SALALAH: Dhofar has begun the first phase of Oman’s National Addressing Project, with street-name signs and numbered building plates being installed in Al Saadah in the Wilayat of Salalah as the Sultanate of Oman moves towards a unified addressing system nationwide.
Dhofar Municipality said the initial phase covers Al Saadah and includes the installation of street-name signs and building numbers to organise addresses, make locations easier to identify and improve the efficiency of public and private services.
Under the national system, properties will be assigned official addresses based on a standard structure, replacing varying address formats with a unified model to be used across Oman.
Al Saadah rollout marks the first phase of the project in Dhofar, which is being implemented nationwide under the regulatory framework established by Ministerial Decision No 200/2024, issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning on February 21, 2024. The decision was published in the Official Gazette on March 3 and came into force six months later.
The regulations require the ministry to establish a smart, unified addressing system covering all governorates, supported by a central database containing address information supplied and updated by local authorities.
An official address consists of four basic elements — the governorate, wilayat, street name and address unit number. A city, village or neighbourhood may also be included as a secondary element.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning is responsible for establishing the national model and central database, while governorates implement the system in coordination with the relevant municipalities.
The standardisation is particularly significant for Dhofar.
Eng Haitham bin Said al Badi, Director of the National Addressing Project at the ministry, said in June that Muscat, Al Batinah North and Dhofar had previously followed different approaches to formulating addresses.
He said the unified system would establish a common national structure and described the project as the result of more than two decades of cumulative government efforts.
The physical signs follow a national design, with side-street signs in white and building and residential-unit plates in green.
Building plates include QR codes linked to the geographical location and international address of the property or establishment, adding a digital dimension to the addressing system.
National Addressing Project
The regulations also place obligations on property owners. Article 8 of Ministerial Decision No 200/2024 requires addressing plates to be displayed on buildings, residential and commercial complexes and their internal units.
Al Badi said the ministry would bear the cost of exterior building plates, meaning citizens would not incur additional charges for them. Internal addressing within apartment buildings and residential complexes will be handled through the project’s sub-addressing system.
An address becomes official once the relevant governorate enters the addressing data into its database. Property owners must also be notified of the assigned address and any subsequent changes.
A significant part of the work has involved preparing and standardising the data required for the system.
As of June, the national name bank contained more than 75,000 approved names, according to Al Badi.
The names were approved in coordination with the Ministry of Interior through committees established in each governorate and chaired by the governor or a representative, with the participation of walis and other relevant authorities.
The ministry has also trained 63 field teams across Oman’s wilayats and developed applications for field verification, street naming and updating geographical and descriptive data.
Al Badi said an initial area had been selected in each wilayat as part of the implementation model, with nationwide physical implementation scheduled to begin on June 28.
The rollout gained momentum in October 2025, when the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning signed 11 agreements worth more than RO 1.3 million for the installation of street and building signs across Oman’s wilayats.
The ministry said the programme would support geographic information systems, digital government services, civil defence and ambulance operations, postal services and deliveries.
Al Badi also said tenders issued under the project had been awarded to Omani companies, creating opportunities for small and medium enterprises in manufacturing, contracting and field implementation.
The Observer could not establish whether the current works in Al Saadah form part of the 11 agreements signed in October 2025.
The National Addressing System has also been identified by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion as one of the remaining technical and transformational initiatives under Oman’s National E-Commerce Plan 2022–2027.
Nasra bint Sultan al Habsi, Director General of Commerce at the ministry, said the current phase includes completing the National Addressing System alongside other digital enablement initiatives.
The e-commerce plan had reached 86.7 per cent completion by the end of 2025, with 26 of its 30 initiatives completed.
Between February 2024 and August 1, 2026, 19,260 e-commerce activities were licensed and 412 online stores documented on the Maroof Oman platform, according to the ministry.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning is targeting 2028 for every home and establishment in Oman to have a unified national address and identification plate.
Al Badi has said completion could come earlier if sufficient funding is available and implementation proceeds as planned.
For Dhofar, however, the municipality has not disclosed the number of buildings and streets covered by the Al Saadah phase, its expected completion date or which areas of Salalah and the wider governorate will follow.
