Law of the General Authority of Endowments

Purpose and scope

• Establishes the General Authority for Awqaf as an independent legal person linked to the Prime Minister (Article 2), to organise, preserve, develop and grow endowments in line with their founders' conditions and strengthen their role in development (Article 3).

Key rules, rights and obligations

• The authority supervises all public, private (family) and joint endowments, and the work of administrators appointed by founders without breaching their conditions (Article 4).
• It registers all endowments after documentation, inventories endowed property, administers endowments unless the founder named another administrator, and administers the endowments of the Hajj and Umrah miqats (Article 5).
• Subject to the founder's conditions, it may invest the assets of endowments it administers, set aside up to 25% of an endowment's annual net income to invest for it, and up to 20% of surpluses to develop other endowments (Article 15).
• It charges a fee for managing endowments that have another administrator when it is entrusted with their management (Article 14).
• It keeps separate accounts for the endowments it administers or manages and for the endowments of the Two Holy Mosques, and deposits their funds in separate accounts with the central bank or banks (Article 16).

Violations, penalties and common problems

• Common problems: not registering an endowment with the authority after documentation, mixing endowment funds with the administrator's own, and spending income contrary to the founder's conditions.

Procedures and key deadlines

• The authority sets an accounting system for the endowments it administers and a guiding system to help other administrators preserve endowment funds (Article 18).
• Founders should document the endowment, name the administrator and beneficiaries clearly, and then register it with the authority.

An advisory summary prepared by Al-Bayan Al-Wadih Law Firm. It is not an official text and does not replace the law, its implementing regulations, or advice from a specialised lawyer. The official published text and its amendments prevail.