Ask ten accountants what the minimum is for a Saudi VAT refund claim and most will say SAR 5,000: anything below that stays on your account and carries forward. The number really is in the VAT Implementing Regulations, but it sits in paragraph (11) of Article 70, the article on "refunds to designated persons": foreign governments and diplomatic missions, charities and endowments, and people who carry on no economic activity. A registered business whose return ends in a credit draws its right from Article 69, and Article 69 sets no minimum amount.
We put the number in the wrong place ourselves, in an earlier article on the VAT return, and corrected it after reading the amended text. This article reads Article 69 paragraph by paragraph, as amended by ZATCA Board circular resolution No. (24-06-01) of 17 Jumada al-Ula 1446H (19 November 2024), which rewrote paragraphs 2, 5 and 6 and added paragraph 7.
Three situations that open the right to a refund
Paragraph 1 lets a taxable person claim back overpaid tax in any of three cases:
- A return showing a credit: you filed a return for a period in which net tax was in your favour. This is the exporter whose sales are zero-rated while its purchases carry 15%, and the business in a build-out phase that buys a lot and sells little.
- An overpayment: you paid ZATCA more than was due, through a transfer error or a duplicate payment.
- A standing credit on your account: any VAT-related balance in your favour, including one created by correcting an earlier return downwards.
All three go through the same portal route. The first is by far the most common, and it is what this article means by "credit balance".
Not every "VAT refund" is the same article
Much of what turns up when you search for a Saudi VAT refund concerns other groups under other rules. Mixing them up is where the SAR 5,000 myth comes from:
| Article 69: registered business | Article 70: designated persons | |
|---|---|---|
| Who | Any taxable person | Categories named by the Minister of Finance: foreign governments and missions, charities and endowments, people with no economic activity |
| Prior registration for refunds | No, VAT registration is enough | Yes, an eligibility application and a dedicated refund ID |
| Deadline | With the return, or within 5 years of the end of the calendar year | Within 6 months of the end of the refund period |
| Number of claims | No limit in the text | One per period, and it cannot be amended once filed |
| Minimum | None in the text | SAR 5,000 (paragraph 11) |
Articles 71 to 73 then cover refunds to taxable persons in other GCC states, to persons not resident in the GCC, and to tourists. A citizen's first-home refund is a separate scheme entirely. If you are a registered business with a SAR 3,200 credit, nothing in Article 69 stops you claiming it.
The steps on the ZATCA portal
ZATCA's official service page describes the route as:
- Log in to the ZATCA website.
- Go to Indirect Taxes (VAT).
- Go to "Refund of payments".
- Create a refund request.
You receive an acknowledgment, then a decision once the request has been assessed, by SMS and email. The page lists only two requirements: a credit balance and a bank account number (IBAN). The target group: every VAT-registered taxpayer.
The interface is the easy part. When the money arrives, and how much of it, is decided by paragraphs 3 to 7.
The 60 days start at approval, not at filing
Paragraph 4 is the most misquoted. ZATCA, "upon approving the refund in whole or in part, shall complete the refund procedures and return the amount within sixty (60) days from the date of its approval of the request, by bank transfer to the taxable person's account".
Read it in order. ZATCA reviews the request first; it may ask for more information to verify it, and it may approve or reject it, wholly or partly. The text sets no time limit on that review. The sixty days are a second clock that only starts once approval is given. Anyone who puts "sixty days from filing" into a cash-flow forecast is counting the wrong clock.
Partial approval is a real outcome. If purchase invoices are struck out of your input tax during review, you are paid the remainder, and the difference becomes a matter for discussion or objection.
Four things that delay the money or shrink it
First, a return not yet filed. Paragraph 3: "the refund request may be rejected if there are any tax returns due that have not yet been submitted". One late period anywhere in your history is enough to have the whole request turned down. If you have late periods, read the ZATCA fines waiver before 31 December 2026 and file them before the refund request, not after.
