How to Sell on Amazon Middle East: A Beginner's Guide

Amazon is the biggest marketplace in the Gulf, and this year it's actively paying new sellers to join.

It runs two stores here: Amazon.sa for Saudi Arabia and Amazon.ae for the UAE. Shoppers are young, they buy on their phones and they spend generously online.

You don't need to be based in the Gulf to reach them. Local companies sign up directly, and foreign brands join through Amazon Global Selling.

Below, you'll go from zero to first sale in eight steps: documents, Arabic listings, delivery, fees, ads, reviews and payouts.

Amazon in the Middle East: two stores, one Seller Central

Amazon Middle East is two separate country stores that run on the same Seller Central you'd use in the US or Europe.

Amazon.ae came first. It replaced Souq, the region's original big marketplace, in 2019. Amazon.sa followed in 2020, and both now have Arabic built in.

Souq left one gift behind: White Friday, the Gulf's answer to Black Friday. It's still the biggest sales week on both stores every November.

The two stores work the same way, but their shoppers differ:

	Amazon.sa	Amazon.ae
Country	Saudi Arabia	UAE (ships to the rest of the GCC)
Shoppers	Arabic-first, the Gulf's biggest market	Expat-heavy, English-first with Arabic
Local licence	Commercial registration (CR)	Mainland or free-zone trade licence
Prime delivery	Free two-day	Free one-day
Currency	Saudi riyal (SAR)	UAE dirham (AED)
VAT	15%	5%

Still deciding between the two markets? Our UAE vs Saudi Arabia guide compares shoppers, licences and costs.

Why sell on Amazon in the Middle East now?

You get the region's biggest audience and a delivery network that's already built. Here's what makes 2026 a good year to start:

• The most shoppers. Amazon.sa tops Saudi retail traffic, ahead of Temu, SHEIN and noon. Amazon.ae leads UAE online sales.
• Prime does the selling. FBA listings get free fast Prime delivery, which Gulf shoppers now expect.
• Payments handled. Amazon collects cards, Tabby and Tamara instalments and cash on delivery, so you never chase a payment.
• Lighter competition. Amazon.ae has about 21,000 sellers, a fraction of the US. Fewer advertisers bid on each keyword, so new listings reach page one faster.
• Amazon is paying you to start. The 2026 new-seller package is the most generous yet:

Incentive	Amazon.sa	Amazon.ae
Sponsored Products ad credit	Up to SAR 3,500	Up to AED 3,700
Brand bonus (with Brand Registry)	Up to 5% back on your first SAR 3.5M of branded sales	Up to 5% back on your first AED 3.5M of branded sales
New-to-Prime discount	5% referral fee on your first 100 FBA units	5% referral fee on your first 100 FBA units
FBA New Selection	Free storage for your first 30 units	Free storage for your first 30 units
Local-seller extra	30% off referral fees for 60 days, Saudi-based sellers, until 31 Dec 2026	AED 2,000 ad credit and 6 months of support for Dubai licence holders

The Saudi discount closes at the end of 2026, so a launch this quarter pays twice. Full terms are in our guide to Amazon new-seller incentives.

How to sell on Amazon Middle East: the 8 steps

If you've sold on Amazon anywhere else, this will feel familiar. If you haven't, here's the whole path:

1

Pick your route in

A Saudi or UAE company registers locally. A foreign brand adds the Gulf stores through Amazon Global Selling.

2

Get verified

Upload your ID, licence and bank details, and pass Amazon's identity check.

3

List in Arabic and English

Every product page has both versions. Write the Arabic yourself.

4

Choose how orders get delivered

FBA, Easy Ship or Self Ship. Most beginners pick FBA.

5

Price with the fees in mind

Referral fee, fulfilment fee, storage and VAT. Run the numbers before you order stock.

6

Turn on ads

Start Sponsored Products on day one, paid for by your launch credit.

7

Win your first reviews

Ask every buyer through Amazon's Request a Review button.

8

Get paid

Amazon settles your balance every 14 days by bank transfer.

Step 1: Pick your route in

There are three doors into Amazon's Gulf stores. The right one depends on where your company is registered:

• A local company. Saudi businesses register on Amazon.sa with their CR (commercial registration, the Saudi business licence). UAE businesses use their trade licence on Amazon.ae. This route unlocks the local-only offers.
• A foreign brand. Register through Amazon Global Selling. Amazon says you may not need a Gulf company.
• A Chinese brand or factory. Register through Amazon Global Selling China, which has its own 2026 benefits.

What if you want both stores? Amazon's Middle East stores are country accounts, not one regional account like Europe's Unified Account.

You link them instead. From the Sell Globally dashboard in Seller Central, you add Saudi Arabia or the UAE, and each appears under one login.

Each store keeps its own listings, stock and prices. Linking costs nothing extra while the plan fees are waived.

