Most guides to Vision 2030 read like a brochure. They list the giga-projects, quote the biggest available number, and conclude that Saudi Arabia is a trillion-dollar opportunity.
That is not much help to a company deciding whether to commit capital, and parts of it are now out of date.
Vision 2030 is ten years old. Enough has been built, delayed, cancelled and quietly rescoped that we can stop describing intentions and start describing outcomes. What follows is an attempt to say what is actually happening, including the parts that have not gone to plan, and to work out where a foreign operator can realistically win.
What has actually been achieved
Start with the number that matters most. When Vision 2030 launched in 2016, non-oil activity made up roughly 47 per cent of Saudi GDP. According to the Vision 2030 2025 Annual Report, it now accounts for about 56 per cent.
That is a nine-point structural shift in a decade, in an economy that had been oil-dependent for seventy years. Whatever else is true about the programme, its central objective of decoupling Saudi Arabia from crude is measurably underway.
Other progress worth registering. Non-oil GDP growth has run above 4 per cent in most recent years, well ahead of headline GDP. The mandatory Saudi partner requirement has been removed in most sectors, which is the most consequential FDI reform of the entire programme. The negative list of restricted activities has shrunk from over 40 a decade ago to fewer than 20 today, and MISA continues to open it. Some 571 multinationals have established Regional Headquarters in Riyadh. Special Economic Zones now offer 5 per cent corporate tax for up to 20 years, alongside VAT exemptions and customs duty deferrals.
The reform architecture is real, and it is aimed at companies like yours.
What has not gone to plan
Construction on The Line, the 170km linear city inside NEOM and the most-publicised image of the entire programme, was suspended on 16 September 2025 with roughly 2.4km of foundation completed and no above-ground structure. In May 2026 it emerged that work is deferred until at least after 2030, following a strategic review by NEOM's chief executive Aiman al-Mudaifer. NEOM's population target for 2030 has been cut from an original 1.5 million to around 100,000. Whatever The Line eventually becomes, it is not currently a procurement opportunity.
Trojena, NEOM's mountain resort, was to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games. That event has been postponed and the project will not receive new investment before 2030.
The Mukaab, the enormous cube planned for Riyadh, has been cancelled.
The Public Investment Fund has taken an $8 billion write-down on its giga-project portfolio, and it stopped funding LIV Golf after roughly $5 billion.
None of this is a scandal. It is roughly what happens when a country attempts the largest development programme in modern history against a moving oil price. But it has direct commercial consequences, and a foreign company still pitching into a cancelled project is announcing that it has not been paying attention.
The clearest miss is foreign investment. Saudi Arabia is targeting USD 104 billion in annual FDI by 2030, which would be 5.7 per cent of GDP against 1.5 per cent in 2021. Actual inflows are running at a fraction of that, and the gap between ambition and outcome is wider here than anywhere else in the programme.
The pressure behind all of this is fiscal, and it has intensified. Saudi Arabia's budget break-even oil price sits well above prevailing crude prices, deficits are widening, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the economic fallout from the Iran war have further dented confidence. Every additional giga-project riyal is effectively debt-financed.
That has not stopped the programme. It has made it selective, and the selection criterion is now explicit: the PIF has mandated that scaled-down projects must generate financial returns rather than simply consume capital.
The strategic implication is straightforward. Do not build an entry strategy around a render. Build it around a funded programme that is executing and has a real procurement pipeline.
Where the money is actually moving
The most useful thing to understand about Vision 2030 in 2026 is that the money has moved. Saudi Arabia has pivoted away from residential spectacle and towards hard infrastructure: ports, logistics, energy and data centres. Projects that generate revenue are being funded. Projects that generate renders are not.
That pivot is the opportunity, and it happens to sit squarely in the sectors where European industrial and technology firms are strong.
Oxagon. The clearest single example. NEOM is putting around USD 3 billion into the industrial city and its Red Sea port, which has taken on strategic weight as Saudi Arabia builds trade routes that do not depend on the Strait of Hormuz. The Kingdom is investing in utilities and digital connectivity there specifically to attract AI companies to build data centres. The green hydrogen plant at Oxagon is reportedly around 80 per cent complete. If you sell industrial equipment, energy technology, logistics systems or data centre infrastructure, this is where to look.
Diriyah. Valued at around USD 63 billion, the heritage and cultural development on the edge of Riyadh has shown real progress and growing investment momentum. One of the clearest examples of a giga-project that is genuinely being built.
Qiddiya. Still underway, with a theme park now open. Entertainment and hospitality supply chains follow.
