"White Lands": The second phase begins in Mecca, Jeddah, and the Dammam metropolitan area, with expansion to the targeted area in Mecca.

The White Land Program announced the start of the second phase of fees in Makkah, Jeddah, and the Dammam metropolitan area, after completing all the necessary regulatory procedures, and in accordance with the results of the demographic and economic studies conducted by the program in cooperation with the relevant authorities.

This comes as part of the program's efforts to increase the supply of developed land in major cities, thereby achieving a balance between supply and demand, and providing residential land at reasonable prices.

The program explained in a press statement today that the second phase of the fees will be implemented concurrently with the first phase, covering more than 190 residential neighborhoods in the three cities, according to the map and approved scope for each city. The fees will target developed lands belonging to one or more owners with an area of 10,000 m2 or more, or the total developed lands belonging to one owner with an area of 10,000 m2 or more in one approved plan within the specified urban area.

The program works to expand the application of white land fees according to the targeted scope of the three cities, to apply the first and second phases in the same cities, and to expand the targeted scope of the first phase in Makkah, after the results achieved by the first phase during the past years, which resulted in the development of more than 107 million square meters by their owners and others under development or that have entered into the real estate supply.

The first phase also recorded the disbursement of more than 2.2 billion riyals from fee revenues to develop infrastructure, deliver services to more than 80 housing projects, and enable more than 185,000 Saudi families to obtain housing units and land, with the total area of land registered in the program exceeding 500 million square meters in Riyadh, Jeddah, the Dammam metropolitan area and Makkah, and the issuance of 9,000 payment orders since the beginning of the program.

The program witnessed support and attention in order to achieve its goals that serve the citizen and the sector in general, including the Cabinet’s approval of amending the regulations for white land fees, to include 3 executive phases, which are: undeveloped lands with an area of 10,000 m2 or more within the scope determined by the Ministry in the first phase, developed lands with an area of 10,000 m2 or more, and developed lands for one owner with an area of 10,000 m2 or more in one scheme in the second phase, and developed lands with an area of 5,000 m2 or more, and the total developed lands for one owner with areas of 10,000 m2 or more in one city in the third phase.

The amendments also included the possibility of applying more than one phase in one city, in addition to the Ministry conducting a periodic review of the situation in any city to decide whether to apply the fees on the lands therein, suspend them, or apply one or more phases to bypass a certain phase and move to the next phase in the same city, in addition to the issuance of a generous royal order stipulating that invoices for white land fees be considered as contracts, privileges, and penal documents according to the State Revenue System.

It is worth noting that the program had previously announced the implementation of the second phase of white land fees in the city of Riyadh, and its expansion in implementing the first phase in additional neighborhoods, as the official registration deadline in Riyadh ended on June 15.

The program also announced in a previous statement its expansion plan to include new cities where the first phase will be implemented, the first of which are Hail and the Qassim region.

Taxpayers and landowners can view the details of the phases and their scope and register their lands via the electronic portal link https://sakani.sa/ar/services/lands .