Tomoh Program Saudi: Eligibility & How to Join 2026

By Cherie — Business Consultant, Noble Core · Updated June 2026

What the Tomoh program is, in plain terms

Tomoh (طموح, meaning “ambition”) is the flagship high-growth enterprise programme of the Small and Medium Enterprises General Authority — Monsha’at. It is not a licence, a permit, or a grant scheme in the usual sense. It is an enrolment-based support ecosystem: once your company is accepted, you gain structured access to three pillars that Monsha’at describes consistently across its material — knowledge, markets, and financing.

The programme launched in 2017 and has grown into one of the most substantial SME-support vehicles in the Kingdom. Public figures published in 2026 put cumulative enrolment at roughly 3,300 establishments, combined participant revenue above SAR 38–40 billion (around 19% year-on-year growth), and combined employment above 99,000 people. Forty participating companies have gone on to list on Nomu, the Saudi parallel market operated by Tadawul.

The practical value for an owner is less about cash and more about access. Tomoh members are routed to advisory panels, governance and financial-readiness support, market-entry help, procurement introductions, knowledge trips, and — for the companies that reach that stage — structured preparation for a capital raise or a Nomu listing. All of this sits under the wider Vision 2030 objective of lifting the SME share of national GDP, which is why the Kingdom funds it as a public service rather than a paid consultancy product.

You can review the authority’s own description of the programme and its current service catalogue on the Monsha’at portal at monshaat.gov.sa, which also hosts the Tomoh landing section and the registration forms.

Who qualifies for the tomoh program Saudi Arabia offers

Two filters decide eligibility: your size classification, and your growth rate.

Size classification

Your establishment must fall inside the Saudi SME definition used by Monsha’at. The indicative bands are:

• Micro — annual revenue up to about SAR 3 million, roughly 1–5 employees.
• Small — annual revenue about SAR 3 million to SAR 40 million, roughly 6–49 employees.
• Medium — annual revenue about SAR 40 million to SAR 200 million, roughly 50–249 employees.

These thresholds are indicative and have been adjusted over time; confirm the current bands on the official portal before you rely on them. Tomoh is aimed squarely at the small and medium bands — a micro establishment with a single owner and no employment history will usually be routed to Monsha’at’s earlier-stage services instead.

Growth test

The headline criterion is growth of 20% or more per year in either revenue or employment. The Arabic-language programme material describes this as sustained growth across three consecutive years, which is the standard “high-growth enterprise” definition used internationally. If your company has grown from 12 to 15 staff and from SAR 6 million to SAR 7.3 million in a single year, you are inside the band on both measures.

Compliance status

You will also need to be a properly registered, in-good-standing Saudi entity. In practice that means a live Commercial Register with the Ministry of Commerce, a Saudi Business Center account, ZATCA registration where your turnover requires it, and clean employer status on Qiwa and GOSI. A company with a lapsed CR or suspended employer file will not get through the verification stage, however good its growth numbers look.

The Tomoh tracks and what each one delivers

Tomoh is an umbrella rather than a single course. Under it Monsha’at operates several specialised tracks, and the ones most often asked about are:

• Tomoh core — the general membership: diagnostic, relationship manager, growth plan, advisory access, and the events and knowledge calendar.
• Tomoh-ELITE — the capital-markets readiness track, delivered in partnership with the ELITE network model. It prepares companies eligible for listing, connecting them with local and international advisors and investors and building the governance, reporting and disclosure discipline a Nomu offering requires.
• International immersion tracks — including the Silicon Valley programme launched with US partners, aimed at scaling technology and product-led companies through structured overseas placements.
• Sector and function accelerators — rotating cohorts covering strategic planning, design thinking and corporate innovation, agile operating models, family-business governance, and leadership for scaling teams.

Track availability rotates by cohort and application window. The safest approach is to register on the platform first, complete the diagnostic, and let your relationship manager map you to the track your assessment actually points to — rather than applying to a specific accelerator blind.

Step-by-step: how to register on the Tomoh platform

The registration flow is short but each step gates the next. Work through it in order.

