Acoustic requirements in the Saudi Building Code: what is actually specified, and what is left to the project

In the Saudi Building Code, acoustics appears in one main place: Section 1207, Sound Transmission, in the general code SBC 201, whose base document is the 2015 International Building Code. Indoor noise criteria, reverberation, and building services noise are not covered in that section. On Saudi projects those requirements arrive through the specification, an operator brand standard, or a rating system.

What the code fixes

The Saudi Building Code is issued by the Saudi Building Code National Committee and published at sbc.gov.sa, in volumes: the general code SBC 201, structural codes SBC 301 to 306, electrical SBC 401, mechanical SBC 501, energy SBC 601, plumbing SBC 701, and fire protection SBC 801. Compliance is enforced through the building permit and municipal inspection, with penalties set in the implementing regulations (Habitare, Saudi Building Code implementation guide).

Acoustics sits in the general code. In SBC 201, Chapter 12, Interior Environment, contains Section 1207, Sound Transmission. The code's own preface summarises Chapter 12 as a collection of requirements that addresses, among other things, "limiting sound transmission through walls". A second, narrower reference appears in Chapter 8, Interior Finishes, as Section 808, Acoustical Ceiling Systems. Both section titles and the preface wording are in the contents and preface of the code as published by the committee (sbc.gov.sa, SBC 201 Code Requirements). We cite only the published code, and we quote it only as far as its contents and preface.

The same preface states the code's lineage plainly: "2015 International Building Code (IBC 2015), published by the International Code Council (ICC), is the base code in the development of this Code." The section number matches: sound transmission is Section 1207 in IBC 2015 as well.

That lineage tells you what Section 1207 is about. In IBC 2015, Section 1207 applies to Group R occupancies, which includes hotels, apartments, and similar residential occupancies. It sets a sound transmission class of 50 for walls and floor or ceiling assemblies separating dwelling units and sleeping units from each other and from public and service areas, tested to ASTM E90, with 45 accepted where the assembly is field tested. It sets a matching impact insulation requirement of 50, or 45 field tested, for floor and ceiling assemblies (AcousPlan, IBC acoustic requirements; EVstudio, STC and IIC between dwelling units). The section text itself is copyright of the ICC and is read at ICC Digital Codes.

One caution, and it matters. We could not obtain the text of SBC 201 Section 1207 itself from any publicly accessible copy. The Saudi committee adapts ICC material to local requirements rather than reprinting it, so we cannot state from the public record whether SBC 201 carries the same numbers, different numbers, or a different scope of application. Anyone who needs the values should read the section in the code, not infer them from the base document, and not from this article.

What the code leaves to the project

Section 1207 is about transmission between units. Read it and you have said nothing about the acoustic questions that consume most of the design effort on a hotel, a hospital, a ministry, or a tower:

A second caution, about the mechanical code. Plant noise and vibration would sit naturally in SBC 501, the Saudi Mechanical Code, and an earlier version of this article reported that no such provisions appear in it. We have withdrawn that statement. It rested on a copy of the volume republished without licence by a third party, which is not a source this practice will cite, and we have not been able to read SBC 501 from the committee's own publication (sbc.gov.sa, SBC 501). So the public record, as we can legitimately reach it, does not settle whether the Saudi Mechanical Code sets equipment noise or vibration limits. We do not assert that it is silent, and we do not assert that it is not. Anyone who needs the answer should read the volume as issued by the committee, and we would be glad to be sent the section if it exists.

This is not a peculiarity of Saudi Arabia. In a 2021 paper proposing a building acoustics code for the Gulf region, Djamel Ouis and Abdelghani Gramez write that countries around the Arabian Gulf "have building codes for specifying the rules of construction, safety and welfare in buildings. However, these codes typically lack details about the acoustical requirements", and they propose adding airborne and impact sound insulation, facade insulation, equipment noise, room acoustics, and transportation noise to a regional code (Ouis and Gramez, Academic Journal of Engineering Studies, 2021).

Where binding requirements actually come from on Saudi projects

If the code is narrow, the requirements a project is held to at handover come from somewhere else. In practice there are four candidates, and on a given project one, two, or all four apply at once.

Mostadam. The Saudi rating system publishes separate manuals for residential and commercial buildings, and for design and construction against operations and existing buildings. The commercial design and construction manual lists an Acoustics credit inside its Health and Comfort category (Mostadam for Commercial Buildings, D+C), as does the residential operations and existing buildings manual (Mostadam Rating System, Residential Buildings O+E, 2019). We were not able to extract the credit's numeric criteria, point weighting, or referenced standards from the accessible text of either manual, and we do not reproduce numbers we could not read. Project teams should take those from the manual version their project is registered under.