Second, offset. Paragraph 5 as amended: ZATCA may offset amounts due to you "against any tax, any fine or any other amounts owed to the Authority under any other law the Authority administers". The pre-amendment text spoke of offsetting "the excess in the taxpayer's tax account" against amounts owed to the Authority. The new text names, expressly, amounts owed under any other law ZATCA applies, such as zakat, income tax, withholding tax, customs and excise. A VAT credit can be absorbed by a zakat difference you never counted when you wrote the number into the cash plan.
Third, withholding. The same paragraph: ZATCA "may withhold the amount until a settlement is reached regarding any outstanding assessments issued against the taxable person". An open objection to an earlier assessment, even for an unrelated period, is enough to freeze the refund until it is resolved.
Fourth, the quality of your input invoices. A credit balance is usually input tax you deducted, and that is where review begins. An invoice carrying a VAT number that does not match the supplier gives no right to deduct; we walked through a real committee decision on exactly that in verifying a Saudi VAT number and what it means for input tax. Returns and discounts with no credit note issued on time leave input tax on the books that no longer exists in reality; the rules are in the credit and debit note deadline.
A claim opens the period to examination for a year
Paragraph 7, entirely new in the 2024 amendment: "Without prejudice to paragraphs (3) and (4) of Article 64 of these Regulations, the Authority may examine any tax period for which a refund request has been submitted, within one calendar year starting from the date the request is submitted to the Authority."
Article 64(3) bars ZATCA from issuing or amending an assessment more than five years after the end of the calendar year of the period, and 64(4) extends that to twenty years for transactions meant to breach the law or for failure to register. Paragraph 7 adds a window of its own: the period whose credit you claim stays open to examination for a year from the date of your claim.
In practice, a refund request is not only a financial step. It is also an invitation to examine the period. Do not file it until that period's file is genuinely ready to be examined.
Carry forward or claim?
Paragraph 6 makes carry-forward the default: "the taxable person may request a refund of the excess amount, otherwise it will be carried forward in its tax account". You do not lose a credit by not claiming it; it is set against the tax you owe in later periods.
Paragraph 2 sets the window: with the return, or at any time within five years of the end of the calendar year in which the credit arose. A credit from a March 2026 period can be claimed until 31 December 2031.
When is carrying forward better? When the credit is temporary and your output tax will absorb it within a period or two; there is no reason to open the period to examination for money that comes back on its own. When is a claim necessary? When the credit is structural: an exporter whose sales are mostly zero-rated will never use its credit up, and carrying forward simply means money locked away indefinitely.
What should be ready before you click "Create request"
- Zero late returns across all periods, not just the credit period (69/3).
- A statement of everything you owe ZATCA under other laws: zakat, income tax, withholding, customs, excise. That is what the offset will run against (69/5).
- A list of open objections and assessments, because any of them can hold the amount (69/5).
- Input tax reconciled to invoices: each with the supplier's correct VAT number and your details as buyer, and credit notes recorded in their periods.
- An IBAN in the business's name, registered with ZATCA.
- The period's file ready for examination for a year from the claim date (69/7).
Most of these items do not live in one place in the accounting system. Zakat sits in one file, withholding in another, objections in someone's inbox. That is exactly the reporting layer we build on top of existing systems: not a replacement for your books, but one report that tells you before the claim how much will actually arrive after offset, and what might stop it.
Start from the number
Before you build a decision on a credit balance, check the number itself. The VAT calculator extracts VAT from a gross amount or adds it to a net one with halala rounding, which is where small differences build up in input tax. If the credit came from correcting an earlier return, the correction rules and the SAR 15,000 threshold are in the VAT return: deadline, penalties and corrections. If your team wants this checklist as code, Step 10 of the VAT return engine in TypeScript turns Article 69 into a tested function that returns the claim deadline, the worst-case offset and a claim or carry-forward decision.
Holding a credit balance and unsure whether to claim it or carry it? Send us the periods and the shape of your data, and we will send back a written diagnosis: how much of it survives the likely offset, what could delay it, and which periods need preparing before they are opened to examination. Get in touch: the diagnosis comes before any commitment.
Sources: VAT Implementing Regulations (Articles 64, 69, 70, 71 to 73, and the amendments annex) and the VAT refund e-service page, Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority. Quotations are our translation of the Arabic text. This article is general guidance and does not replace professional tax advice.