Brief
ChatGPT ads open in the Gulf, but not in Saudi Arabia
No. Today you cannot run ChatGPT ads from a Saudi entity, and you cannot use them to reach a buyer inside Saudi Arabia. OpenAI opened self-serve buying in the Gulf, meaning advertisers can now set up and pay for campaigns themselves. Its official availability table names Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman. Saudi Arabia is not in that table. It is also not in the location file used to pick target countries.
Can I run ChatGPT ads in Saudi Arabia now?
You cannot, and two separate doors are closed, not one. First, the availability table in OpenAI's Help Center has a residency rule. The entity that advertises and receives the invoice must be based in a listed country. Saudi Arabia is not listed. Second, the official location file does not include Saudi Arabia at all. That file is the list of places a campaign can target.
I read both lists on September 7, 2026. The availability table counts 52 countries. From our region it includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are not on it.
The location file OpenAI publishes for developers holds 53 countries. That is one more than the first table, and the extra one is the UAE. So a UAE advertiser cannot open a self-serve account. A Bahraini advertiser, though, can target UAE buyers. Saudi Arabia alone is missing from both lists.
That means the usual workaround does not help here. You could open an entity in a neighboring country to get into the dashboard. You would be able to buy. You would not be able to pick Saudi Arabia as a campaign location. This matters now because OpenAI announced self-serve buying through Ads Manager across the Middle East and North Africa, Europe and India. In the same announcement, it said its ads reached $1 billion in annualized revenue in under 200 days.
How is a Saudi account affected differently?
The difference is that the users are here and the channel is closed. OpenAI lists Saudi Arabia among the countries where ChatGPT works for users. It does not list it for advertisers or for targeting. So you face a market that uses the product but cannot be sold ads. Anyone who manages accounts here is not used to that.
Snapchat, Meta and TikTok opened Saudi Arabia early. The norm became that a new channel reaches Riyadh and Jeddah on day one. I wrote about what Saudi stores actually spend today in my Snapchat piece. This announcement does not change that channel's weight here.
A second difference concerns stores that sell to more than one market. A Saudi store that ships to Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain can reach buyers there. The condition is that the entity receiving the invoice sits in a listed country. But its largest market stays outside coverage. So the test runs on the small market, not the big one. And the result cannot be generalized to a market that was never tested.
A third difference is in targeting itself. OpenAI says the dashboard supports country selection at the campaign level. Only inside the United States does it open up state, market area and ZIP code. If you are used to separating Riyadh from Jeddah, you will buy all of Kuwait or nothing.
When is opening an account in a neighboring country not worth it?
It is not worth it when your whole audience is inside Saudi Arabia. You will set up an entity, get invoiced in another currency and learn a new dashboard. Then you will find that every location open to your campaign is outside your market. The real cost here is not the budget. It is the weeks spent on a channel that does not reach your buyer.
A second limit concerns who sees the ad. OpenAI says ads may appear to users on the Free and Go plans. They do not appear on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu accounts. They also do not appear to users estimated to be under 18. So the segment that pays a monthly subscription is outside the inventory. Many stores care about exactly that segment.
A third limit applies to the numbers in the official announcement. OpenAI cited an ecommerce advertiser that earned three times its spend within 28 days. It also cited a technology partner who said more than 80% of ad-driven visits came from new customers. Both numbers come from the seller, and each describes a single case. They are not a forecast for your account.
The test I run
When a Saudi store asks me about ChatGPT ads, I do not open an account for them. I do not look for an entity in a neighboring country either. I open the official location file and search it for Saudi Arabia. It is not there. Then I register the account on ads.openai.com so the notice arrives the day it opens.
Meanwhile, I run one thing. I open the store's traffic sources report and read the referral line from chatgpt.com. Those are visitors who came from inside a conversation, not from a search result. I log that number every week on one sheet, along with the order count.
If you do not record this number today, in six months you will not know whether the channel deserves your budget.
Frequently asked questions
Do ChatGPT ads show to users in Saudi Arabia?
Saudi Arabia is not sold as a campaign location, because it is not in the official location file used to pick target countries. So no advertiser can choose it today. That may change once OpenAI adds it. OpenAI has said the next phase includes new markets.
Can I open an account with a UAE entity?
You cannot open a self-serve account with a UAE entity, because the UAE is not in the availability table. But the UAE is in the location file, so an advertiser in a listed country can target UAE buyers. Mixing up the two lists is the source of the common confusion.
What should I do until Saudi Arabia opens?
Register your account on ads.openai.com to get notified when it becomes available. That is what OpenAI explicitly recommends. Start measuring your store's traffic from ChatGPT today, so you have a baseline to compare against. Details of the accounts I manage are on the work page.