1. Open the Monsha’at portal at monshaat.gov.sa and navigate to the Tomoh section (the Arabic interface is the fuller one; an English mirror exists for most pages).
2. Create or sign in to your account. Individual identity is verified through the national single sign-on, so you will authenticate with your National ID or Iqama number via Absher. Non-Saudi managers use their Iqama number; make sure the mobile number registered in Absher is the one in your hand, because the OTP goes there.
3. Link the establishment. On the “Establishment” or “منشأتي” screen you enter your Unified Commercial Register number. Under the Commercial Register Law effective 3 April 2026, the unified national CR identifier begins with the digit “7” and no longer carries an expiry date — an annual confirmation replaces renewal. If your old branch-level registers have not yet been migrated, resolve that with the Ministry of Commerce first at mc.gov.sa or through the Saudi Business Center.
4. Complete the eligibility declaration. You state your latest two to three years of revenue and headcount. Figures are cross-checked against ZATCA filings and GOSI employee counts, so declare what your filings say, not what your management accounts say.
5. Submit the application and wait for the pre-screen. This is usually where an incomplete or mismatched record bounces back with a request for clarification.
6. Take the Tomoh diagnostic. The self-assessment runs to roughly 145 questions across strategy, finance, operations, people, sales and governance. Budget 60–90 minutes and have your finance lead beside you — several questions ask for figures you will not remember.
7. Meet your relationship manager. Accepted members are assigned a named contact who walks through the diagnostic output and identifies your development gaps.
8. Receive and sign off the growth plan. The plan lists the specific Tomoh services, advisors and cohorts you are matched to. From here you book services individually through the platform.

Documents and identifiers you should have ready

Nothing on this list is exotic, but gathering it before you start saves a rejected application:

• Unified Commercial Register number (the new “7”-prefixed national CR) and a copy of the CR extract.
• National ID or Iqama number of the authorised signatory, active on Absher.
• Articles of association / memorandum, and the current shareholder or partner list from Najiz where relevant.
• Chamber of Commerce membership certificate, current year.
• ZATCA registration certificate and, where applicable, the VAT certificate — see zatca.gov.sa.
• Audited or reviewed financial statements for the last two to three financial years.
• GOSI establishment number and current employee count from gosi.gov.sa, plus your Saudization band from Qiwa.
• Municipal licence from Balady if your activity requires premises.
• For foreign-owned entities, the MISA investment licence number.
• Expatriate staff records via Muqeem if you are asked to evidence headcount composition.

Tomoh fees, timelines and surrounding costs

Tomoh enrolment itself is a Monsha’at public service and is not sold as a paid package — the cost you should plan for sits in the compliance and readiness work around it. Individual specialised services inside the programme may carry subsidised co-payment depending on the cohort, so always confirm the current schedule on the official portal.

Item	Indicative fee (SAR)	Indicative timeline
Tomoh platform registration	No published fee	15–30 minutes
Eligibility pre-screen	—	5–15 business days
Tomoh diagnostic (≈145 questions)	No published fee	60–90 minutes to complete
Relationship manager assignment + growth plan	No published fee	2–6 weeks after diagnostic
Commercial Register (unified, MoC)	≈1,200–2,000	1–3 business days
Chamber of Commerce membership	≈2,000–3,000 per year	1–2 business days
MISA investment licence issue/renew	Fees suspended in 2026 (previously 12,000 / 62,000)	≈3–10 business days
Iqama issue/renew (government fee)	≈650 per year + applicable levies	1–5 business days
VAT registration and filing (ZATCA)	No fee; VAT rate 15%	Same day to 3 days
GOSI contributions (Saudi employee, total)	≈21.5% of wage (employer + employee)	Monthly
Audit / financial statement preparation	≈8,000–35,000 depending on size	2–6 weeks
Tomoh-ELITE listing readiness (advisory)	Market-rate, varies by advisor	9–24 months to listing

All figures above are indicative and subject to change — confirm current figures on the official portal before budgeting. Government fee schedules in the Kingdom have moved meaningfully in the last two years, most notably the suspension of MISA licence issuance and renewal fees.

Tomoh-ELITE and the route to a Nomu listing

The most consequential branch of the programme is Tomoh-ELITE. It exists because the gap between “profitable SME” and “listable company” is mostly a governance and disclosure gap, not a size gap. ELITE takes companies through that gap in structured phases.

In practice the work covers: converting to a joint-stock company where required, appointing a board with genuine independent representation, moving to IFRS-compliant audited statements, building a three-to-five-year financial model that survives due diligence, appointing a financial advisor and legal counsel, and then working through the Capital Market Authority and Tadawul requirements for a Nomu offering. Forty Tomoh companies have completed that route to date.

Two realistic expectations are worth setting. First, the timeline is long — nine to twenty-four months from serious start to listing is normal, and companies frequently pause to fix an accounting or shareholder-structure issue discovered during preparation. Second, ELITE opens doors and provides preparation; it does not replace the paid advisors a listing requires. Budget for those separately.

