What a Saudi restaurant's POS must handle in 2026: ZATCA e-invoicing, VAT and bilingual receipts

We run our own restaurants in Riyadh and Jeddah, so the rules in this article are the ones we work under every day. It is a practical guide for owners choosing or reviewing a point of sale, not legal or tax advice. ZATCA updates its rules and timelines regularly; check the current position with ZATCA or your tax adviser before you rely on any date here.

Two phases: generating invoices, then integrating with ZATCA

E-invoicing (Fatoora) arrived in two phases. Since December 2021, VAT-registered businesses must issue invoices electronically from a compliant system: no handwritten bills and no editable spreadsheets. The second phase, integration, connects the invoicing system to ZATCA's platform so that invoices are cleared or reported electronically.

Integration is rolled out in waves, by taxable revenue. Each new wave has reached smaller businesses. The 25th wave, announced in July 2026, covers taxpayers whose taxable revenue exceeded SAR 187,500 in any year from 2022 to 2025, with a compliance date of 1 February 2027. ZATCA notifies the taxpayers in each wave, but a restaurant that is growing should assume its turn is coming and choose a system that is ready for it.

What a restaurant bill is, in ZATCA's terms

Most restaurant bills are simplified tax invoices: the guest is a consumer, not a VAT-registered business. A simplified invoice carries the seller's name and VAT number, the date and time, what was sold, the VAT amount and the total, and a QR code that a phone can scan. When a business guest asks for a full tax invoice with their own company details and VAT number, the system has to issue one from the same sale, not a second, disconnected document.

• VAT is 15 percent. The till should show prices the way your menu shows them (most restaurants price VAT-inclusive) and work out the VAT correctly on every line, discount and deal.
• Discounts, voids and refunds have to leave a proper trail. A refund is a credit note against the original invoice, not a deleted bill.
• Arabic must be on the invoice; English alongside it is common and helpful for guests and staff.
• Under integration, simplified invoices are reported to ZATCA within 24 hours, so the till must keep working through an internet drop and report safely once it is back.

Questions to ask any POS supplier

• Which ZATCA phase is your system certified or onboarded for today, and who handles the onboarding of my branch devices?
• What happens to invoices if the internet is down at 9pm on a Thursday?
• How are voids, refunds and credit notes recorded, and can I see who did each one and why?
• Do delivery-app orders, table orders and counter orders all produce correct invoices from the same system?
• Who owns the invoice data, and can I export it?

Where ORACY for Restaurants stands

For a VAT-registered restaurant, ORACY POS prints receipts with the company's Arabic name, the VAT number and the ZATCA QR code (a restaurant that is not registered prints no VAT), as it does in our own restaurant in Riyadh, with every void, refund and discount recorded against a person and a reason. For the current status of ZATCA Phase 2 integration for your restaurant, ask us directly: we would rather give you a dated, specific answer than a line on a website that may be out of date by the time you read it.

In Saudi Arabia, a restaurant's till is no longer only a cash drawer. It is the start of its tax record.