Influencer Marketing Regulations in Saudi Arabia

Influencer Marketing Regulations in Saudi Arabia: The GCAM, GAMR, and Mawthooq Licensing Guide for 2026

Over the past four years, the Kingdom has gone from having almost no specific rules around paid creator content to running one of the most detailed influencer licensing systems on the planet. If your brand is planning to work with creators in Saudi Arabia, this is not a part of the playbook you can afford to wing.

This is a deep dive into how influencer marketing is regulated in Saudi Arabia today: where the rules came from, what changed in 2022 with the Mawthooq license, what’s shifted again under the rebranded General Authority for Media Regulation (GAMR), and what every brand, agency, and creator needs to know to stay compliant in 2026.

A Quick Note on the Regulator's Name

Before we go any further, a small but important detail. The regulator behind influencer licensing in Saudi Arabia has changed names. It was originally called the General Commission for Audiovisual Media (GCAM), and you’ll still see that abbreviation in a lot of older guides and even some current law firm content.

It has since been restructured and rebranded as the General Authority for Media Regulation (GAMR). It’s the same authority, with an expanded mandate. We’ll use GCAM when talking about the period before the rebrand, and GAMR when talking about the current framework.

The Pre-2022 Landscape: A Largely Unregulated Market

Before October 2022, influencer marketing in Saudi Arabia operated in something close to a legal gray zone.

There was no dedicated influencer licensing regime. Creators didn’t need a specific permit to publish paid promotional content. There was no formal disclosure standard, no mandatory registration, and no central body actively monitoring who was being paid to promote what. Saudi influencers ran ads on Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube under informal arrangements, often with minimal contracts, and brands worked with creators with very little compliance overhead.

That doesn’t mean it was lawless. A few overlapping frameworks still applied:

• The Anti-Cyber Crime Law of 2007 covered online content that harmed public order, religious values, or public morality.
• The Press and Publications Law governed broader media activity.
• The Advertising Regulations set out general standards for misleading content, comparative advertising, and unverified claims.
• General consumer protection rules applied to product claims.

In practice, though, enforcement against influencers specifically was rare, and the system clearly wasn’t designed for a creator economy. As the market scaled and global brands started pouring meaningful budgets into Saudi social media, the regulatory gap became impossible to ignore. The CEO of GCAM herself acknowledged at the time that “the market is so unregulated” and that the goal was to “protect them also, because the bylaw regulates their relationship with the advertisers.” (Arab News, 2022)

That’s the gap Mawthooq was built to fill.

The 2022 Mawthooq Licensing System: Saudi Arabia's First Real Influencer Law

On 1 October 2022, the General Commission for Audiovisual Media (GCAM at the time) formally launched the Mawthooq licensing platform. The word translates roughly to “trustworthy” or “verified,” and the program made Saudi Arabia the first major market in the world to require national-level government licensing for paid creator content.

International law firm Clyde & Co flagged it at the time as a “clear reflection of the growing importance of the digital content sector in Saudi Arabia.” Here’s what the original framework looked like.

Who Needed a License

Any individual (Saudi or non-Saudi) who earned revenue through paid advertising or promotional content on social media in Saudi Arabia was required to obtain a Mawthooq permit before publishing that content. The defining factor wasn’t follower count, it was monetization. A creator with 5,000 followers running paid posts needed a license. A creator with 5 million followers running purely personal content did not.

What Was the Cost of the Mawthooq License

The Mawthooq license carried a fee of approximately SAR 15,000 (around USD 4,000), valid for three years. During that period, the licensed creator could work with as many brands and entities as they wanted, as long as the content didn’t violate Saudi laws or values.

What Foreign Creators Had to Do to Get The License

Non-Saudi creators faced an extra layer. They had to apply to the Ministry of Investment for a separate permit to work in the country before they could even apply for the influencer license. Non-Saudi residents typically had to be represented by specific licensed advertising agencies, adding complexity and cost.

The Penalties for Operating Without Mawthooq

The penalties were severe right from day one. Operating without a Mawthooq license could result in fines of up to SAR 5 million (approximately USD 1.3 million) and/or imprisonment of up to five years, as confirmed by then–Acting Minister of Media Majid Al-Qasabi.

What Counted as a Violation

Beyond just operating without a license, GCAM laid out content rules that licensed influencers had to follow. Promotional content couldn’t:

• Harm national security.
• Offend public morality.
• Damage the reputation of Saudi Arabia.
• Promote unlicensed products or services.
• Violate the Kingdom's broader laws or values.