How Tomoh fits alongside foreign ownership and MISA

A common question from international founders is whether a foreign-owned Saudi company can join Tomoh. The programme is aimed at Saudi-registered establishments, and a company licensed by the Ministry of Investment (MISA) with a live Commercial Register is a Saudi-registered establishment. What matters is your CR, your size classification, your growth numbers and your compliance record — not the nationality of the shareholders. Foreign investors can hold 100% ownership in most activities, which means the structure that makes you eligible is the same structure most foreign investors already use.

The sequencing matters, though. You cannot enrol in Tomoh before you exist. The order is: MISA investment licence, then Commercial Register with the Ministry of Commerce, then Chamber membership, national address, ZATCA registration, GOSI and Qiwa employer files, bank account, and staff Iqamas. Only once you have two to three years of filed financials showing the growth curve does a Tomoh application make sense. If you are still at the entry stage, start with company formation in Saudi Arabia and get the foundation right, because Tomoh’s verification stage reads exactly those records.

If the investment licence is the piece you are missing, our detailed guide to the MISA licence in Saudi Arabia walks through activity classification, capital requirements and the documents MISA actually asks for.

What membership actually looks like month to month

Owners often ask what changes the day after acceptance. Honestly, not much — unless you drive it. Tomoh is a pull system, not a push system: the platform holds a catalogue of services and cohorts, and members who book them get value while members who wait for something to arrive get very little.

A typical productive first year looks something like this. Month one to two: diagnostic completed, relationship manager meeting held, growth plan signed off. Month three to five: two or three targeted advisory engagements from the catalogue, usually in the weakest areas the diagnostic surfaced — most commonly financial reporting discipline, pricing, or organisational structure. Month six onwards: cohort participation, sector events, and either a market-access track or, for companies with the profile, an initial ELITE conversation.

Practically, that means appointing an internal owner with authority. In small companies this is often the CFO or the general manager; in family businesses it works best when it is the next-generation leader, because the governance work Tomoh pushes towards is precisely the work that professionalises a family firm. Assign the role formally, give it calendar time, and review progress against the growth plan quarterly.

Keeping your records clean while you participate

Membership does not pause your ordinary obligations, and several of them feed straight back into how Monsha’at sees your file. Keep VAT returns filed on time with ZATCA at the 15% standard rate, keep pace with the Fatoora e-invoicing integration waves as your turnover band is called, keep GOSI contributions current at the roughly 21.5% combined rate for Saudi employees, and file the annual confirmation for your unified Commercial Register. Companies that treat compliance as background noise tend to discover the problem at exactly the moment they need a clean record — a financing round, a tender on Etimad, or a listing application.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Applying too early. Tomoh is for companies with a demonstrable multi-year growth curve. A company with one strong quarter has nothing to verify.
• Assuming Tomoh is a grant. It is an access-and-capability programme. Financing support means readiness, matchmaking and introductions — not a cheque on enrolment.
• Declaring management-account revenue instead of filed revenue. Always reconcile to your ZATCA filings first.
• Using a personal mobile number not registered in Absher. Every OTP in the chain goes to the Absher-registered number; a mismatch blocks sign-in entirely.
• Letting the Chamber of Commerce membership lapse. It is a cheap renewal that quietly invalidates several downstream government services.
• Skipping the national address. A missing or outdated national address on Balady records causes verification failures well beyond Tomoh.
• Treating Tomoh-ELITE as a shortcut to listing. It is preparation, not approval. CMA and Tadawul requirements apply in full.
• Ignoring Saudization band before applying. A red or low-band Qiwa status limits access to several government services and looks poor at verification.
• Not appointing an internal owner. Tomoh generates real work — diagnostics, plan sign-off, cohort attendance. Without a named internal owner, membership goes dormant.
• Relying on outdated fee figures. Several government fees changed in 2026, including the suspension of MISA licence fees. Always confirm on the official portal.

Where Tomoh applications go wrong

Most rejections and stalls trace back to a small set of avoidable problems. The verification team cross-checks declarations against government systems, so the numbers you type must match the numbers already filed.

Growth figures that do not reconcile

Declaring SAR 45 million of revenue when your ZATCA VAT returns total SAR 31 million will stop the application immediately. If there is a legitimate reason for the difference — export sales, zero-rated supplies, a group structure — explain it in the notes field rather than hoping nobody looks.

Headcount measured the wrong way

Employment growth is read from GOSI and Qiwa records, not from your HR spreadsheet. Contractors, outsourced staff and unregistered workers do not appear there. Check your actual registered headcount on both platforms before you declare a growth percentage.

