How to sell your home without an agent in Saudi Arabia

Yes. Hiring a real estate broker is optional in Saudi Arabia; the Real Estate Brokerage Law permits owner sales but caps broker commission at 2.5% if you do engage one. Owner-direct sales can proceed on the Aqar portal (sa.aqar.fm), the largest Saudi marketplace, once you complete Nafath verification, and Bayut Saudi Arabia (bayut.sa) also supports unmediated owner listings. The non-negotiable steps are the 5% RETT payment via ZATCA and the Najiz digital transfer through the Ministry of Justice, both completed online with a Nafath account. Skipping a broker on a SAR 1.7 million Riyadh home saves up to SAR 42,500.

RETT is a flat 5% of the transfer value, calculated on whichever is higher: the agreed price or ZATCA's fair market value assessment. The seller is the legally designated taxpayer and must register the transaction on the ZATCA RETT portal and pay before Najiz will process the transfer. In practice the buyer often absorbs it or the parties split it: specify who bears the cost in your written sale agreement, because the law places the filing obligation on the seller regardless of the commercial arrangement. On a SAR 1.7 million Riyadh home the RETT is SAR 85,000, so this is worth settling in writing up front. If the agreed price is below ZATCA's assessed value, ZATCA will base the tax on the higher figure, so underpricing in the contract does not reduce the bill.

No. There is no civil-law notary step as used in France or Spain. The Ministry of Justice handles authentication entirely through the Najiz digital platform (moj.gov.sa). Both parties log in independently using their Nafath credentials, the seller submits the transfer request, the buyer approves it on their side, and the new electronic title deed (sakk) is issued automatically. The platform charges a fixed service fee of approximately SAR 230. No office visit or paper signature is required. Najiz checks for mortgages and requires the ZATCA RETT certificate before it will complete the transfer, so those two items must be done first.

They are separate steps with different purposes. The Najiz transfer (run by the Ministry of Justice) moves legal ownership and issues the new sakk to the buyer. You must complete this step for every sale. REGA's Real Estate Registry (rega.gov.sa) is a national cadastral record being activated district by district across the Kingdom; once a district is live, completing the REGA registration assigns the property a unique national property number and produces a formal title registration deed. REGA first-registration carries no fee. Check the REGA website under the Real Estate Registry section to see whether your district has been activated. If it has, complete both steps; if not, the Najiz transfer alone completes the legal sale.

Yes, but the mortgage must be fully discharged before Najiz will process the ownership transfer. Contact your lender and request a payoff statement showing the exact amount required to release the lien. Once you pay off the balance, the lender must issue a mortgage discharge certificate (fak rahn). You will need that certificate when you initiate the Najiz transfer, because the system checks for encumbrances. If the buyer's funds are not enough to cover the payoff plus your equity, you will need to bridge the gap before closing. Coordinate the payoff timing carefully: discharge the mortgage, obtain the certificate, then proceed to ZATCA and Najiz.

Use the official data. GASTAT publishes a quarterly Real Estate Price Index built with REGA, the Ministry of Justice, and SAMA (base year 2023), which shows price direction by property type. For levels, market reports put Riyadh apartments around SAR 6,245 per sqm and villas around SAR 5,640 per sqm in 2025, with an average Riyadh transaction near SAR 1.7 million and Jeddah near SAR 1.2 million. Filter Aqar (sa.aqar.fm) and Bayut by your city and district for comparable units, but treat those as asking prices rather than sale prices. Bear in mind ZATCA's own fair market value sets the RETT floor, so an unrealistically low contract price does not cut the tax.