Riyadh itself. Expo 2030 infrastructure, the RHQ programme and the general concentration of capital and talent make the capital, not NEOM, the place where most foreign companies will actually do business.
Industrial and manufacturing. The industrial sector accounts for roughly 30 per cent of total FDI, with tens of billions deployed into manufacturing. Localisation policy is actively pulling foreign manufacturers in.
Ports, rail and logistics. Expanding to support the Kingdom's ambition to sit as a trade hub between Asia, Europe and Africa. The Hormuz closure has made this urgent rather than aspirational. Unglamorous, funded and continuous.
Energy and the transition. Saudi Arabia has committed to 50 per cent renewable electricity by 2030 and net zero by 2060, with investment commitments in the hundreds of billions. Green hydrogen, carbon capture and grid infrastructure are live procurement categories.
FIFA World Cup 2034. A fixed deadline with a defined infrastructure requirement. Deadlines with dates attached tend to get funded.
Where foreign operators genuinely fit
Not every opportunity is open to a European entrant, and not every open opportunity is winnable. The sectors where foreign firms, particularly European industrial and technology companies, have a demonstrated path:
Advanced manufacturing and industrial equipment, where Saudi Arabia is explicitly trying to build a domestic industrial base and will pay a premium for the technology transfer that requires.
Energy, renewables and cleantech. The transition is funded, mandated and short of expertise.
Healthcare and life sciences, consistently one of the strongest sectors for European firms in the Kingdom.
Technology and AI. The Saudi cabinet declared 2026 the Year of AI, and the Kingdom's digitalisation is genuinely advanced. Foreign companies operating there frequently rate Saudi process automation above the European markets they came from.
Mining and critical minerals, where Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as a serious international player with real capital behind it.
Transport, logistics and automotive, driven by both giga-project demand and the logistics-hub ambition.
The three mechanisms that decide whether you win
Understanding the opportunity is not the same as capturing it. Three policy mechanisms sit between a foreign company and a Saudi contract, and all three are tightening.
Local content is becoming a gate. Through IKTVA in the energy supply chain, the Made in Saudi programme in manufacturing, and government procurement rules generally, the Kingdom is systematically channelling public spending into the domestic economy. Firms meeting local content thresholds can charge 10 to 20 per cent more. Firms that miss them are increasingly excluded from tenders. Local content is not overhead. It is the scoring system.
The RHQ programme is a procurement condition. It does offer 30 years of zero corporate income tax and a decade's exemption from Saudisation. But the operative fact sits on the other side: companies without an RHQ face restrictions on public procurement and government contracts. In a market where the state does most of the buying, that is a closed door rather than a forgone tax break.
Saudisation is a talent war. Nitaqat quotas are the visible part. The real constraint is that qualified Saudi nationals are fiercely competed for, salary expectations are high, and retention is difficult. Foreign firms in the Kingdom rank labour regulation and access to key personnel as their two largest sources of friction, ahead of licensing and ahead of everything else.
Conclusion
Vision 2030 is neither the unqualified success its marketing suggests nor the mirage its critics describe. It is a partial and uneven transformation that has moved nine points of GDP away from oil, rewritten the foreign ownership regime, and created procurement pipelines in sectors where European companies are strong.
What has changed is where those pipelines are. The 2021 version of Vision 2030 was about building a future city in the desert. The 2026 version is about ports, hydrogen, data centres and industrial capacity. That is a less photogenic programme and a far more investable one, and it is aimed at precisely the kind of company that reads this sort of guide.
The opportunity is real but selective, and the selection is now made on economic merit rather than ambition. The companies that will win are the ones that target funded programmes rather than announced ones, treat local content as a competitive weapon rather than a cost, take an explicit position on RHQ rather than deferring it, design for Saudi talent from the beginning, and enter through validated pilots rather than speculative capital commitments.
The second decade of Vision 2030 will be less about announcements and more about delivery. That is a harder market to sell brochures into and a considerably better one to operate in.
About the data
Figures are drawn from the Vision 2030 2025 Annual Report (as reported by the Center for Strategic and International Studies), the Saudi General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), the Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia (MISA), and the Business Climate Survey for Swedish Companies in Saudi Arabia 2025 (Business Sweden). Reporting on the status of The Line, Trojena, the Mukaab and Oxagon draws on Semafor, the Financial Times and contemporaneous trade press from the first half of 2026.
Giga-project status changes quickly, and it has changed a great deal in the past year. Everything here reflects reporting current to mid-2026 and should be re-verified before any commercial decision.