Dormant or unmigrated commercial registers

Companies that still hold pre-April-2026 branch registers, or whose annual confirmation has not been filed under the new Commercial Register Law, will fail the establishment-linking step. There is a five-year grace period for migration, but the Tomoh platform wants a clean current record today.

Rushing the diagnostic

The 145-question assessment drives your entire growth plan and track allocation. Answering it in twenty minutes with optimistic guesses produces a growth plan matched to a company you do not have. Take the time; the output is only as useful as the input.

How Noble Core helps

Noble Core Ventures works with founders and operators who want the Saudi foundation built correctly the first time — because every growth programme, financing route and government service in the Kingdom reads the same underlying records. Our team handles MISA licensing, Commercial Register issuance under the new unified system, Chamber membership, national address and municipal licensing, ZATCA and VAT registration, GOSI and Qiwa employer files, corporate bank account introductions, and Iqama processing for founders and staff.

For companies already trading, we run a readiness review before you apply to Tomoh: reconciling declared revenue against ZATCA filings, verifying registered headcount on GOSI and Qiwa, confirming your Saudization band, checking that your commercial register is migrated and confirmed under the 2026 law, and making sure your financial statements will withstand the verification stage. That review is usually the difference between an application that clears the pre-screen in a fortnight and one that sits in clarification for two months.

If you are entering the market rather than scaling inside it, Noble Core’s MISA licensing service covers the full entry sequence, with packages starting from SAR 36,999 depending on activity and structure. We work to current fee schedules from MISA, the Ministry of Commerce, ZATCA, MHRSD and GOSI, and we tell you plainly which figures are fixed and which are indicative and worth confirming on the official portal before you commit.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Tomoh program Saudi Arabia runs?

Tomoh is Monsha’at’s flagship support programme for fast-growing Saudi SMEs, launched in 2017. It gives enrolled companies structured access to knowledge, markets and financing readiness rather than direct cash grants. Around 3,300 establishments have joined, their combined revenue exceeds SAR 38 billion, and 40 participants have listed on the Nomu parallel market.

Who is eligible for the Tomoh program?

You qualify if your establishment sits in the Saudi small or medium band and has grown 20% or more per year in either revenue or employment, ideally across three consecutive years. You also need a live unified Commercial Register, current Chamber membership, and clean ZATCA, GOSI and Qiwa records. Confirm the current bands on the Monsha’at portal.

How do I register for the Tomoh program in Saudi Arabia?

Go to monshaat.gov.sa, open the Tomoh section, and sign in using your National ID or Iqama through Absher single sign-on. Link your establishment with the unified Commercial Register number, complete the eligibility declaration of revenue and headcount, submit, then take the roughly 145-question diagnostic. A relationship manager and growth plan follow within two to six weeks.

Does the Tomoh program cost anything?

Tomoh enrolment is a Monsha’at public service with no published participation fee. Some specialised services inside individual cohorts may carry subsidised co-payment, so confirm current figures on the official portal. Your real budget sits in surrounding compliance costs: Commercial Register around SAR 1,200 to 2,000, Chamber membership SAR 2,000 to 3,000 yearly, plus audited financial statements.

What is Tomoh-ELITE and how does it differ?

Tomoh-ELITE is the capital-markets readiness track for companies eligible to list. It connects businesses with local and international advisors and investors and builds the governance, IFRS reporting and disclosure discipline a Nomu offering requires. Expect nine to twenty-four months from serious start to listing. ELITE prepares you; Capital Market Authority and Tadawul requirements still apply in full.

Can a foreign-owned company join the tomoh program saudi authorities operate?

Yes. Tomoh is open to Saudi-registered establishments, and a MISA-licensed company with a live Commercial Register qualifies as one. Shareholder nationality is not the filter; size classification, growth numbers and compliance record are. Foreign investors can hold 100% ownership in most activities, so the standard entry structure already meets the requirement.

What documents do I need for a Tomoh application?

Prepare your unified Commercial Register extract with the new 7-prefixed number, National ID or Iqama of the signatory active on Absher, articles of association, current Chamber certificate, ZATCA and VAT registration, two to three years of audited financials, GOSI establishment number and headcount, Qiwa Saudization band, Balady municipal licence, and your MISA licence number if foreign-owned.

How long does Tomoh approval take?

The eligibility pre-screen typically takes five to fifteen business days after submission. The diagnostic itself needs sixty to ninety minutes of your time, and relationship-manager assignment plus a tailored growth plan usually follow within two to six weeks. Applications where declared revenue does not reconcile with ZATCA filings sit in clarification considerably longer, sometimes two months.