Selling on Amazon.com already? You can add the Gulf stores from your existing account. New sellers aiming at the US and the Gulf start with a North America account, then add the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Step 2: Get your documents ready and pass verification

Registration takes one sitting if your papers are ready. Here's what both stores ask for:

• ID. A Saudi ID, Emirates ID or passport for the account owner.
• Business licence. Your CR, UAE trade licence or home-country company documents.
• Tax number. Your VAT certificate, if you're registered.
• Proof of address. A recent bank or credit card statement, or a utility bill.
• A credit card that can be charged internationally.
• A bank account for payouts. Amazon can't pay to a card or PayPal.
• A phone number where Amazon can reach you during the check.

Pick the Professional plan when you sign up. Its monthly fee is waived on both stores for now, and you need it to run ads.

Need a licence first? See Saudi business registration or our guide to the UAE ecommerce licence.

Step 3: List your products in Arabic and English

Every Amazon.sa and Amazon.ae product page has an English and an Arabic version. Fill in both yourself.

Why bother? Most Saudi shoppers search in Arabic, and a machine-translated title misses the words they actually type. UAE shoppers lean English, but Arabic still wins you extra searches.

A good Gulf listing has four parts:

• Title. Brand, product type, key feature and variant. Lead with the Arabic noun shoppers search.
• Bullets. Five short benefit lines in clear Modern Standard Arabic, not a regional dialect.
• Images. A clean main image on white, plus lifestyle shots in a Gulf home.
• Backend keywords. Arabic spellings and brand transliterations, like سامسونج for Samsung.

Already listed elsewhere on Amazon? The Build International Listings tool copies your offers across. Then replace the auto-translated Arabic with your own copy.

Want templates? Read our guide to Arabic product descriptions.

Step 4: Choose FBA, Easy Ship or Self Ship

Most new sellers should start with FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon). You send stock to an Amazon warehouse, and Amazon stores, packs, delivers and handles returns.

The two alternatives keep the stock with you:

	FBA	Easy Ship	Self Ship
Who stores the stock	Amazon	You	You
Who delivers	Amazon	Amazon's couriers collect from you	Your own courier
Fee, 1 kg parcel (Amazon.sa)	SAR 10 per order	SAR 20.50 per order	No Amazon fee
Fee, 1 kg parcel (Amazon.ae)	AED 10.50 per order	AED 15 per order	No Amazon fee
Storage per cubic foot a month	SAR 3 / AED 2	None	None
Prime badge
Best for	Most products and fast first sales	Bulky or slow sellers, quick tests	Sellers with their own courier deal

The surprise for most sellers is that a small parcel costs less with FBA than with Easy Ship, and FBA adds the Prime badge.

Easy Ship still makes sense for big, slow-moving items, where storage adds up. You can also charge the buyer up to SAR 12 or AED 10 for delivery.

Sending stock in works the same way in both countries. You create a plan in Send to Amazon, print the labels and book a Carrier Central delivery slot.

Step-by-step prep is in our guides to FBA in Saudi Arabia and FBA in the UAE, and Amazon Easy Ship covers the other route.

Step 5: Price with the fees in mind

For a typical product, Amazon keeps about a quarter of the price. That covers its commission and delivery.

You pay up to four things:

• Referral fee. A cut of each sale, from 3% to 16% by category. Most products pay 10–15%.
• Fulfilment fee. Per order, if you use FBA or Easy Ship.
• Storage. A small monthly charge for stock in an FBA warehouse.
• Plan fee. Waived on both stores for now.

There's no closing fee. Amazon adds VAT to its fees, which you can reclaim if you're VAT-registered.

Worked example: a building-block set at 99

Say you sell a toy building-block set for SAR 99 on Amazon.sa and AED 99 on Amazon.ae. It weighs 0.8 kg and ships with FBA.

Fees look almost identical. If you're VAT-registered, you reclaim the VAT on fees, so your real fee cost is the ex-VAT total. The bigger difference is the VAT inside your shelf price.

In Saudi Arabia, SAR 12.91 of that SAR 99 is VAT you owe ZATCA, the tax authority. In the UAE it's only AED 4.71.

If you're a Saudi-based seller, the 30% launch discount cuts the referral fee to SAR 9.70. That saves you about SAR 4 a sale for your first 60 days.

Now try your own product. Change the price, category and size, and switch between FBA and Easy Ship:

Every category rate is in our guide to Amazon Middle East seller fees.

Step 6: Turn on ads

Start Sponsored Products the day your stock goes live. They're pay-per-click ads that put your listing at the top of search results, and your launch credit pays for the first clicks.

Amazon suggests about AED 40 a day per campaign as a starting budget. Saudi agencies suggest SAR 50–100 a day for the first one to two weeks.

What do clicks cost? Sellers report about SAR or AED 1–4 a click, depending on the category.

Expect a high ACoS (ad spend as a share of ad sales) in month one. New accounts often start above 40%.

