Data-center law in Oman

National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-06

Oman has no data-centre-specific siting, permitting, or utility statute; a data-centre project sited outside one of Oman's special economic zones or free zones is governed by the general foreign-investment framework of the Law on Foreign Capital Investment (Royal Decree No. 50/2019).

The Law grants an investment project national treatment with an Omani project, lets the Investment Services Centre facilitate land designation by long-term lease or usufruct right outside the ordinary land-law procedure, and requires the Public Authority for Investment Promotion and Export Development to coordinate with the bodies that provide water, electricity, gas, wastewater, roads, and communications to the project's boundary; tax and customs exemptions for qualifying projects are deferred to the Law's executive regulation.

A project sited inside a designated special economic zone or free zone instead falls under the newer Law on Special Economic Zones and Free Zones (Royal Decree No. 38/2025), which repealed the 2002 Free Zones Law, preserved the benefits, incentives, and guarantees already granted to operating entities and companies in existing free zones and in the Duqm Special Economic Zone, and left the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones (established by Royal Decree No. 105/2020) as the licensing body for a zone's operating entity; its text was read at primary source but is not separately coded here because Article 2 of the Foreign Capital Investment Law expressly carves the Duqm zone, the Public Establishment for Industrial Estates, and free zones out of its own scope, so the two regimes are complementary rather than overlapping.

No provision addressing air emissions or an environmental-review process specific to a data-centre or industrial facility has been located at primary source.

01

Instruments on record

1 instrument on record, grouped by the family of approval each one governs.

Public agreements

What fiscal agreements attach a data center to its host jurisdiction?

Law on Foreign Capital Investment, national treatment and land/utility coordination

In force

Royal Decree No. 50/2019, Arts. 18-20

Effective 2020-01-01 · Applies to private

Article 18 gives an investment project all the benefits, incentives, and guarantees enjoyed by a national project under Oman's laws, and lets the Council of Ministers declare preferential treatment for a foreign investor on a reciprocity basis or grant additional benefits to projects established in the Sultanate's least-developed areas.

Article 19 lets the Investment Services Centre designate land and real estate for a project by long-term lease or usufruct right outside the ordinary Land Law and usufruct-regulation procedures, and requires the Public Authority for Investment Promotion and Export Development to coordinate with the ministries and bodies competent to provide water, electricity, gas, wastewater, public roads, and communications to the boundary of the project.

Article 20 defers to the Law's executive regulation which investment projects, and for how long, may be exempted from taxes, customs duties, and non-customs duties, without prejudice to the GCC Unified Customs Law.

Article 3 prohibits a foreign natural or legal person from undertaking any investment activity in the Sultanate except under this Law, and Article 2 expressly carves the Duqm Special Economic Zone, the Public Establishment for Industrial Estates, and free zones out of the Law's own scope, leaving those to their own separate regime.

Source: Full text of law

Every entry cites the instrument it describes. None of it is legal advice: verify a citation before relying on it. Full sourcing: read the methodology. The rest of the record: all jurisdictions.