LEED. In LEED v4 for Building Design and Construction, the Acoustic Performance credit sets maximum HVAC background noise levels by reference to the 2011 ASHRAE Handbook, HVAC Applications, Chapter 48, Table 1, or AHRI Standard 885-2008, Table 15, or a local equivalent. It sets composite sound transmission class requirements between adjacent space types, reverberation time limits by room type, and, for spaces above a threshold occupancy, speech intelligibility and sound masking requirements (LEEDuser, NC-v4 EQc9 Acoustic Performance). LEED is versioned, and the acoustic requirements differ between versions, so the version a project is registered under decides what applies.

BREEAM. Issue Hea 05, Acoustic performance, covers three things: indoor ambient noise level, which the BREEAM guidance describes as assessing "the acoustic performance of the external building fabric"; sound insulation between spaces, including internal partitions and doors; and reverberation time in areas used for speech. The criteria allow either the local building regulation requirements or other appropriate good practice local standards, or the criteria set out in the BREEAM manual, and require that "a Suitably Qualified Acoustician (SQA) must carry out an assessment" (BREEAM Knowledge Base, Hea 05a Acoustic performance). The permission to fall back on local standards is worth noting on a Saudi project, because the local standard is the code discussed above.

Operator brand standards. On hotels these are usually the most demanding acoustic document in the set. They are also contractual documents issued to owners rather than published ones, so this article does not summarise or quote them. If your project has one, it is the document to read first, and it is the one that will be tested against.

What is not settled in the public record

We publish what we could not establish as plainly as what we could, because on this subject the gaps are the useful part:

The numeric values in SBC 201 Section 1207, and whether they match IBC 2015 or were adapted. Whether Section 1207 in the Saudi code applies to the same occupancy groups as its base document. Whether SBC 501, the Saudi Mechanical Code, sets equipment noise or vibration limits: we withdrew an earlier statement that it does not, because the only copy behind it was an unlicensed republication, and we will not build a published finding on one. Whether any other Saudi code volume outside SBC 201 sets acoustic criteria that we did not reach. The numeric criteria and point weighting of the Mostadam acoustics credit in its current manual versions. Each of these is answerable by reading the current issue of the document, and none of them is answerable from a search engine.

What a project team should settle before tender

These are questions, not criteria. The answers belong to the project, and they should exist in writing before the packages go out:

Which document sets the acoustic criteria for each space type? Name it per space type: code, specification, brand standard, or rating system. Where two of them speak, record which one governs.

Is a rating system targeted, and at which version? A credit registered under one version of Mostadam, LEED, or BREEAM is not the same credit as under the next.

Who verifies, by which method, and at what stage? Airborne and impact insulation, reverberation, and HVAC noise are measured by different standards and at different points in the programme. A criterion with no named test method and no named stage is not a requirement.

What is the external noise climate at this site, and who measured it? Facade insulation ratings follow from that measurement. Without it, the facade is specified from an assumption.

Who owns the criteria in the design team? Acoustic requirements cross the architectural, structural, and MEP packages. On the projects where acoustics fails, the criterion existed and had no owner.

Sources

All sources listed below were checked on 9 August 2026. Where a document is behind a paywall or a copyright restriction, it is named and linked rather than quoted at length.

• Saudi Building Code National Committee, sbc.gov.sa Publisher of the Saudi Building Code
• SBC 201, Saudi General Building Code, Code Requirements Primary document
• SBC 501, Saudi Mechanical Code, at the publisher Named, not read. We make no claim about its contents.
• ICC Digital Codes, IBC 2015 Section 1207, Sound Transmission Base document of SBC 201
• AcousPlan, IBC acoustic requirements: STC and IIC minimums Secondary summary of IBC Section 1207
• EVstudio, STC and IIC between dwelling units Secondary summary of IBC Section 1207
• Ouis, D. and Gramez, A., A Building and Architectural Acoustics Code for the Gulf Region, Academic Journal of Engineering Studies, 2021 Peer-reviewed commentary on acoustics in Gulf building codes
• Mostadam for Commercial Buildings, Design and Construction manual Acoustics credit, Health and Comfort category
• Mostadam Rating System, Residential Buildings O+E manual, 2019 Acoustics credit, Health and Comfort category
• LEEDuser, LEED v4 NC EQ credit 9, Acoustic Performance Credit requirements and referenced standards
• BREEAM Knowledge Base, Hea 05a Acoustic performance, non-residential Assessment criteria and assessor requirements
• Habitare, Saudi Building Code implementation guide Code volumes and permit enforcement

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