After about 90 days of tuning, they settle at 15–20%. The UAE average sits near 30%.

Once you have Brand Registry, you also unlock Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display and a free Amazon Store. Campaign structures and bid tactics are in Amazon Ads for GCC sellers.

Step 7: Win your first reviews

Reviews turn a new listing into a trusted one. Amazon's algorithm also rewards listings that sell and get rated early.

Here's how to get the first ones the right way:

• Use Request a Review. Seller Central has a button on every order that sends Amazon's own review request. Click it 5–30 days after delivery.
• Don't wait for Vine. Amazon Vine, which sends free units to trusted reviewers in the US and Europe, isn't open to UAE sellers yet. Your first reviews will come from real buyers, so make every order count.
• Answer fast, in Arabic. Reply to buyer messages within 24 hours. A quick, polite reply often heads off a bad review.
• Never pay for reviews. Discounts for reviews, review swaps or asking only happy buyers break Amazon's rules and can close your account.

Ratings also depend on what happens before the review. Fast Prime delivery and easy returns help, which is one more reason to start with FBA.

Step 8: Get paid

Amazon settles your balance every 14 days. The money goes by bank transfer and lands within about five business days.

On Amazon.ae, Disburse on Demand lets you request a payout once every 24 hours if it shows in your Payments dashboard.

Selling from abroad? You can be paid into a bank account in a supported country, or through a payout provider such as WorldFirst, Payoneer or LianLian.

Selling from abroad? The importer-of-record rule

Here's the one step foreign sellers most often miss. Amazon won't act as importer of record (IOR) or consignee for FBA stock in Saudi Arabia or the UAE.

The importer of record is the company that clears your goods through customs and pays the duty and VAT. Without one, your shipment can be rejected or held.

You have two simple options:

• Your own Gulf entity. A Saudi company or a UAE mainland or free-zone company acts as the importer.
• A forwarder's IOR service. Many freight forwarders act as importer for non-resident sellers. This is how their DDP services work.

Either way, ship DDP (Delivered Duty Paid). Duty and VAT are paid before the goods reach the warehouse, because Amazon's fulfilment centres turn away deliveries with charges still due.

Product certificates come next. Most goods sold in Saudi Arabia need SABER certificates, which take a few weeks, and our SABER and SASO guide explains each step. The UAE uses ECAS and EQM marks for regulated products.

Common beginner mistakes (and how to avoid them)

Most early problems come from the same handful of slips:

• Translating your English title word for word. Gulf shoppers search differently. Pay a Gulf Arabic copywriter for your top products.
• Opening a second account. Related accounts get suspended together. Add new stores through Sell Globally instead.
• Shipping without an importer of record. Book your IOR and DDP route before stock leaves the factory.
• Pricing without VAT. Gulf shelf prices include VAT, so build it in from day one.
• Launching thirty products at once. Three to five products with full stock, ads and Arabic copy beat thirty half-ready ones.
• Running out of stock. A stock-out kills your ranking, and it takes weeks to recover.
• Missing the peak deadlines. Deals for big events are due weeks ahead. White Friday 2026 deals are due by 19 November.

Plan the season with our White Friday guide.

Your Amazon Middle East launch checklist

Tick these off as you go:

Notes for Chinese sellers

Amazon is courting Chinese sellers hard in the Gulf. Its "Middle East 10,000 Stores" programme aims to add 10,000 Chinese sellers a year.

• Register through Amazon Global Selling China with your Chinese business documents. No Gulf company is needed.
• Claim the 2026 pack. It includes a USD 50,000 prepaid referral voucher and a USD 1,000 ad coupon.
• Get FBA inbound cashback. Until 30 December, it's worth up to SAR 3,754 per ASIN on Amazon.sa.
• Use Amazon SEND to ship from China, with customs handled at both ends. Dangerous goods are excluded.
• Check restricted categories. Food, tobacco and adult products are off limits for Chinese cross-border sellers.

Our guide to Amazon Middle East for Chinese sellers covers each step.

Notes for foreign brands

Brands from the US, Europe and beyond have the easiest route in if they already sell on Amazon:

• Add the Gulf from your account. Use Sell Globally, then copy your best sellers with Build International Listings.
• Try Remote Fulfilment. Amazon offers routes from the UK to the UAE, and from the UAE to Saudi Arabia, before you stock locally.
• Talk to a tax agent early. Neither country gives foreign businesses a VAT threshold, so most foreign sellers register from their first sale. Our VAT and tax advisor directory lists firms that handle it.
• Protect your brand. Enrol in Brand Registry in your first month to block resellers and unlock the 5% brand bonus.

Country detail is in our Amazon Saudi Arabia seller guide and Amazon UAE seller guide. Every other Amazon guide sits in our Amazon Middle East hub.

Still weighing your options? Our noon vs Amazon comparison shows where the local challenger wins, and marketplace management agencies can run the launch for you.