Advertising Law in Egypt: A Claims Checklist for Managers Who Approve Ads

Most Egyptian campaigns are approved by a marketing manager, a brand owner or a founder, not by a lawyer. That person is usually checking tone, design and the offer. The question this guide answers is a narrower one: before you press “publish”, does the ad meet the advertising rules in Egypt’s Consumer Protection Law, Law No. 181 of 2018?

The law was issued on 13 September 2018 and took effect on 14 December 2018, according to the Manshurat legal database. Its Executive Regulations were issued by Prime Ministerial Decree No. 822 of 2019 (Manshurat). The article numbers below come from the Arabic text published by Sadany & Khalifa, checked against the English translation published by Andersen in Egypt in July 2025. Neither is the Official Gazette, and the Executive Regulations text itself could not be opened for this guide, so points drawn from them are attributed to the source that reported them.

The law names advertisers, not only sellers

Many managers assume consumer law is the seller’s problem. Law 181 goes further. Article 1 defines an advertiser as anyone who advertises or promotes a product or service by any means, including digital ones, “directly or through others”. The definition expressly covers the party that requests the ad, the intermediary, the advertising agency and the medium that carries it. Article 1 also defines deceptive conduct as any act or omission by the producer or advertiser that creates a false or misleading impression. Article 9, the core advertising rule, binds “the supplier or the advertiser”.

Two more provisions matter to whoever signs off a campaign:

• Management liability (Article 74). The person in charge of actually managing a company that breaks the law faces the same penalties if it is proven that they knew of the violation and that their failure to act contributed to it. The company is jointly liable for fines and compensation when an employee commits the violation on its behalf.
• Repeat offences (Article 69). Fines are doubled for a repeat offence.

In practice this means the approval step is not a formality. A written, dated approval of each ad, with the evidence behind its claims kept on file, is the simplest protection a marketing team can build.

Six rules every Egyptian ad has to pass

The table summarises the provisions that touch ordinary campaign copy most often. Fines are as stated in the Arabic text and the Andersen translation. Under Article 64 the fine is set within the range or equals the value of the product concerned, whichever is greater; under Article 66 it is twice the product’s value where that is greater than the range.

Article 9 deserves a closer read, because most campaign copy touches it. In both the Arabic text and the Andersen translation it lists eleven areas where suppliers and advertisers must avoid deceptive conduct: the nature, features, composition or quantity of goods; their source, weight, size, method of manufacture, production and expiry dates, instructions or warnings; product features and expected results; the price or how it is paid, including any amounts added to it; the identity of the producer or service provider; the nature, location, risks or quality of a service; contract terms, after-sales service and guarantees; awards, certificates and quality marks; trademarks and logos; discounts that do not exist; and the quantities available. The Executive Regulations can add to the list.

On price display, Youm7 reported on 4 June 2026 that Article 7 of the Executive Regulations requires the supplier to announce the all-inclusive price of the goods it offers, clearly, on the product, its packaging, a label or the display, and requires service providers to announce the service details and all-inclusive price where the service is offered. We could not open the text of the regulation itself to confirm the wording, so check it with counsel.

Comparative advertising: allowed, but only with proof

We found no article on comparative advertising in Law 181, and we could not check the Executive Regulations for one. Two legal sources describe the position in similar terms. The Egypt chapter of the Chambers Advertising and Marketing 2025 guide, written by Mohamed Eldib of Eldib & Co (Chambers, section 4.1), says comparative claims must relate to measurable and verifiable features, must be factually accurate, and must not unfairly discredit, imitate or exploit another brand’s reputation or confuse consumers about origin; deceptive or unsubstantiated comparisons fall foul of the Consumer Protection Law. The same chapter (section 1.2) and the Alzayat guide both say the Egyptian Competition Authority can act against unfair comparative claims.

For an approver, that translates into four questions:

1. Is the comparison about something measurable, such as capacity, warranty length, delivery time or a tested specification, rather than “better” or “number one”?
2. Do we hold the test, report or published data behind it, dated and for the same model or service the ad shows?
3. Are we comparing like with like, at the same time and under the same conditions?
4. Would the named or recognisable competitor’s customers be misled about who makes what? If the ad borrows their look or slogan, drop it.

Superlatives without a named competitor are still claims. Take a hypothetical line such as “the fastest installation in Cairo”: it is a claim about product features and expected results, two of the areas Article 9 covers. If you cannot prove it, rewrite it as something you can, such as “installation within 48 hours of order”, and only if that is your actual commitment.

