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Coco Reina

SABER & the SCoC for Charcoal: The Current Process (Since 1 October 2025)

By Mohamad Sinno, Charcoal Expert · Reviewed by Budi Hartanto, shipping specialist · Updated

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Since 1 October 2025, a consignment certificate must exist before any Saudi customs declaration

Since 1 October 2025, the consignment certificate (Shipment Certificate of Conformity, SCoC) must exist before any customs declaration is submitted on goods imported into Saudi Arabia. SASO's announcement applies that rule to all imported products, whether or not they are subject to technical regulations.

“effective October 1, all suppliers will be required to issue a ‘consignment certificate’ as a mandatory prerequisite for submitting any customs declaration on imported goods” — Saudi Press Agency, item N2385265, Riyadh, 26 August 2025

The same release carries the scope clause: the requirement “applies to all imported products, whether they are subject to technical regulations or not.” SASO's Arabic announcement, news item 1483, ran the same day; both read 12 August 2026. Conformity is half the entry picture, the customs declaration and the tax the other half, in importing shisha charcoal to Saudi Arabia.

SABER is the platform, SASO is the authority, and accredited conformity assessment bodies issue the certificates

Saber (saber.sa) is the platform where products are registered and certificates issued electronically, on an account the importer holds. SASO — the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization — is the standards authority behind it. The certificate comes from a SASO-accredited conformity assessment body working through the platform.

“Consignment certificate”, شهادة الإرسالية and SCoC are three names for one document

All three name one per-shipment document, not the product certificate of conformity (PCoC), which is product-level.

One document, three vocabularies — search either term and you land on the same step.
Where you see it What it is called
SASO and SPA, in English “Consignment” certificate — the entry in SASO's own Certificates of Conformity index
SASO, in Arabic شهادة الإرسالية
Industry usage Shipment Certificate of Conformity (SCoC)
Carton marking station
Transport marks on the carton are what tie a physical box to the packing list and the transport document, so marking is a documentation step as much as a packing one.

Regulated and non-regulated products need the same shipment certificate — the classification changes only what precedes it

A non-regulated classification changes which document precedes the shipment certificate, not whether one is required. Regulated products take an accredited body's product certificate, non-regulated products a self-declaration issued through the platform, and both converge on the same shipment certificate.

SASO tells importers to check a product's status by HS code in Saber's Knowledge Center

SASO's own instruction, from the same announcement of 26 August 2025:

  1. Open the Saber platform.
  2. Go to the Knowledge Center page (مركز المعرفة).
  3. Select the Harmonized System code entry.
  4. Search by HS code or keyword — for us, HS 4402 charcoal, shell and nut included.
  5. Read the status and classification off the row that appears. Its five columns, in the platform's own English rendering: HSCode, Product Category, Technical regulation, Required Certificates, Additional Requirements.

Check the code you are actually shipping — the route, and how to read an empty result

That lookup settles a code's conformity path, not any guide's assertion, and it is public: one unauthenticated request, no account, at https://saber.sa/Home/HSCodes?Tags=<12-digit national line>, with an English/Arabic switch on the page. For our own dated reading of heading 4402, see the SABER step table on the Saudi Arabia guide; none is stated here.

No row means that code does not exist in Saber's list — invented or truncated twelve-digit codes return nothing — never that the product is unregulated. And a SABER conformity status is a conformity status: not a customs finding, not a safety finding, not a dangerous-goods finding. Whatever it returns, it does not exempt the shipment certificate. A guide stating a verdict for your heading without naming this lookup and a date has not run it.

Inner box packing
Shisha charcoal is packed in small inner boxes inside a master carton, so the unit a retailer sells and the unit a shipper counts are two different things.

The Saber technical file: which document comes from the importer, the assessment body, or the factory

Document types for a Saber submission, and who produces each. The supplier column is the one a bare requirements list leaves out.
Document Who supplies it Note
Commercial registration Importer Saudi-side identity; no supplier can produce it
Product specification and technical documentation Factory Grade, shape, size, measured spec
Laboratory test reports A laboratory the assessment body accepts Scope is the body's call, not the supplier's
Label and packaging details Factory Our packaging design is free, so the artwork in the file is the artwork on the carton
Manufacturer information and authorisation letter Factory Issued to the importer of record
Declaration of conformity, or the self-declaration The assessment body, or the importer through the platform Which one follows the fork above. SASO publishes its accepted bodies: on the version last updated 4 August 2026, 28 of 144 entries showed an expired acceptance, so listed is not the same as currently accepted
Invoice, packing list, SDS, dangerous-goods declaration Factory Issued per shipment

The platform charge is the smallest number on a charcoal consignment

The charge paid through the platform covers the certificate transaction only. Conformity assessment body fees, laboratory testing and any consultancy sit outside it, and none of them decides what a charcoal consignment costs to land.

No figure appears here because none is published: SASO's services-cost document is undated on its face and covers its own certificates, and the per-certificate numbers on consultancy pages cite no schedule and disagree with each other. Ask an accepted body for a written quote.

On this commodity, port-side handling moves the number — Coco Reina declares and ships its coconut shell charcoal as UN 1361, Class 4.2, Packing Group III, a first-party declaration confirmed 22 July 2026 — which is carriage, not conformity, and changes nothing on the Saber path. One clause on tax, then it is the country guide's: ZATCA's import guideline states that VAT is imposed on goods imported into the Kingdom regardless of classification, of the duty rate applicable, or where the goods are exempt from customs duties.

Flat / brix briquette, macro
Flat or brix pieces are lower in height than they are wide, which is the format used where a wide, shallow heat bed is wanted rather than a tall stack.

Guidance written before 1 October 2025 fails in two specific ways

Such guidance presents the shipment certificate as a requirement for regulated products only, which the 1 October 2025 rule contradicts on its face. And it cites no dated instrument, so a current-year stamp tells you nothing about the age of the advice underneath it.

The durable test is not the year in the title: check which instrument a guide cites, and what date that instrument carries.

The undertaking you confirm inside the Saber shipment flow is not the customs Letter of Undertaking

SASO's announcement describes the regulated path as requesting a new shipment conformity and confirming the undertaking (تأكيد التعهد) to complete issuance; the platform's own English guide words that step “choose the country of shipment, agree on the commitment, and click on ‘Send request’”. An undertaking does survive inside Saber, then — as a step in that flow, not as the customs Letter of Undertaking and not as evidence an older route survived. This page makes no claim about whether or when that route ended.

This snapshot expires too: the Saudi requirement set grows by amendment

A Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources declaration sits before the shipment certificate for listed products, and that list keeps growing — an updated form in June 2024, an addition in September 2025, a steel addition in force from 1 May 2026. As of the conformity-assessment body lists published by Bureau Veritas (10 September 2025) and Cotecna (in force 1 May 2026), no chapter 44 code appears on that list — a negative drawn from two accredited bodies' lists, not from SASO or the Ministry, whose own register we could not reach.

So re-run the lookup on your own code before each shipment rather than trusting a snapshot, this one included. We re-check this page at least every six months.

Sealed and departing
The seal closes the chain of custody: once it is applied at the factory, any later discrepancy in count or condition is traceable to a specific point in the journey.

Putting a specification in front of a Saudi buyer or broker before you commit? Message us on WhatsApp at +62 821 3924 038 for free samples.