Saudi Arabia Greenlights Entrepreneurship From Age 15 in Sweeping New Commercial Law

Saudi Arabia's Cabinet has approved a new commercial transactions law that lets citizens as young as 15 start businesses under specified conditions. The Cabinet session was chaired by Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Asharq Al-Awsat reports.

The numbers tell you the scale. The law runs to 271 articles, according to the Ministry of Commerce, and it wipes out three existing statutes at once: the Commercial Law, the Negotiable Instruments Law and the Commercial Books Law. It enters into force 180 days after publication in the Official Gazette.

What does the new law actually cover?

The Ministry of Commerce says the 271 articles span commercial activity, the status of merchants, enterprises, merchants' obligations and accounting records, plus contracts and negotiable instruments — bills of exchange, promissory notes and cheques.

It also breaks legislative ground. For the first time, rules on commercial sales, supply contracts, commercial representation and brokerage agreements sit in a single legislative act rather than scattered across separate laws.

Minister of Commerce Majid Al-Kasabi said the law regulates commercial sales, supply contracts, brokerage and agency agreements. He described it as a supplement to the Civil Transactions Law, intended to stimulate trade and investment.

Who gains the most?

Two groups stand to benefit: teenagers and small businesses.

On the age front, citizens aged 15 and over can now engage in entrepreneurship under conditions the law sets out — a threshold that opens formal commerce to a segment of the population previously shut out.

On the SME front, the law is designed to give small and medium-sized enterprises greater legal protection and help them expand through commercial contracts and agency agreements. Certain categories of merchants will also be exempt from the obligation to keep accounting records — a compliance break that matters most for the smallest operators.

The law also takes aim at unfair conduct. It's built to protect fair competition and limit practices that harm competitors. Businesses hit by such actions can go to court to have the practices stopped and to seek compensation. That gives smaller players a legal tool they can actually wield.

How will paperwork work?

Accounting records can be kept in electronic or paper form, in Arabic, with the option to use another language as well.

Legal consultant Osama bin Ghanem Al-Obeidi called the decision a step toward modernizing the country's economic legislation. He noted that electronic documents will carry the same evidentiary value as paper originals — a detail that matters for anyone disputing a contract in court.

What happens in the next 180 days?

The clock starts at publication in the Official Gazette. After that, merchants, SMEs and would-be entrepreneurs aged 15 and up will operate under one consolidated commercial code instead of three fragmented ones, with digital records on equal footing with paper.

The bet behind the reform is straightforward: simpler, unified rules plus a lower age barrier should pull more Saudis into formal commercial activity, feeding the broader trade and investment push the Commerce Ministry says it wants.