Rental Property Management in Saudi Arabia: Ejar, VAT and 5 Odoo Apps

A property management system in Saudi Arabia starts with Ejar, the rental platform of the Real Estate General Authority (REGA), because the lease documented there is the record that rent, renewals and any dispute follow. Your accounts should mirror it.

The rules as of November 2026, from the landlord-tenant provisions in force since 25 September 2025, published in Umm Al-Qura (in Arabic) and summarised on REGA's Ejar page:

• Registration: for residential or commercial property in an urban area, the landlord must apply to register any unregistered lease on Ejar. The tenant may apply too; the other party then has 60 days from notice to object, and if no objection is filed the contract data stands.
• Renewal: in every city, a lease renews automatically unless either side gives notice at least 60 days before it ends. REGA may lengthen it in model contracts.
• Riyadh: for five years from 25 September 2025, total rent on existing and new leases inside the urban area cannot rise, and the landlord may refuse renewal only for non-payment, structural defects confirmed by an approved technical report, personal or first-degree family use of a residential unit, or cases REGA's board adds. Total rent includes any other sums the tenant pays the landlord under the lease, so an increase cannot move into service charges. A vacant unit leased before cannot be re-let above its last contract unless REGA accepts an objection, such as after major structural renovation or where the last lease predates 2024. REGA's board can extend these Riyadh rules to other cities with the approval of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs; none had been announced as of November 2026, so check Ejar before you price a renewal.
• Fines: up to 12 months' total rent for breaching the registration duty, the Riyadh rent freeze or the Riyadh limits on refusing renewal, plus correcting the breach and compensating the harmed party.

Collections changed too. Since 15 January 2024, rent on new residential leases counts only when paid through Ejar's channels, mada or SADAD biller 153, and it reaches the landlord's registered account within 5 business days; commercial leases are excluded, per REGA's announcement. The lease itself is documented in Ejar through a REGA-licensed broker.

ZATCA's VAT guideline for the real estate sector (issue 3.0, May 2026) sets the treatment unit by unit:

• Residential lease: exempt, when the unit is a permanent dwelling used as a primary residence, including staff or student housing used that way.
• Hotels, serviced apartments, holiday homes and short-term worker accommodation: 15%.
• Commercial lease, such as offices, shops or vacant land: 15%.
• Extra services billed with a lease, such as parking, maintenance or utility fees: a separate supply at 15%, even beside an exempt flat.
• Mixed-use building leased as a whole: split the price, using floor area as the primary basis, checked against market rents.

Example, a Dammam building: 8 flats at SAR 40,000 a year each are exempt, SAR 320,000 in all. Two shops at SAR 90,000 each carry SAR 27,000 of VAT on SAR 180,000. Six tenants pay SAR 200 a month for parking: SAR 14,400 a year plus SAR 2,160 VAT.

Registration is mandatory once taxable supplies pass SAR 375,000 in any 12 months, and residential rent does not count. This building reaches SAR 194,400; add offices let for SAR 600,000 and the owner is at SAR 794,400 and must register, after which commercial rent invoices follow ZATCA e-invoicing.

Input VAT follows use: deductible on commercial-lease costs, not on residential-lease costs, and apportioned on shared overheads, by default by last calendar year's share of taxable supplies. A lift repair in an all-residential building costs its full VAT-inclusive amount.

Selling is different. Under the Real Estate Transaction Tax Law in force since 10 April 2025, ZATCA's RETT guideline charges 5% of the agreed price, not below market value; the seller pays on or before notarisation, and the sale is exempt from VAT. Selling a building for SAR 6,000,000 means SAR 300,000 of RETT. For an eligible citizen's first home, the state bears the tax on up to SAR 1,000,000.

Before any software, keep one lease register. Put these columns in a spreadsheet, one row per unit:

• Building and unit
• Use: residential or commercial
• Tenant and Ejar contract number
• Start and end dates
• Annual rent and instalments
• VAT: exempt or 15%
• Security deposit held
• Next due date
• Notice deadline: 60 days before the end date

Two sample rows. Shop 1, commercial, 1 January to 31 December 2027: SAR 90,000 in four quarterly instalments of SAR 22,500 plus SAR 3,375 VAT, a SAR 10,000 deposit, notice deadline 1 November 2027. Flat 3, residential, 1 April 2027 to 31 March 2028: SAR 40,000 in two instalments of SAR 20,000, exempt, a SAR 2,000 deposit, notice deadline 31 January 2028.