The framework was deliberately broad, giving the regulator significant discretion. And it was used. Within months of the system’s launch, a high-profile Lebanese creator with over 13 million followers was banned from advertising in the Kingdom and fined SAR 400,000 for promoting tobacco products on Snapchat, in violation of Saudi anti-smoking laws.

The message landed. By the time the Mawthooq rollout was complete, industry sources estimated the active paid-promotional creator pool in Saudi Arabia had contracted by roughly a third, as creators who couldn’t (or didn’t want to) get licensed exited the formal market.

The GAMR Era: What's Changed Since 2024

The Mawthooq framework didn’t get torn down. It got built on. Three major developments have reshaped the regulatory landscape since 2024.

1. The Rebrand to GAMR

The General Commission for Audiovisual Media became the General Authority for Media Regulation (GAMR), reflecting an expanded mandate that now covers broader media regulation, not just audiovisual content. The Mawthooq licensing system was carried over and now sits inside GAMR. According to legal analysis by Al Tamimi & Company, published in the Chambers Media & Entertainment 2025 practice guide, GAMR projects the media sector will grow from around USD 6 billion in 2023 to roughly USD 12 billion by 2030, which gives a sense of why the regulator’s mandate has been expanded.

2. Stricter Requirements for Foreign Creators

This is one of the biggest practical changes. Under the 2025 regime, foreign influencers no longer just need a permit. They need to obtain a foreign investment license through a Saudi-incorporated company with at least 50% local ownership, and that company itself must hold licenses for advertising, audiovisual media, and marketing activities.

Al Tamimi describes this as “administratively complex and costly, effectively raising the bar for foreign participation in the Saudi influencer market.” It’s a significant tightening, and it’s a clear signal that Saudi Arabia wants its creator economy built primarily around local talent.

3. The September 2025 Content Guidelines

In September 2025, GAMR issued a comprehensive set of new content guidelines covering social media activity. These rules apply broadly, but they have direct implications for any commercial creator content. They explicitly prohibit:

• Content that constitutes bullying, mockery, or unauthorized disclosure of private family matters.
• Portraying children or domestic workers in lifestyle posts, regardless of context.
• Flaunting personal wealth, including luxury vehicles, money, or properties.
• Boasting about lineage, tribal affiliations, or regional identity.
• Dress code violations, including clothing that exposes the body from shoulders to legs, tight-fitting garments, or sheer fabrics deemed contrary to public values.
• Inaccurate information or misleading claims, including in advertising and influencer promotions.

Violations carry penalties of up to five years in prison and fines of up to SAR 5 million, in line with the original Mawthooq enforcement framework. The Law Reporters and Hotelier Middle East both covered the rollout in detail.

This update matters for brands because content categories that used to be marketing staples elsewhere (luxury car unboxings, “millionaire lifestyle” content, paid promotions involving children) are now explicitly off the table in Saudi Arabia.

4. The PDPL Layer

Separately, Saudi Arabia’s Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL), originally enacted in 2020, became fully enforceable in 2024. It directly affects how influencer campaigns can collect, process, and use audience data, including consent for cookies, tracking, and direct marketing. Any influencer or brand running campaigns that capture user data has compliance obligations under PDPL on top of the Mawthooq framework. Hammad & Al-Mehdar covers the data protection layer in detail.

In 2024, the Communications, Space and Technology Commission (CST) issued the Digital Content Platform (DCP) Regulations, which apply to OTT platforms, video-sharing services, audio platforms, and social media platforms themselves. Influencers aren’t directly licensed under DCP, but the platforms they operate on are. The result is a far more tightly regulated digital media ecosystem overall, with platforms now obligated to register or notify CST, appoint a Platform Liaison Officer, and meet content classification standards.

The table below summarizes the regulatory evolution from the pre-2022 era through the current GAMR framework.

What This Means for Saudi Creators

If you’re a Saudi national earning revenue from paid promotional content, you need a Mawthooq license. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is the content code you’re operating inside. Saudi creators in 2026 are working under a much more specific set of guidelines than they were even a year ago, particularly around dress, lifestyle, and how they portray family life. The good news is that the cost of compliance is stable: SAR 15,000 for three years remains the headline number.

