Saudi Arabia’s ‘white land’ tax aims to ease housing shortage

Landowners may have hoped that the abrupt dismissal of housing minister Shwaish Al-Dhwaihi in March, barely a month after he indicated that a tax on unused urban lands was in the offing, was something of a reprieve. Known as ‘white lands’, the vacant plots within city limits are seen as a major contributor to the housing crisis, with their owners accused of holding on to them for financial gain, instead of building much-needed homes. But they were swiftly disabused of any such interpretation when on 23 March, with new minister Essam Bin Saad Bin Said’s feet barely under the table, the cabinet affirmed that the Council of Economic and Development Affairs (CEDA) would “urgently” develop the mechanisms needed to put some form of a tax in place.