The Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) affirms that the State bears VAT levied on the national educational services provided to citizens, which includes school fees, including value of textbooks sold by the national and international schools that are subject to tax and accredited by the Ministry of Education (MoE).

ZATCA stated that Royal Decree No. (A/86) dated 18 Rabiʽ al-Thani 1439 H had provided that the State bears VAT instead of citizens benefiting from the national private education sector.

The educational services covered by this Royal Decree also include the educational services (for BA) provided by the national universities supervised by MoE, ZATCA asserted, as well as the educational and training programs supervised by Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC), which are equivalent to the similar educational certificates for MoE covered by the Royal Decree, which their training period is more than two years.

ZATCA pointed out that the mechanism for applying the State's bearing of VAT agreed upon by the authorities concerned with implementing the above-mentioned Royal Decree stipulates that the tax on the covered educational services shall not be collected from the beneficiary citizens after the taxable educational institutions verify that the beneficiary is the citizen covered by the Royal Decree and that the citizen's data is included in the tax invoice issued to the citizen, including the national ID number and contact info. In addition, the educational institution must declare value of the supply included in the scope of the Royal Decree in the designated field in the tax return without paying the tax due on this supply.

ZATCA urges all, when detecting any violations in this regard, to file a report via its website (zatca.gov.sa) or through VAT App.​