What’s worth highlighting is that the licensing itself isn’t punitive. As the original GCAM statement framed it, the system is partly intended to protect creators by standardizing their relationships with advertisers, formalizing contractual obligations, and creating a clearer commercial framework. In practice, many Saudi creators have found that the Mawthooq permit makes high-value brand deals easier to land, not harder, because brands genuinely prefer working with licensed creators.

What This Means for Foreign Creators

Honestly, it’s harder than it used to be. A non-Saudi creator who wants to earn revenue from advertising to Saudi audiences now faces a multi-step structure: they need to be working through a Saudi-incorporated company with majority local ownership, that company needs to hold the right sectoral licenses (advertising, audiovisual media, marketing), and the creator still needs the Mawthooq permit on top.

For most foreign creators, the practical answer is to work through an established influencer marketing agency in Saudi Arabia that already has all the right licenses in place. That’s part of what the regulator was aiming for: a more local, more accountable creator economy with clearer commercial pathways.

What This Means for Brands

This is the part that often gets overlooked. Brands aren’t just spectators in this system. They have real exposure.

Working with an unlicensed creator in Saudi Arabia carries reputational risk, legal risk, and the very practical risk that GAMR can take action against the campaign itself, including content removal, account suspension, and fines. The Chambers/Al Tamimi guidance is clear: “brands and agencies are advised to work exclusively with licensed influencers to mitigate reputational and legal risks.”

That means due diligence isn’t optional anymore. Before signing a creator deal, brands should be verifying:

• That the creator holds a current, valid Mawthooq license.
• That the products and services being promoted are themselves duly licensed in Saudi Arabia.
• That campaign content is reviewed against the September 2025 content guidelines before publication.
• That any data collection (pixels, tracking, audience capture) complies with PDPL.
• That foreign creators, if used, are operating through a properly licensed Saudi entity.

This is one of the strongest arguments for working with a Saudi content creator management agency rather than running outreach directly. Agencies that operate in this market full-time maintain the verification layer as part of standard operating procedure.

Penalties: What Non-Compliance Actually Costs

To be very direct about the stakes. The current penalty framework allows for:

• Fines of up to SAR 5 million for operating without a license or publishing prohibited content.
• Imprisonment of up to five years in serious cases.
• Fines of up to SAR 3 million under the Anti-Cybercrime Law for content that breaches public values, including defamation, privacy invasion, or content perceived as undermining national security.
• Content removal and account suspension as a routine enforcement measure.
• Permanent ban from advertising in the Saudi market, as demonstrated in the high-profile cases that followed the Mawthooq rollout.

This isn’t a theoretical regime. GAMR has shown willingness to use the enforcement tools available to it.

Staying Compliant: A Practical Checklist

For any brand running influencer campaigns in Saudi Arabia in 2026, the compliance checklist looks roughly like this:

• Confirm every creator holds a valid Mawthooq license before signing.
• Build a content review process that flags dress, lifestyle, wealth display, and family privacy issues before content is published.
• Include compliance clauses in every influencer contract, covering disclosure, content standards, and license validity.
• Verify that promoted products and services are themselves licensed in the Kingdom.
• Ensure all paid content is published through GAMR-registered creator accounts.
• Build PDPL-compliant data collection into any tracking or attribution setup.
• For foreign creators, work through a properly licensed Saudi entity, ideally an agency partner.
• Document everything. If GAMR comes knocking, paperwork is your friend.

The Bigger “Vision”

Saudi Arabia’s influencer regulation has gone from minimal to one of the most structured frameworks in the world in a little under four years. That’s a remarkable pace of regulatory development, and it reflects how seriously the Kingdom is taking the formalization of its creator economy as part of Vision 2030.

For brands, the takeaway is straightforward. Influencer marketing in Saudi Arabia is one of the highest-return channels in the world right now, but it has to be done inside the lines. The brands and creators who treat compliance as core to their strategy, not as an afterthought, are the ones that will win in this market over the next five years.

Catchers operates as a full-service influencer marketing agency in Saudi Arabia, working with licensed creators across beauty, luxury, fashion, F&B, gaming, fintech, and tech. We handle the compliance layer end-to-end, from creator vetting and license verification to content review against the current GAMR guidelines, so brands can focus on the strategy and the creative.

If you’re planning a campaign in Saudi Arabia and want to make sure it’s set up to perform and to comply, get in touch with Catchers. We’ll walk you through what your specific campaign needs.