Do I Need a Certificate?

As per the Saudi Royal Decree No. 51691 dated 01 August 2017, the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) is responsible for the development, issuance and approval of standards for Cigarettes and Tobacco products as well as for controlling and releasing of shipments of such products imported into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Relevant details regarding this update can be found in SFDA’s official website, www.sfda.gov.sa.

In this regard, SFDA has released Technical Regulation SFDA.FD 60:2020 - Plain Packaging of Tobacco Products. Accordingly, the relevant manufacturers of Tobacco Products shall take the necessary measures to comply with this Technical Regulation for the packaging, marking and labelling of Tobacco Products.

The schedule of enforcement for the implementation of the requirements is provided below.

23 August 2019 - Deadline for Importers to comply with the requirements of Technical Regulation SFDA.FD 60:2018

01 January 2020 - Market implementation deadline (For display of those non-complying products which were imported before 23 August 2019)

01 June 2020 - The Technical Regulation SFDA.FD-60 was further revised and issued in June 2020. The SFDA.FD:2020 version of the TR is currently enforced and is binding for the packaging requirements of Tobacco Products.

Further, SFDA has also prohibited the trade and sale of Non-Cigarette Tobacco Products such as Suweika, Shamma (also known as Tambak, Frankincense, Haqqa, Qurha, Saffa, Sa’oot and Kutka) and e-cigarettes.

SFDA requires that all Importers of Tobacco Products to register themselves by filling out the “Registration Form for Importers of Tobacco Products" published on SFDA website and to print the same on the company’s or institution’s letterhead. Further, the filled Registration Form shall also be authenticated before being submitted to SFDA by the local Saudi Chamber of Commerce. Importer registration was made mandatory from 14 July 2018. The registration form can be downloaded from this Link.

Intertek can facilitate the conformity verification of Tobacco Products for Manufacturers and Exporters through SFDA approved test laboratories and issue Certificate of Conformity (CoC) for such shipments exported to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.