies to the document in front of them.

What drives value in the Saudi market

The mechanics are the same everywhere: normalised earnings, a defensible multiple or discount rate, and adjustments for debt, cash and working capital. What differs between markets is which risks buyers price and how heavily.

In Saudi Arabia the recurring themes are the durability of contracted revenue, particularly where a large share comes from government or quasi-government counterparties, localisation requirements and the cost of meeting them, the depth of management below the founder, and the realistic exit routes available to a buyer. Our GCC and MENA multiples benchmark sets out how the regional picture compares, and our UAE multiples guide publishes the sector bands Assetica uses as indicative reference ranges rather than quotes.

Zakat, tax and valuation

Saudi entities may face zakat, corporate income tax or both depending on ownership, and valuations can be relevant to positions taken in either. Related-party transactions and transfers of assets between entities under common control attract the same kind of scrutiny they attract elsewhere.

The specifics are a matter for Saudi tax advisers and, where the purpose is regulated, for a Taqeem-accredited valuer. What is portable across jurisdictions is the discipline: a contemporaneous report, prepared at the transaction date, stating its basis of value and showing its methods and adjustments. Our guide to transfer pricing valuation covers that discipline in the UAE context, and the same principles travel.

What the report itself has to contain

Whichever route applies, the document is judged on the same things, and a reader who knows what to look for can assess it in a few minutes.

A stated basis of value. Market value, fair value and investment value answer different questions and produce different numbers. A report that does not say which it is measuring cannot be checked against anything.
A fixed valuation date. Value is a statement about a moment. A report without a date, or with a date chosen after the fact, is weaker than one fixed at the outset.
Normalised earnings, with the adjustments shown. Owner remuneration above or below market, one-off items, related-party dealings. The adjustments matter more than the multiple, and each one should be evidenced.
The reasoning behind the multiple or discount rate. Not just the figure, but why it was chosen for this business.
Stated limitations. What the valuer relied on without verifying, and what would change the answer. Reports that claim no limitations are the least credible ones.

Preparing a Saudi business for a valuation

Owners can remove most of the friction before anyone is engaged, and the preparation is the same whether the report is for a regulated filing or a foreign buyer.

Have the last three years of financial statements available, audited where they exist in audited form, together with the current year to date. Assemble the contract register, with terms, renewal dates and counterparty names, because contracted revenue is the single thing most likely to move the answer. Document ownership: the commercial registration, the shareholding structure and any agreements between shareholders. Be ready to explain any related-party arrangement, including transactions that are entirely ordinary, because they are always asked about.

Where management accounts and statutory accounts disagree, say so at the start and explain why. That disclosure costs nothing at the beginning of an engagement and is expensive to make halfway through one.

A workable sequence for a cross-border deal

For a UAE or international acquirer looking at a Saudi target, the order of work matters more than most buyers expect.

Establish the purpose first. Commercial analysis, regulatory filing, or both. This determines who can prepare what.
Commission the commercial valuation early. An independent IVS-compliant view of value, before price is discussed rather than after.
Run diligence against the valuation, not separately. Findings should feed back into the number. See M&A due diligence and valuation.
Engage a Taqeem-accredited valuer where a regulated filing is required, on the timetable that filing demands rather than at the end.
Keep one set of assumptions. Where two reports exist, they should share the same normalised earnings and the same valuation date, or the difference should be explained deliberately.

Why the two markets are converging in practice

For a business owner operating across the GCC, the more useful observation is that the practical requirements are moving closer together even though the institutional arrangements differ.

Both markets now expect reports prepared to International Valuation Standards. Both expect the valuer to be independent of the audit and of the transaction. Both expect normalised earnings to be shown rather than asserted, and both increasingly expect a contemporaneous report rather than one produced after the event to justify a position already taken. A report built to satisfy the more demanding of the two readers will generally satisfy the other.

What has not converged is who may sign the report for a regulated purpose, and that is unlikely to change. It remains the first question to settle on any Saudi matter, and the one most often left until last.

The mistakes that cost the most

Three recur. Commissioning the wrong kind of report, discovered only on rejection. Leaving the regulated filing until the commercial deal is agreed, so the timetable collapses at the end. And running two valuations in parallel that quietly use different earnings, different dates or different bases, so the first question anybody asks is why the numbers disagree.

All three are avoidable by settling the purpose at the start. It is a five-minute conversation that routinely saves weeks.

Where Assetica fits

Assetica is an independent valuation firm in Dubai, part of the GTAG group, working to IVS and the RICS Red Book. We prepare independent, IVS-compliant valuations for cross-border purposes: UAE and international buyers assessing Saudi targets, group reporting for foreign parents, and pre-deal analysis before anything is filed. We do not audit and we do not broker deals, so we have no stake in the number.

Where your purpose requires a Taqeem-accredited valuer inside the Kingdom, we will tell you so rather than take the engagement, and our reports are built to sit alongside that work on the same assumptions. Our standards are set out on the RICS and IVSC pages. A standard report takes five to seven business days from complete documents, two to three expedited. See what to gather in the documents checklist, try the valuation calculator for an indicative range, or book a scoping call through our contact page.

Looking at a Saudi business from the UAE?

Settle the purpose before commissioning anything. We will tell you whether you need a Taqeem-accredited valuer, an IVS-compliant cross-border report, or both.

Book a scoping call

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a Taqeem-accredited valuer for my Saudi business?

It depends entirely on the purpose. If the valuation will be submitted to a Saudi court, a government authority or used for a regulated domestic purpose, then yes, and there is no substitute. If it is commercial analysis for a foreign buyer or board, an independent IVS-compliant report is standard practice.

What is Taqeem?

Taqeem is the Saudi Authority for Accredited Valuers, which regulates the valuation profession in the Kingdom. Valuers performing work for regulated purposes must be accredited by Taqeem and follow its rules, which incorporate the International Valuation Standards. It makes Saudi Arabia one of the most formally regulated valuation jurisdictions in the region.

Can a UAE firm value a Saudi business?

For cross-border commercial purposes, yes, and it is common: a UAE or international buyer assessing a Saudi target needs a defensible independent view for its own investment committee. For a regulated filing inside Saudi Arabia, the work has to be done by a Taqeem-accredited valuer.

How is Saudi valuation different from UAE valuation?

The methodology is the same and both follow International Valuation Standards. The difference is institutional: Saudi Arabia licenses valuers through Taqeem, so for regulated purposes acceptance depends on who is on the register as well as how the work was done. The UAE has no equivalent single licensing authority for valuers.

Should the same firm do both the commercial and the regulated report?

They are usually different firms, because the regulated report requires accreditation inside the Kingdom. What matters is that both rest on the same normalised earnings and the same valuation date, or that any difference is deliberate and explained. Divergent numbers invite the first and most awkward question.

How long does a cross-border Saudi valuation take?

An independent IVS-compliant report takes five to seven business days from complete documents, and two to three where expedited. The constraint is usually information rather than analysis. Where a regulated Saudi filing is also needed, that runs on its own timetable and should be started early rather than at the end.

Speak to Assetica about Business Valuation

Assetica is an independent business valuation firm in Dubai. We do not audit and we do not broker deals, so the number carries no conflict. Read more about business valuation, or book a free scoping call. Standard reports are issued in five to seven business days.