Article 17 of the Saudi Private Laboratories Law

This is the closing article, and it sets when the Private Laboratories Law becomes enforceable:

• Publication: the Law is published in the Official Gazette, which is the official means of announcing it.
• Entry into force: the Law is applied 180 days after the date of its publication, not from the day of publication.

This period gives laboratories and the bodies concerned time to prepare to apply the Law's provisions before they become binding. Knowing the date of entry into force is important, because the provisions and penalties in the Law apply from that date.

The 180-day period starts from the date of publication itself, so a person who wants to know the date the Law began to apply must refer to its date of publication in the Official Gazette and then count the period from it.

It is linked to Article 16, which assigns issuing the Implementing Regulations to the Minister of Commerce in agreement with the ministries and the Authority mentioned in it. This article does not state a date for issuing the Regulations, so nothing about that should be inferred from it.