In Odoo, each row becomes a subscription. Odoo documents no connection to Ejar, so register the lease in Ejar first, then record its contract number on the subscription. Per Odoo's Subscriptions documentation, recurring plans bill in weeks, months or years, so create Quarterly (3 months), Half-yearly (6 months) and Yearly plans. Leave Align to Period Start off, because it moves billing to the first day of the period, and test Automatic Closing before you rely on it: it closes a subscription when payment does not arrive in time, while a lease does not end because one instalment is late.

For collections, follow-up levels can remind tenants before the due date, using a negative number of days, then escalate by email, SMS, WhatsApp or letter; the last three need IAP credits. Reconcile the bank first, since Ejar payments can take up to 5 business days to land. For new residential leases, send no online payment link: only Ejar's channels count.

Deposits are not income. Create a Security deposit product whose income account is a liability account, and refund it at move-out, less documented deductions the contract allows.

Tenant requests arrive by phone, WhatsApp and email, and the ones that get lost come back as disputes at renewal. Give them one queue:

• Helpdesk: per Odoo's documentation, a Helpdesk team can receive tickets from an email alias, a website form and live chat. Create one team per building or per area, and tag tickets as plumbing, AC, lift or electrical.
• Maintenance: register each lift, chiller, AC unit, pump and generator as equipment. A maintenance request is Corrective, to fix a fault, or Preventive, to avoid one, with a team, a responsible technician, a scheduled date and a priority of zero to three stars, and it moves through stages from New Request to Repaired. Quote the ticket number in the request, so the tenant's conversation and the technician's work stay connected.
• Documents: keep a folder per building and a sub-folder per unit for the Ejar contract, the move-in condition report with photos, and handover forms. Files keep versions and can be locked, a folder can have its own email alias, and you can request a missing file, such as a renewed contract, by a due date. Automation rules in Documents need Studio, which moves every user to the Custom plan.

Then bill what you can. A maintenance fee you charge a residential tenant is a separate supply, subject to 15% VAT if you are registered, even though the rent is exempt. Recover damage caused by a tenant from the deposit or by invoice, as the contract allows.

A simple routine for each building:

• Daily: assign new tickets and convert equipment faults into maintenance requests.
• Weekly: review open requests by priority and chase overdue rent.
• Quarterly: walk the building and log preventive work for lifts, pumps and AC.

For lift and HVAC contracts across several buildings, our guide to field service and maintenance in Odoo covers recurring preventive visits and SLA reporting.

An owner asks two questions: what did my building earn, and where is my money? Analytic accounting answers both, provided every invoice and bill carries a building. Per Odoo's analytic accounting documentation:

• Create an analytic plan called Buildings, with one analytic account per building; add a second plan, Owners, if you manage for several landlords.
• Make the plan Mandatory on income and expense accounts, so no rent invoice or supplier bill posts without a building.
• Use analytic distribution models so a product, such as Rent, Building B, or a partner, such as your lift contractor, fills in the building automatically.
• Split shared costs by percentage, such as a guard serving two buildings at 50% each.

A sample owner statement for Q1 2027, for a 12-flat residential building at SAR 40,000 per flat a year:

• Rent invoiced, 11 occupied flats: SAR 110,000
• Collected: SAR 100,000; arrears: SAR 10,000
• Vacancy: 1 flat, SAR 10,000 of rent not earned
• Lift maintenance contract: SAR 6,900, VAT included, as the rent is exempt
• AC repairs: SAR 2,300
• Common-area electricity and water: SAR 3,800
• Management fee, 5% of collections: SAR 5,000 plus SAR 750 VAT
• Net paid to the owner: SAR 81,250
• Tenant deposits held, not income: SAR 22,000

Annualised, SAR 325,000 is a net yield of about 5.4% on a building worth SAR 6,000,000, before the SAR 300,000 of RETT on any sale.

Odoo's documentation describes no ready-made owner statement, so export each building's analytic items into this template quarterly. On cost, Odoo Standard on Odoo Online for 10 users costs about SAR 6,075 before tax in year one at Odoo's Saudi list prices of 17 October 2026, and tenants who only use the portal are not paid users, as our Odoo price guide explains. METCH, an official Odoo partner in Saudi Arabia, can set this up with your accountant.