The Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) has leveraged its land, air and sea ports to complete the procedures of more than 6m customs declarations for imports and exports of Saudi Arabia during 2023, of more than 2.3m containers; in addition to completing more than 1.6 Zakat & Tax returns during the same period.
With regard to the enhancement of the security aspect, ZATCA has conducted more than 50k seizure cases through all customs ports during 2023. These seizures included all kinds of prohibited goods that ZATCA foiled the attempts to smuggling them to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, ZATCA has succeeded in achieving the targets of E-invoicing, as it has shared more than 1B invoices with “Fatoora" Platform during the last year, which support its efforts of digital transformation and enhance its digital ecosystem.
Last year, over than 1.3m people benefited from ZATCA's digital services provided via ZATCA App for Smartphones, with over than 3m visits to Zakaty App.
Moreover, ZATCA has also concluded more than 70 international agreements by 2023 in various areas of ZATCA's work and functions, which included the signing agreements for the avoidance of double taxation with a number of States, in addition to agreements aimed at supporting trade facilitation targets, enhancing supply chain security and increasing the efficiency of trade through customs ports, in order to strengthen Saudi Arabia's position as a global logistics hub. This was as part of ZATCA's ongoing endeavor to develop an integrated business mechanism, enhance communication and improve coordination with all stakeholders of different categories.
Furthermore, in the context of its oversight efforts, ZATCA held more than 190 inspection campaigns on markets and commercial shops in various cities and regions across Saudi Arabia, to enhance the compliance with the provisions of Saudi Arabia's applicable tax laws and reinforce taxpayers' tax compliance.
ZATCA's efforts in 2023 culminated in more than 30 local and international awards, most notably the achievement of the first rank as the top government entity in Saudi Arabia in measuring digital transformation; in addition to being awarded with certificate of recognition for institutional excellence at the 5-star level from the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), and being named one of the top three project management offices in the world for 2023 (World PMO of the Year) by the Global Project Management Institute-PMI at the PMO Global Summit in Atlanta.
