Saudi Arabia Menu Requirements 2026: What Your Menu Must Show (SFDA and MoMaH Checklist)

Saudi menu requirements at a glance

Two authorities set these rules. The Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) decides what nutrition and allergen information a menu carries. The Ministry of Municipalities and Housing (MoMaH) licenses the premises, and its 2025 restaurant requirements repeat the SFDA duties and add signage rules of their own.

The MoMaH requirements were issued by Ministerial Decision 4600653138/1 dated 15/10/1446H. The decision replaces the 1441H requirements, applies from publication, and gives existing establishments 180 days to correct. They apply to restaurants and cafés with or without table service, cloud kitchens and food kiosks.

Calories next to every item

Calorie display is not new. The SFDA gave food establishments until the end of 2018 to put calories on meals and drinks, and it has been mandatory since. The announcement named restaurants, cafés, ice-cream and fresh-juice shops, bakeries, sweet shops and cafeterias.

The SFDA's 2017 calorie guide for restaurants says calories may be written as Calories or as kilocalories (kcal), for the whole meal or per serving. It lists where they must appear: order points, digital menu boards, printed menus, drive-through boards, restaurant websites and smartphone apps. A QR menu is a website, so it is covered.

How to write it

• Put the number on the item's line, next to the price, not in a footnote.
• Give each size its own number: Latte small 120 kcal · medium 190 kcal · large 250 kcal (illustrative values).
• Use one unit, Cal or kcal, across the whole menu.

Where do the numbers come from? The SFDA guide gives the standard factors: 1 g protein = 4 kcal, 1 g carbohydrate = 4 kcal, 1 g fat = 9 kcal. The MoMaH requirements (section 5.5.17) ask you to keep either a calorie analysis certificate from an accredited lab or an in-house calorie analysis document prepared under SFDA instructions, and to show it on request. Keep that file current whenever a recipe changes.

The 14 allergens and the Arabic notice

In October 2019 the SFDA began requiring restaurants, food trucks, bakeries and cafés that sell non-prepacked food to state the presence of 14 allergens on their menus, and the information must be in clear written Arabic. A 2024 study of Saudi restaurants cites the regulation as SFDA.FD 56/2018; the 2025 MoMaH requirements refer to it as SFDA.FD GSO 2605. The numbering differs between sources, but the duty is the same.

MoMaH section 5.5.15 sets the scope: the allergen counts at any level, whether as an ingredient, inside a compound ingredient such as a sauce, or as an additive or processing aid. For food served without a label, it accepts the information on the menu, the packaging, a display board or a product ticket, or by directing the guest to a staff member trained to answer.

How to write it

• Arabic: يحتوي على: الحليب، الغلوتين، السمسم
• English: Contains: milk, gluten, sesame
• Write the allergen, not the ingredient. Tahini is sesame, so write sesame. Soy sauce is soya and usually gluten.
• If a dish can pick up an allergen from a shared fryer or board, add a line such as May contain: sesame. The legislation also expects precautionary “may contain” labelling.
• Add a general note at the top of the menu and on the table card: «لديك حساسية من طعام معين؟ أخبر الموظف قبل الطلب.» / Food allergy? Tell our staff before you order.

If your menu is English-only, you still need the allergen information in Arabic. A bilingual menu solves this without extra signs; our guide to writing a bilingual Arabic and English menu covers the dish lines themselves.

Caffeine on drinks

From 1 July 2025, restaurants and cafés must show the caffeine content of drinks in milligrams per 100 ml or per cup, together with a note that the maximum daily caffeine intake for adults is 400 mg.

Do not copy these numbers; caffeine depends on the beans, the dose and the cup. Use your supplier's specification, a lab result, the can's label, or the SFDA caffeine calculator for a typical value.

On a printed menu, put the 400 mg sentence once at the top of the drinks: The maximum daily caffeine intake for adults is 400 mg. On a QR menu with no note above a section, add it to each caffeinated drink's line, as in the example table further down.

The salt icon

From 1 July 2025, any item containing more than 5 g of salt (2,000 mg of sodium) must carry a salt icon. It covers paper and electronic menus and online ordering platforms, so your delivery-app listing needs it too.

Salt and sodium are not the same number. Salt ≈ sodium × 2.5, so 2,000 mg sodium is 5 g salt. If your recipe sheet gives sodium, multiply before you compare. Check rice cooked in stock, pickles, salty cheese and sauces first.

On a QR menu with no icon field

AlaMenu has no icon field, so put a short, identical marker at the start of the description in both languages: 🧂 High salt and 🧂 عالي الملح. Use one symbol the same way everywhere and explain it once on the table card. If SFDA or your inspector gives you a specific icon design, use it on printed menus and delivery listings.

Physical-activity labels

The third rule from 1 July 2025 asks menus to show how long it takes to burn off each item, with an icon of the activity and the time in minutes or hours. A line might read 🚶 45 min walking next to a burger (illustrative).

Once you have the method, add the figure to the same line: 620 kcal · 🚶 45 min.

