Influencers · GAMR / Mawthooq
Influencer and paid-post ads in Saudi Arabia: who needs a Mawthooq licence, and the ten duties that come with it
The most common misunderstanding we hear from foreign brands: “Do we need a Saudi advertising licence to run ads?” Usually not — Mawthooq is a licence for peoplewho advertise through their own accounts, not for the brand buying media. But the moment a campaign pays a creator to post, the creator’s licence status and the post’s wording become the brand’s problem too. Here is how the pieces fit.
What Mawthooq is
- Issuer: the General Authority for Media Regulation (GAMR, formerly GCAM) through its e-services portal.
- Scope: “providing advertising content through social media platforms” from a personal account. The account names are written into the licence and cannot change until renewal.
- Term and fee: 3 years, SAR 15,000. Processing time listed as 30 days.
- Non-Saudis: the regulator’s wording requires non-Saudi applicants to obtain “the necessary licences and approvals” before advertising. In practice, resident non-Saudi creators are steered to work through licensed establishments rather than hold the licence personally. Confirm the current path with the regulator; it has shifted since launch.
The ten duties a licensee signs
- Use only the account names and descriptions written in the licence.
- Prevent anyone else from advertising through the registered account.
- State clearly that the content is an advertisement (إعلان / #ad / paid partnership).
- Do not deceive or mislead consumers.
- Respect the reputation of companies and individuals.
- Do not promote illegal products, services or activities.
- Do not exploit children in advertising.
- Comply with the rules of the body that regulates the advertised product — SFDA for cosmetics and supplements, SAMA for finance, REGA for property, Ministry of Health for clinics.
- No advertising without a written contract.
- No violence, cruelty or discrimination in ad content.
Duty 8 is the one brands underestimate. A creator’s post promoting a skin-lightening serum is an SFDA matter; a “guaranteed return” property reel is a REGA matter; a Botox story is a Ministry of Health matter. The licence does not exempt the post from the sector rules — it obliges the creator to follow them, and it gives the regulator a licensee to hold responsible.
What the brand is exposed to
Enforcement has been reported against both sides. Foreign creators advertising without a licence have been fined collectively in the hundreds of thousands of riyals; a creator promoting tobacco was fined SAR 400,000 with the promoting company’s assets seized; creators have been summoned over content deemed to incite or to attack groups. The pattern in those reports: the regulator reaches the advertiser through the creator, and the creative itself is the evidence.
For a brand or agency, that turns into three questions before a paid post goes live: is the creator licensed (or working through a licensed establishment), is there a written contract, and does the post itself pass the sector rules it touches?
A compliant paid post, minimum
☐ Ad disclosure in the first line (إعلان or #ad) · ☐ Creator’s Mawthooq number in the caption or bio · ☐ Written contract on file · ☐ Brand name stated · ☐ Sector rules applied to the claim (no cure / guarantee / superlative) · ☐ No children as the promotional device · ☐ Nothing that reads as political, sectarian or disparaging of another brand.
What Mawthooq does not cover
- A brand running its own ads through Meta, Snapchat, TikTok or Google Ads — no Mawthooq needed; the ad still needs to pass sector and general content rules.
- A foreign company wanting to operate an advertising business inside the Kingdom — that is a separate commercial licensing question (investment licence, local partner), not a Mawthooq question.
- Organic, unpaid mentions with no contract or consideration.
Check a creator caption before it posts
Paste the caption, tick “influencer post”, and FormicGuard checks the disclosure, the licence mention, and the sector rules the claim touches — each finding with its source and a basis grade. Free, no card.
- General Authority for Media Regulation — e-service “Licensing for providing advertising content through social media platforms (Mawthooq)”, gmedia.gov.sa (3 years · SAR 15,000 · 30 days).
- Saudipedia — “What is the Mawthooq license?” (the ten licensee obligations).
- Enforcement figures as reported by Gulf News and Saudi Gazette (basis grade 2 — official announcements via press).
FormicGuard is a pre-publication risk check, not legal advice or regulatory clearance. Licence conditions change; confirm with gmedia.gov.sa. Guide index: all guides.