A contracting company in Qatar starts with a commercial registration that carries a construction activity, and a commercial permit for its premises. The main building and road codes need no approval from another authority. To bid for government tenders, the company must also be classified by the Ministry of Finance, and the certificate lasts two years.
Activities and legal form for a contracting company licence
There is no single contracting licence. The Single Window lists separate construction activities, each with its own code, and you choose the ones that match the work you will sell. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry does not allow any commercial activity that is not recorded on the CR and the trade licence, so a company that builds and also sells materials needs both kinds of activity on its CR.
| Activity on the Single Window | Code | Other approval shown |
|---|---|---|
| Construction of all types of residential buildings | 410012 | None |
| Construction of other non-residential buildings | 410029 | None |
| Non-residential buildings, including hospitals, schools and clinics | 410024 | None |
| Construction and repair of roads and other vehicular and pedestrian ways | 421010 | None |
| Interior and exterior painting of buildings | 433063 | None |
Foreign owners can hold up to 100% under Law No. 1 of 2019, outside a few closed sectors, but any share above 49% needs an application to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Get a lawyer to look at the split before the memorandum is signed.
Contractor classification: who needs it
Classification is a government procurement rule. Under Article 36 of Law No. 24 of 2015 on tenders and bids, contractors, suppliers and service providers are classified into categories and specialties by their financial and technical capacity, experience, competence and past work. The Executive Regulations require ministries and other bodies under the law to deal with classified contractors.
The classification is done by the procurement department at the Ministry of Finance, through the Unified Website of State Procurement. A technical committee at the Ministry, with the Public Works Authority (Ashghal) as vice-chair and members from the Ministries of Municipality, Commerce and Industry, and Labour, among others, advises on the criteria, new specialties and complaints.
There are two exceptions in the regulations. Natural persons do not need to be classified. And a foreign company not classified in Qatar may bid with a classification certificate, or its equivalent, from the country where it was founded, attested by the Qatari embassy there, under the Ministry’s rules.
Classification is not the same as vendor registration, which is done buyer by buyer. Large public buyers such as Ashghal run their own supplier portals, and our article on vendor registration explains each route.
Classification fields and categories
Civil contracting
Buildings, bridges, dams, tunnels, concrete structures and steel structures.
Building maintenance
Maintenance of buildings of all kinds.
Roads, sewerage and water
Road works, drainage and water networks.
Agricultural works
Agricultural contracting.
New specialties
Any other field the Ministry adds by decision.
Within each field, a contractor is placed in a category. Each tender notice states the specialty and category it needs, within financial limits the Ministry sets, and may allow a company from the next category up to bid. The points, tables and limits that decide a category are set by decision of the Minister of Finance; the category names and limits are not published on the pages we checked.
Documents you need
For a classification or reclassification request, Article 100 of the Executive Regulations lists:
- An extract of the commercial registration.
- The company’s financial position, from statements or a budget checked by an auditor.
- The administrative and technical staff, with certificates, CVs and length of service, and the number of workers certified by the competent authority.
- Your equipment: vehicles and equipment approved by the Traffic Department, with copies of the ownership forms, plus fixed equipment signed off by an auditor.
- Your track record: contracts and completion certificates for finished projects, each with its name, value, start date and end date.
- Any other document the Ministry asks for.
Since past work, staff and equipment all count, start the file on day one: every contract, completion certificate, vehicle registration and staff record, kept in a form you can upload.
Steps to register and classify
- Choose the activities
Building, roads, painting: pick each code on the Single Window and check who may own it.
- Register the company
Trade name first, then the memorandum in Arabic, then the registration itself on the Single Window.
- Premises and commercial permit
No lease until the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has given initial approval; the commercial permit follows once the premises pass.
- Apply for classification
Only if you want government work. The file goes in online on the Unified Website of State Procurement, and the Ministry may come to see your office and sites.
- Decision and certificate
Expect a decision within 15 working days of a complete file and the certificate within 7 more; an appeal to the Minister must go in within 7 working days.
- Decision on a complete file
- 15 working days
- To issue the certificate
- 7 working days
- Certificate validity
- 2 years
- To report a change in your legal position
- 15 days
From the Executive Regulations of Law No. 24 of 2015, Articles 102 to 105, checked 21 Oct 2026. Asking for a review within six months of the decision costs double the certificate fee.
Keep the classification current. The Ministry may ask you to update your data at any time, and a change in the company that affects your category must be reported within 15 days. If you do neither, the certificate lapses. A classification obtained with untrue information is cancelled.
The first three steps are the same for any business licence in Qatar.
Staff and visas
The company needs its establishment card before it can bring workers on work visas, and each worker needs the labour department’s approval and an employment contract in Arabic attested by the department. On pay, the floor is QAR 1,000 basic a month, and a worker without company housing or meals is owed at least QAR 500 and QAR 300 on top for those.
One line you cannot cross: a contractor is not its own consultant. Design and site supervision are for engineering offices registered under Law No. 19 of 2005, and that law bars their owners, partners and engineers from contracting.
How we help
We help you choose the construction codes, register the company and commercial permit, and prepare the classification file for the Ministry of Finance, including the staff, equipment and project records. We also prepare the establishment card and work visa files. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Ministry of Finance and the labour department decide each application.