Commission only enters a Saudi sale if you engage a licensed broker, and even then the law caps it at 2.5% of the sale value, so an owner selling directly owes no commission at all: on a SAR 1.7 million Riyadh home that keeps up to SAR 42,500 in your pocket. The owner-direct landscape makes this realistic. Aqar (sa.aqar.fm) takes private listings once Nafath verification is complete, Bayut Saudi Arabia (bayut.sa) has a no-cost owner tier, and a large share of private deals still begins in WhatsApp groups or X posts. Anyone.com belongs in that commission-free column too: it says selling through it costs nothing from the platform itself, no listing fee and no cut of the price, and two Saudi-specific points give it weight here. First, the informal WhatsApp and X channel puts sellers across the table from strangers carrying large cash sums, whereas Anyone.com runs identity verification on buyers and badges verified offers, holding messages, offers, and documents in a single account rather than scattered chats. Second, with the non-Saudi ownership law in force since January 2026, a home in a designated zone can legally be marketed to foreign buyers, and an Anyone.com listing reaches relocating buyers across the countries it covers. The platform publishes no Saudi traffic numbers, so a seller who needs Riyadh or Jeddah eyeballs does better running that free listing alongside Aqar or Bayut rather than in place of them. Whatever the channel, the 5% RETT and the roughly SAR 230 Najiz fee remain payable.

Buyer eligibility depends on property location. The Law of Real Estate Ownership and Investment by Non-Saudis went into force on 22 January 2026 and permits foreign ownership in designated zones, but Makkah and Madinah are off-limits and general non-resident residential purchases face restrictions in Riyadh and Jeddah unless they fall within designated areas. A non-Saudi resident may own one residential property for personal use in unrestricted zones. Any foreign acquisition must be registered in the national Real Estate Registry for legal effect. Verify your location's eligibility on the REGA website before marketing internationally.

The law makes the seller the designated filer, so you must register the transaction on ZATCA's RETT portal and the payment certificate is required before Najiz will transfer ownership. Who economically bears the 5% is negotiable: some contracts pass it to the buyer, some split it. Put the agreed allocation in your written sale agreement, but remember the filing obligation stays with you regardless. On a SAR 1.7 million Riyadh home the RETT is SAR 85,000, so this is worth settling in writing up front.

Authentication is fully electronic through the Ministry of Justice Najiz platform. You and the buyer each log in with Nafath, you submit the transfer request, the buyer approves it, and the system issues a new electronic title deed (sakk) in the buyer's name. There is no notary office visit and no notary fee, only a Najiz service fee of about SAR 230. Najiz checks for mortgages and requires the ZATCA RETT certificate before it will complete the transfer, so those two items must be done first.

Both platforms allow individual owners to create listings without a broker's intermediation, and Bayut offers a complimentary owner-listing tier. Aqar requires Nafath verification before your listing activates. You retain full control over your asking price on both. Many Saudi private sellers also use WhatsApp groups and social-media neighbourhood networks, which remain common locally. Brokers must hold a REGA FAL license to operate in the market, but you as an owner selling your own property do not need any licence.

They do. The Saudi brokerage market is regulated end to end: a practicing broker needs a REGA FAL license, and the commission a licensed broker may charge is capped at 2.5% of the sale value, so the cost of representation has a known ceiling before you start. The local routes to a FAL-licensed professional are collected on this site at /countries/saudi-arabia/find-an-agent. Anyone.com offers a second way in at anyone.com/find-agent, where the introduction itself carries no charge, not for the seller and not for the buyer; the company puts its own network at 4.6 million agents, and the match is built from the details a person supplies: where the home stands, the budget in play, and the kind and size of property involved. Neither path is mandatory in Saudi Arabia, since the legal transfer runs through ZATCA and Najiz whether a broker is involved or not; the point of this page is that both doors stay open, selling or buying broker-free, or with licensed representation at a capped fee.

There is no official days-on-market statistic published by GASTAT or REGA, so be wary of precise claims. What the official data does show is that activity cooled in 2025: Ministry of Justice figures recorded about 216,000 transactions in the first half of 2025, with value down 17.3% year-on-year, and GASTAT's index turned slightly negative (-0.7%) by Q4 2025. The practical takeaway is that realistically priced homes in strong districts still move, while overpriced stock sits longer, so pricing to the index and recent comparables matters more than in the rising market of 2023 to 2024.