How a manufacturer outside Saudi Arabia gets approved as an Aramco supplier, checked against Aramco's own pages. Where IKTVA fits. And what approval does for you once you have it.
If you manufacture outside Saudi Arabia, you do not start on the portal. You go to the Aramco affiliate for your region. It decides whether Aramco needs what you make, then whether you are financially and technically acceptable. Manufacturers then go through approval item by item, which can include a plant visit. IKTVA, Aramco's local content programme, runs alongside, and Aramco says taking part is required. None of it guarantees an order. Aramco says so itself.
I sold into Aramco's Marjan field expansion through Técnicas Reunidas, the £1.9M Package 9, after inheriting the project late. The paperwork mattered. It was never what won it. Get the registration right, then put your effort where the work is actually decided.
Aramco says every company supplying goods or services must be registered, and the route depends on where you are. Companies in Saudi Arabia, and in the GCC and wider Middle East countries Aramco's Dhahran office covers, register through the Aramco e Marketplace on SAP Ariba.
Everyone else contacts the Aramco affiliate for their region: Aramco Americas, Aramco Overseas Company for Europe, or Aramco Asia. So a manufacturer in the UK, Germany, Italy, the US or Korea starts with a conversation, not a form.
This is the step most suppliers underestimate. The affiliate evaluates what you send and decides whether Aramco needs another source for those materials. Aramco Europe says it only approves new sources of supply for items already on its sourcing list, and that list is updated periodically. If your product is a new or advanced technology Aramco may not know, it asks you to contact it and it will review the offer. Suppliers who show significant technical or commercial benefit are the ones taken further.
Aramco's own name for the approved list is the Regulated Vendor List, the RVL. Aramco does not publish it. Copies circulating online are not official.
The registration request runs through SAP Ariba, and on approval Aramco issues a Vendor ID in the format 100 followed by five digits. Aramco publishes a document list for registration, but says that list applies to suppliers based in Saudi Arabia, not to suppliers outside it. Your affiliate tells you what it needs from you. Aramco Europe also says you do not need a representative in Saudi Arabia to become an approved supplier.
Registration and manufacturer approval are separate. Aramco's 2024 supplier booklet sets out the approval route:
Approval is per item. Add a product line later and that item goes through approval again. Aramco recommends manufacturers read its Engineering Requirements for Technical and Quality Approval handbook, the ERTQA, before submitting anything.
IKTVA, In Kingdom Total Value Add, is Aramco's local content programme. iktva.sa says it is an integral part of Aramco procurement and participation is required for doing business with Aramco. Aramco's goal is to retain 75% of its procurement spend in the Kingdom, and it reports 70% as of the start of 2026. Aramco gives no target year, so treat any "75% by 2030" you read as someone else's gloss.
The 2025 guidelines calculate the score as local goods and services plus asset depreciation, local labour compensation, training and development of Saudis, local supplier development and local research and development, all divided by total relevant costs. Aramco and the LCGPA, the Kingdom's local content authority, now use one unified local content certificate. You upload that certificate, an agreed upon procedures report and the score template to the iktva portal, which needs your Ariba Vendor ID to access.
For a manufacturer with nothing in the Kingdom, the score starts low. That is not a reason to stay out. It is a reason to plan your local presence, partner or assembly before you need it, not after a tender asks.
Aramco says registering and qualifying does not guarantee future business. The specification decides which products a project is designed around, and it is written by engineering teams inside Aramco and the EPC contractors long before a package goes out. Get into that work early and the odds swing hard your way. Miss it and you are quoting against whatever was designed in, though work is still won through the EPC relationship, the budget and a sharp commercial case.
The Regulated Vendor List gets you permission to supply. The specification and the EPC relationships decide who does.
Aramco decides who is approved. Nobody can sell you an approval, and I do not. What I do is advise on the sequencing so you go in with the right items, the right evidence and a local content plan, then do the commercial work that turns approval into orders: the engineering relationships, the specification and the EPC contractors. Read Getting Specified on ADNOC and Aramco Projects, EPC contractor strategy and Saudi Arabia and Aramco for the market itself.
Manufacturers based outside Saudi Arabia, the GCC and the other countries Aramco's Dhahran office covers do not start on the portal. They contact the Aramco affiliate for their region: Aramco Americas, Aramco Overseas Company or Aramco Asia. The affiliate decides whether there is a business need for what you supply, then whether you are financially and technically acceptable.
Aramco's own term is the Regulated Vendor List, or RVL. Aramco does not publish it. Approval is per item: Aramco says it only approves new sources of supply for items on its sourcing list, and each additional item goes through approval again.
No. Aramco Europe says having a local representative is not mandatory to become an approved supplier.
Yes. iktva.sa says IKTVA is an integral part of Saudi Aramco procurement and participation is required for doing business with Saudi Aramco.
Under the 2025 guidelines the score is local goods and services plus asset depreciation, local labour compensation, training and development of Saudis, local supplier development and local research and development, divided by total relevant costs. Aramco and the LCGPA now use one unified local content certificate.
Aramco does not publish a timeline for registration or manufacturer approval, so any fixed figure you see is someone's estimate, not Aramco's.
No. Aramco says registering and qualifying does not guarantee future business. Which products are used is decided by the specification and by the EPC contractors who build the projects.
Sources: Aramco, become a supplier · Aramco, out of Kingdom suppliers · Aramco, Doing Business with Aramco, September 2024 · Aramco Europe FAQ · Aramco, iktva · iktva.sa, how to participate · iktva 2025 certification guidelines. Checked 12 November 2026. Processes change, so confirm current steps with your Aramco affiliate before you apply.
If you are on the list and the orders are not coming, the problem is almost always the specification and the EPC route, not the paperwork. That is the part I own.