SABER and SASO Conformity for IT Hardware Shipped Into Saudi Arabia
Hardware bound for Saudi Arabia needs two separate records on the SABER platform before it moves: a Product Certificate of Conformity for the model, and a Shipment Certificate for that consignment. The product certificate lasts one year and is priced per model. The shipment certificate is required for every individual shipment and has to exist before the goods travel, per the US International Trade Administration briefing of 25 May 2021. A UAE conformity certificate does nothing at the Saudi border, and neither does a CE mark on the carton.
That sequence is where Dubai resellers lose weeks. The purchase order goes out, stock lands in a Jebel Ali warehouse, and only then does somebody open SABER and find that the certificate they assumed was one document is four.
What SABER is, in plain terms
SABER is the electronic platform run by the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization, or SASO. It connects the importer, the conformity assessment body and Saudi customs in one system, inside the wider SALEEM product safety programme. SASO describes it as the route for registering products, registering certificates of conformity and issuing shipment certificates before a product enters the Saudi market.
Two words there carry weight. Registering puts the account and the obligation on the importer, not the manufacturer. Before makes the certificate a precondition of entry, not a document you produce when customs asks.
Four parameters decide how many certificates you pay for
A Product Certificate of Conformity is grouped by four parameters: product description, HS code, manufacturer and country of origin. Change any one of them and you need a separate certificate. That single rule explains most of the budget surprises.
Take a practical case. A Riyadh customer orders forty access switches of one family. Twenty come from a factory in Mexico and twenty from China, because that is how availability fell that month. Same part number, same HS code, same manufacturer, two countries of origin. Two certificates, two fees, two review cycles. The invoice looks like one line. The conformity paperwork does not.
The same trap catches mixed kit. A rack holding switches, a firewall, a UPS and rack PDUs is four HS codes at minimum, so it is at least four certificates even when it ships as one pallet on one invoice. Build that into the quotation before you send it, the same way you would read any enterprise hardware quotation line by line. The one-year validity is per certificate, so a repeat order thirteen months later starts from a fresh one.
Which regulation catches a switch, a server or an access point
The 50 V and 75 V thresholds
The rules for mains-powered equipment come from the Gulf Technical Regulation for Low Voltage Electrical Equipment and Appliances, document BD-142004-01, published by the GCC Standardization Organization and adopted by SASO. It is the second issue of the regulation and updates the earlier BD07070503 dated 27 November 2007.
Article 1 defines the equipment it covers as electrical and electronic devices rated for use between 50 and 1000 volts alternating current, and between 75 and 1500 volts direct current, other than the items excluded in Annex 2. A 230 V server power supply, a rack UPS and a PoE switch sit inside that band comfortably. A device whose only rated input is 48 V direct current from a PoE port sits below the direct current floor, so the nameplate rating rather than the product category decides the route. Read the label before you assume one certificate covers a whole kit, and get the classification call from the conformity assessment body in writing.
Article 20 is the one that saves money. Equipment holding an IECEE CB Scheme certificate of conformity, adjusted for the national differences of member states including the Gulf Conformity Marking, is treated as having met the conformity assessment procedures in Annexes 3 and 4. If your vendor already holds CB Scheme documentation, ask for it by name before anyone commissions fresh testing.
Radio equipment answers to a second authority
A wireless access point is electrical equipment and radio equipment at once, and different bodies regulate each side. The Communications, Space and Technology Commission publishes the Regulations for Licensing of Telecommunications and Information Technology Equipment, version dated 8 February 2024 under decision 532/1445, which set the conditions for import and clearance and require a certificate of conformity against CST technical specifications. CST runs an ICT Equipment Licensing System so importers can check compliance before shipping.
Two authorities means two timelines that do not run together. Start the radio approval first, because it is the one with no workaround if the model was never registered for the Saudi market.
What the SABER process actually looks like
SASO's own training guide for certificates of conformity lays out the sequence. You open a Product Conformity Certificate request and the platform shows only the products that require a certificate. You add model numbers, typed in or uploaded through a downloadable Excel template. You then pick a geographic region and a conformity assessment body office, and send the request. Three points in that flow deserve attention.
- The request sits at "waiting receipt of the request from conformity assessment body side" until the body accepts it, and that wait is outside your control.
- You create and pay the invoice before the body reviews the documents and takes the conformity decision. A weak submission is a paid submission. Get the CB test report and the electromagnetic compatibility test report in hand first.
- Where a product carries an additional requirement such as a power efficiency certificate, the guide states the request cannot be completed until that requirement has been issued for the product.
The bodies SASO accepts for product certification include TÜV SÜD, RACS, the Turkish Standards Institute and QIMA, so the choice of office is a commercial decision rather than a formality. Ask each one for turnaround on your HS codes before you commit.
Arabic labelling is a warehouse job, not a paperwork job
Article 8 of the low voltage regulation requires that equipment is accompanied by safety information in Arabic and that instructions for use are provided in Arabic. Article 10 places the same obligation on the importer. Article 10 also requires the importer's own name or registered trade name and contact address to appear on the equipment, on its packaging, or in a document accompanying it.
A valid certificate does not fix a pallet of switches that arrived with English-only safety text and no importer details. That is physical work on cartons, and it belongs on the schedule alongside the certificate rather than after it. Article 18 allows non-conforming equipment at trade fairs and exhibitions only when it carries a sign that cannot easily be removed, stating clearly that it does not comply and will not be made available in the market before being brought into conformity.
Ten years of records, starting the day you sell
Article 8 requires the manufacturer's Declaration of Conformity to be kept for ten years after the equipment is placed on the market, Article 9 puts the same ten-year duty on an authorised representative, and Article 10 requires the importer to draw up a written declaration of its own. Ten years is longer than most resellers keep an email archive. Treat these documents the way you treat warranty entitlement and serial records in a proper asset register, filed per model and per country of origin, because that is how a market surveillance request will arrive.
An ECAS certificate is not a SABER certificate
Resellers already selling into the UAE market sometimes assume their Emirates Conformity Assessment Scheme paperwork travels south. It does not. The UAE Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology runs a separate scheme with separate fees, published on its service page as 600 dirhams to submit a product registration request, 620 dirhams for technical document review and 500 dirhams for issuance, with a stated processing time of one and a half working days.
Goods moving from a Dubai warehouse to Riyadh cross a border where the Saudi rules start from zero. One narrow relief is worth knowing: the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority publishes a free e-service called SABER Certificate Exception for customs brokers retrieving temporarily exported goods, by matching the conformity of the exported item to the imported item. That covers returns and demo stock coming home, not new supply.
Before you quote a Saudi buyer
- Get the HS code, manufacturer and country of origin for every line, then count the certificates that combination produces.
- Ask the vendor for the IECEE CB Scheme certificate and the electromagnetic compatibility test report by name.
- Check whether any line is radio equipment and start the CST route first.
- Confirm the importer of record on the Saudi side, because that party carries the Arabic labelling and ten-year record duties.
- Put the certificate lead time on the delivery schedule you give the customer, alongside the usual stock and lead time reality.
Country of origin is also where conformity and authenticity meet. A unit sourced through an unofficial channel can carry an origin that does not match its documentation, which breaks the certificate grouping and raises the questions covered in genuine versus grey market IT hardware.
Codeeo Tech supplies Cisco, HPE, Aruba, Dell EMC, Juniper and APC hardware from Dubai Silicon Oasis. For the model, manufacturer and country of origin detail that drives the certificate count on a Saudi delivery, talk to the team or browse the Cisco range.
Cover photo: Night view of City Riyadh from Hauptstadt Saudi Arabiens - panoramio by Jack Soma, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).
