SFDA’s clearance window, not SABER
FASEH is the Saudi Food and Drug Authority’s electronic clearance system. Goods under SFDA control never travel the SABER route — filing them there wastes the fee and produces a certificate customs will not use.
SFDA FASEH Clearance
The consignment is cleared here, not on SABER
FASEH is where an arriving shipment of food, cosmetics, devices, medicines or feed is presented to the Saudi Food and Drug Authority. It is a per-shipment event with its own document set and its own decision — and it is not the similarly named customs window most exporters are thinking of.
Send for a clearance check:
- Invoice + packing list
- Product registration refs
- Label artwork
The Short Version
What FASEH actually does
Six things worth settling before your first SFDA-regulated container is booked.
One request per consignment
FASEH is a shipment event, not a product approval. Every arriving consignment gets its own clearance request, its own document set and its own decision, however many times you have imported the same item.
Five regulated families
Food, human medicines, medical devices, cosmetics and animal feed. If your product sits in any of those, SFDA is your authority and FASEH is where the consignment is presented.
It produces a conformity certificate
A successful request ends in a consignment certificate of conformity against that shipment. That document, not the product registration, is what releases the goods from the port.
Registration comes first
FASEH assumes the importer is licensed and the product already registered on SFDA’s registration platform. A clearance request for an unregistered product fails at the first review, with the container already on the water.
Filed by the Saudi importer
The request is raised under the importer’s SFDA account against their commercial registration. An overseas exporter cannot file it, which makes the importer’s readiness your scheduling risk, not theirs.
Two Systems
FASEH is not FASAH
One letter apart, two different authorities, two different jobs. Nearly every consignment touches both, and confusing them is the fastest way to arrive at a port with the wrong half done.
FASEH — Saudi Food and Drug Authority
- Clears consignments of food, medicines, devices, cosmetics and feed
- Assesses the product file: registration, labelling, health evidence
- Can call for physical inspection and laboratory sampling at the port
- Issues the SFDA consignment certificate of conformity
- Filed under the importer’s SFDA account
- Says whether the goods are fit to enter the Saudi market
FASAH — the national customs window
- The single window through which the customs declaration is lodged
- Assesses the trade transaction: value, tariff, origin, duty
- Routes the declaration to whichever authorities have an interest
- Produces the customs release, not a conformity decision
- Normally driven by the clearing agent, not the importer directly
- Says whether the goods are cleared to leave the port
The Route
How a consignment reaches release
Six steps. The first three are one-time work that has to exist before a shipment sails; the last three repeat for every container.
Confirm SFDA is the authority
The HS code and the product’s composition decide whether this is an SFDA matter or a SASO one. Borderline goods — supplements, medicated cosmetics, device accessories — are worth settling in writing before anything ships, because the two routes share no documents.
Get the importer and the facility licensed
The Saudi importer needs a live SFDA account tied to their commercial registration, and for most food categories a licensed storage facility. Both are one-time, both take time, and neither can be done while a container waits.
Register the product
Products are registered on SFDA’s registration platform before any consignment is presented. Registration carries the composition, the artwork, the manufacturer and the technical evidence — the things FASEH later checks the shipment against.
Raise the clearance request
Ideally before arrival. The request names the consignment, the registered products, the quantities, the manufacturing and expiry dates, and carries the document set for that shipment.
Document review, then inspection
SFDA reviews the file and decides whether to inspect physically and draw samples. Sampling is routine for some food categories and occasional for others; it is the single largest variable in how long release takes.
Certificate and release
A conforming consignment receives its certificate of conformity, which the clearing agent uses to complete release. A non-conforming one is held, re-exported or destroyed, and the cost falls on the importer.
The File
What travels with the request
Eight items per consignment. Every one of them is checked against the others, and the mismatches are what hold shipments.
- Commercial invoice and packing list matching the consignment exactly
- Bill of lading or air waybill naming the licensed Saudi importer
- Certificate of origin for the goods as shipped
- Health or free-sale certificate from the competent authority in the country of origin
- Halal certificate from a recognised body, where the product requires one
- Manufacturing and expiry dates as printed on the retail pack, not as claimed on paper
- Artwork or a photograph of the Arabic label actually applied to the goods
- The SFDA product registration reference for every line on the invoice
By Family
What changes by product type
The platform is one. What it asks of you varies considerably depending on which SFDA family your goods sit in.
Food and beverages
The highest-volume family and the most frequently sampled. Date marking, Arabic labelling and the origin health certificate carry most of the risk.
Cosmetics and personal care
Cleared through FASEH against a notified product record. Formulation, claims and the Arabic ingredient list are assessed against the registered version, not against the export market’s.
Medical devices
Devices are cleared against their SFDA authorisation and classification. Sterile and implantable goods attract the closest document review of any family here.
Medicines and pharmaceuticals
The most tightly controlled route, with registration, pricing and batch documentation all in scope. Specialist work well beyond a normal import file.
Animal feed and fodder
Regulated alongside food and cleared through the same window, with its own composition and contaminant evidence.
