Your Riyadh rental permit became a licence. You have until 10 December 2026 to convert it, and it is free.

Deadline	2026-12-10, or your own expiry date if sooner
Cost	None
Effect on your validity date	None. A permit that ran to March becomes a licence that runs to March
Where	The Ministry's e-portal
What you must have	The Ministry's licensing criteria met, and a Shomoos subscription
If you hold more than three licences	A maintenance and cleaning contract as well
If you miss it	The violations and penalties table under Article 16 of the Tourism Law

Source: Ministerial Decision 753/1448, transition mechanism items 1-3. Entry into force verified against Umm al-Qura issue 5182, 11 September 2026, page 13.

What actually changed

Ministerial Decision 753, dated 17/3/1448 AH (2026-08-30), issued the لائحة وحدة الضيافة الخاصة and replaced the earlier Private Tourism Hospitality Facility Regulation (Decision 2295).

Two renamings, in the decision's own words:

• The document is renamed «من (تصريح) إلى (ترخيص)», from a permit to a licence.
• The property it is issued for is renamed from مرفق الضيافة السياحي الخاص to وحدة الضيافة الخاصة.

So if you search this topic and a page tells you that you need a permit, you are reading something written before August 2026. A great deal of what is currently online was.

What the conversion costs and what it changes

Nothing, and nothing. The transition mechanism is explicit: the document type changes with no fee and no change to the validity date already on your instrument. If your permit ran to March, your licence runs to March.

It is done on the Ministry's e-portal.

What it asks of you

Three things, and most owners have not done the second:

• You must meet the Ministry's licensing criteria for private hospitality units.
• You are subscribed to Shomoos (شموس), the guest-registration system.
• You file a maintenance and cleaning contract if you hold more than three licences in total. Below that, this does not apply to you.

The deadline is 2026-12-10

The 90 days run from the regulation's entry into force, and the decision's own clause four settles what that means: it is published in the Official Gazette and takes effect from the date of publication.

It was published on Friday 2026-09-11, in Umm al-Qura issue 5182 (year 104), at page 13, as قرار وزير السياحة رقم (753/1448). We read the issue.

Ninety days from there is 2026-12-10. That is the date.

▲ Then check your own expiry, because it may be the date that binds instead. The window closes at 90 days or your own expiry, whichever comes first, so your expiry only binds you if it falls before 2026-12-10. A licence term does not exceed one year, so whether yours lands inside that window is simply a matter of when it was issued. Read it off the document rather than assuming either way.

What happens if you miss it

After the window closes, the Ministry applies the violations and penalties table referred to in Article 16 of the Tourism Law. The penalty amounts are not in this regulation, so we are not quoting a figure from a table we have not read.

One thing worth knowing while you are in there

The new regulation is not only a rename. A few rules that bind you as a licensee are worth reading once, because they are easy to breach without noticing:

• No single guest may stay more than 29 consecutive days, or more than 90 days in total in the same unit during the licence's validity.
• Bookings and any money from the guest must run through a licensed travel and tourism service provider or a Ministry-approved platform. Not through you directly.
• The licence must be displayed inside the unit, and a sign carrying the unit's main data fixed at or beside its outside entrance.
• You must respond to the Ministry around the clock.

We cover who qualifies and what it costs in the companion piece on the licence for Riyadh owners, and what it obliges you to do in the piece on owner obligations.