Meat type and origin

This one comes from the municipality, not SFDA. Section 5.2 of the 2025 MoMaH restaurant requirements (interior signs) requires you to show the types of meat you use (camel, beef, lamb, goat, poultry, fish) and their source: imported, with the country of origin and whether it is chilled or frozen; or local, fresh or chilled.

You can do this with a hanging sign, a tablet, a screen, or by adding it to the menu in a visible place. The same section also requires you to display the awareness signs that authorities ask for, naming allergen and calorie signs specifically.

• Lamb mandi · local fresh lamb
• Beef burger · beef imported from Brazil, frozen (illustrative)
• Grilled hammour · local fresh fish
• Chicken shawarma · local chilled chicken

Adding the origin to each meat dish is the most robust option: the guest sees it wherever they order, and you change it in one place when your supplier changes.

Two QR codes, two jobs

Owners often mix these up. MoMaH section 5.2 requires the unified electronic QR code on the shop front, as a sticker or sign, showing your licence and government documents, reachable outside working hours. You may also show it at the cashier, you no longer need to hang printed copies of those documents, and the code must be undamaged.

Do not merge them or replace one with the other. Place the government code where the rule says, and your menu code where guests sit. If you print both near the entrance, label them clearly: «الرمز الموحد للوثائق» and «المنيو».

Prices, VAT and the riyal symbol

VAT in Saudi Arabia has been 15% since July 2020. The Ministry of Commerce has stated that prices displayed to consumers must include VAT and match the final invoice. That statement was about retail shelf prices; we did not find a menu-specific text. The safe reading is the same: the number on the menu is the number the guest pays.

The new riyal symbol was approved on 20 February 2025, and SAMA said it would be reflected in transactions and applications gradually. It is now a standard character, U+20C1 SAUDI RIYAL SIGN, but many fonts and phones cannot draw it yet. On a digital menu, write ريال or SAR unless you have checked that the symbol renders on ordinary phones; a missing glyph shows up as an empty box.

Applying it to a QR menu, step by step

A digital menu has one real advantage here: when a recipe, a supplier or a caffeine figure changes, you edit one line instead of reprinting every menu. To write these lines faster, use our free menu label generator. The steps below use AlaMenu.

1. In the dashboard, tap Edit on a dish and find Description (EN) and Description (AR). The description shows under the dish name, beside the price.
2. Write the compliance line in each language, in a fixed order: calories · caffeine · allergens · meat origin. Keep it on one line with · separators; line breaks are not kept.
3. Put 🧂 at the start of the description for dishes over 5 g salt, in both languages.
4. Give each size its own item if the sizes have different calories or caffeine.
5. End each caffeinated drink's line with the 400 mg sentence, since there is no separate note above a section.
6. Open your menu on a phone and switch languages. Check that every Arabic line has its allergens in Arabic.
7. When a dish runs out, tap Hide rather than deleting it. It leaves the menu, and its compliance text is still there when you tap Show.

The guest search on the menu also matches descriptions, so a guest who types sesame or سمسم sees every dish that lists it. You can check how descriptions look on the demo menu.

If you are building the menu from scratch, start with how to create a free QR menu, then add the lines above as you enter each dish.

Printable checklist

1. Every item and every size shows calories, in one unit, on the same line as the price.
2. You hold a lab calorie certificate or an in-house calorie analysis per SFDA instructions, dated after the last recipe change.
3. Each dish lists which of the 14 allergens it contains, in Arabic.
4. An allergy note is on the menu or the table card, and staff know how to answer.
5. Every caffeinated drink shows mg per cup or per 100 ml.
6. The 400 mg adult daily maximum sentence appears with the drinks.
7. Items over 5 g salt (2,000 mg sodium) carry the salt icon, on paper, the QR menu and delivery apps.
8. Items carry a physical-activity label using the SFDA method.
9. Meat type and origin (country and chilled or frozen, or local and fresh or chilled) are on a sign, a screen or the menu.
10. Allergen and calorie awareness signs are displayed if your authority asks for them.
11. The unified government QR is on the shop front, readable after hours, and undamaged.
12. Menu prices include 15% VAT and match the bill.

Questions about running the menu itself, in two languages and with instant updates? See the FAQ.

Questions

Sources

1. SFDA, calorie display guide for restaurants and cafés (Arabic)
2. Argaam, SFDA requires calories on meals and drinks, 5 Aug 2018 (Arabic)
3. Al Yaum, three SFDA regulations effective 1 July 2025, 28 Feb 2025 (Arabic)
4. Food Compliance International, SFDA issues three new regulations
5. Food Compliance International, menu rules apply to online platforms from 1 July 2025
6. SFDA caffeine calculator
7. Public Health Nutrition (2021), Saudi allergen-labelling legislation
8. PLOS ONE (2024), restaurant staff and food allergy in Saudi Arabia
9. Ministry of Municipalities and Housing, restaurant requirements 1446H (PDF, Arabic)
10. Argaam, Ministry of Commerce: displayed prices include VAT, 4 Aug 2020 (Arabic)
11. Saudi Central Bank, King Salman approves the riyal symbol, 20 Feb 2025 (Arabic)
12. Unicode, Currency Symbols chart (U+20C1)

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