Samples and non-commercial quantities
Trade samples, exhibition stock and analytical quantities still need a route through SFDA. They are not exempt, they are handled differently, and assuming exemption is a reliable way to lose a shipment.
Worked Example
Twenty-two SKUs, three in the wrong regime
A European personal-care manufacturer, first consignment to a new Saudi distributor, twenty-two SKUs on one invoice.
Authority settled
Nineteen SKUs were plain cosmetics under SFDA. Three carried a therapeutic claim on the pack and were reclassified before shipping rather than at the port.
Importer checked
The distributor held a commercial registration but no live SFDA account. Six weeks of licensing work ran in parallel with production instead of after it.
Products registered
All nineteen registered against the exact formulations and artwork that would ship, with the manufacturing site named as built rather than as headquartered.
Request filed early
The clearance request went in against the shipping documents while the vessel was still at sea, leaving the document review complete before arrival.
Released
Samples were drawn on two SKUs. The rest cleared on documents, and the sampled lines followed once the laboratory reported.
Avoid These
Where consignments come unstuck
Six failures behind most of the SFDA holds we are called into, in rough order of how often we see them.
Filed on SABER by mistake
An SFDA product put through a conformity body on SABER produces a certificate for the wrong authority. The fee is spent, the time is lost, and the consignment still has no SFDA clearance.
Request raised after arrival
Nothing in the process is faster because the container has landed. Demurrage starts running against a review that could have been completed while the goods were at sea.
Health certificate in the wrong form
Origin health and free-sale certificates are expected in a recognised model, issued by a competent authority, naming the exporting establishment. A commercial letterhead version is refused.
Arabic label absent or applied later
The label is assessed as it arrives. A plan to sticker the goods in a Saudi warehouse does not satisfy a review that happens at the port.
Shipment does not match the registration
A reformulated product, a renamed variant or a second manufacturing site. The registration describes one thing and the container holds another, and the mismatch surfaces at review.
Dates stickered over
Production and expiry dates are expected printed or embossed on the original pack. Labels applied over the top read as tampering and are one of the more common causes of rejection outright.
Keep Going
Related pages
The authority behind the platform, the registrations a request is checked against, and what to do if a shipment is already held.
FAQs
FASEH questions
The clearance event specifically. Product registration is answered on the registration pages.
What is FASEH?
FASEH is the Saudi Food and Drug Authority’s electronic clearance system. Importers use it to present an arriving consignment of SFDA-regulated goods — food, medicines, medical devices, cosmetics or animal feed — for document review, inspection and release. A successful request produces a consignment certificate of conformity for that shipment.
Is FASEH the same as FASAH?
No, and the near-identical names cause real delays. FASEH is SFDA’s conformity clearance platform for regulated products. FASAH is the national customs single window through which the customs declaration is lodged. A consignment normally touches both: FASEH decides whether the goods may enter the market, FASAH handles the customs release.
Do SFDA products need a SABER certificate as well?
No. SABER is SASO’s platform for products under SASO technical regulations. Goods under SFDA control are cleared through SFDA’s own route instead. Filing the same product on both is not belt-and-braces — it is one wasted fee and a certificate the wrong authority issued.
Who files the FASEH request, the exporter or the importer?
The Saudi importer, under their own SFDA account and commercial registration. An overseas exporter cannot raise it. In practice that means your consignment’s clearance depends on a counterparty’s account being live and their registrations current, which is worth verifying before the first booking rather than after.
Can I raise a clearance request before the shipment arrives?
Yes, and you should. Document review does not need the goods to be present, so filing while the consignment is in transit moves most of the assessment off your demurrage clock. Only physical inspection and sampling have to wait for arrival.
How long does FASEH clearance take?
A complete file that clears on documents alone is a matter of days. A consignment selected for sampling waits on laboratory analysis, which is the variable that matters most. The controllable part is completeness: files that go in whole, early, and matching the registration are the ones that move.
What happens if a consignment is rejected?
It is held pending a decision, and the options are correction where the defect is correctable, re-export, or destruction. All three cost the importer money and storage. Most rejections we see trace to labelling, date marking, or a mismatch between the shipment and the registered product — all of which are cheaper to find before dispatch.
Does every consignment get physically inspected?
No. SFDA applies risk-based selection, so inspection and sampling rates vary by product family, origin, importer history and the specific consignment. Assume it can happen on any shipment, plan the schedule as though it will on the first few, and treat a clean import history as something worth protecting.
Do trade samples and exhibition goods need FASEH clearance?
They need a route through SFDA. Non-commercial quantities are handled differently from a commercial consignment, but they are not outside the regime, and sending them as though they were is a common way for a first shipment to be detained.
What is the difference between product registration and consignment clearance?
Registration is a one-time approval of the product itself — its composition, its manufacturer, its artwork — and it lives on SFDA’s registration platform. Clearance is a per-shipment event in FASEH that checks this particular consignment against that registration. Having one does not give you the other.
Have the file checked before the vessel sails
Send the invoice, the packing list, the registration references and the label artwork. We reconcile them against each other and against the registration, and tell you what will stop the consignment while there is still time to fix it.