Contests, online orders and bundles

Giveaways and competitions

Article 14 bars advertising a contest by any means until the Consumer Protection Agency has been notified of its details at least three days before the advertising date; the Arabic text and the Andersen translation agree on the three days. The Agency can suspend a contest or its ads if they are untruthful or breach Article 13. That covers the familiar Instagram “comment and tag a friend to win” post. Build the notice into the content calendar, not the day before launch.

Ads that lead to an online order

When the ad leads straight to a distance purchase (a website, a WhatsApp order or a social shop), Article 37 requires clear information before the contract: who the supplier is, the product’s details, the full price, the warranty and the withdrawal conditions. Article 40 gives the consumer 14 days from receipt to withdraw. A blanket “no returns” line on an ad or landing page for a distance sale is therefore likely to conflict with the law; if you believe an exception applies to your product, confirm it with counsel before using the line.

Bundles and minimum quantities

Article 18 prohibits making a sale conditional on buying additional goods or a specific quantity, or on conditions contrary to commercial custom. A multi-buy price where the single item is still on sale at its normal price is different from refusing to sell one item alone, or selling it “only with” a second product; where your offer falls on that line is a question for counsel. Our guide to Meta ads for fashion stores covers how to run offers without training customers to wait for a discount.

Rules outside Law 181

Some sectors have their own approvals. Alzayat Law Firm says health and medical ads require prior approval from the Ministry of Health or the Egyptian Drug Authority; we could not confirm this on an official source. Alzayat also says the Supreme Council for Media Regulation’s authority extends to websites and social media accounts with over 5,000 followers. The Arabic text of Article 19 of Law No. 180 of 2018 on press and media regulation, as published on a lawyer’s site, applies its content rules to personal websites, blogs and accounts with 5,000 or more followers. Real estate has its own permit condition under Article 15, covered in our off-plan launch guide. Check the sector regulator’s current rules before you brief the creative.

The pre-publication checklist

Use this for every paid ad, sponsored post, influencer brief, landing page and contest. It is written for the person who approves, not the person who drafts.

1. Arabic. Does the ad carry its essential message in clear, legible Arabic, including on video end cards and small banner sizes, and does it identify the supplier?
2. Price. Is every price shown the final price including VAT and any service, delivery or installation charges? If delivery is extra, is that stated next to the price, not on the checkout page only?
3. Payment terms. Do instalment ads show what the customer actually pays, including any administrative fees, so nothing is “added to the price” later?
4. Discounts. Was the “before” price genuinely charged, and is the discount real for the whole period the ad runs?
5. Stock. If the ad says “limited quantity” or “last pieces”, is that true today, and will the ad stop when stock runs out?
6. Results and features. Can we prove every promised result, specification and performance figure with a document on file?
7. Awards and certificates. Are the logos of certificates, approvals and awards current, for this product, and used with permission?
8. Origin and maker. Does the ad state or imply a country of origin or manufacturer? Is it correct?
9. Guarantees and after-sales. Does the warranty in the ad match the warranty in the contract?
10. Comparisons. Is every comparison measurable, current, like-for-like and backed by evidence? No borrowing of a competitor’s look or slogan.
11. Contest notice. If there is a prize, was the Consumer Protection Agency notified at least three days before the first contest post?
12. Online orders. Does the landing page show supplier identity, full price, warranty and the 14-day withdrawal right?
13. Public order. Could any line, image or joke be read as discriminating between or offending groups of citizens?
14. Sector rules. Health, medical, food supplement, real estate or financial product? Confirm the sector approval before launch.
15. Record. Is the final version, its evidence and the approver’s name saved with the date?

A shared approval file helps here. At RX, clients approve every piece of content before it goes out, and the same discipline works for an in-house team: one folder per campaign holding the final creative, the claim evidence and the sign-off. If your ads run across Meta, Google and TikTok, our performance marketing work builds that review into the campaign set-up rather than leaving it to the last hour.

If the Consumer Protection Agency flags an ad

Article 57 sets out a fast procedure for breaches of Articles 9 and 14:

1. The Agency asks the supplier and the advertiser to correct or amend the misleading ad.
2. If they do not do so within three days of the request, the Agency may suspend the ad temporarily for up to seven days. The Andersen translation also allows suspension where the ad poses a danger or breaches Article 13.
3. The Agency drafts a report and refers it to the public prosecution within 48 hours of the suspension; the prosecution presents it to the court within 24 hours, and the court issues an interim decision within 72 hours. If the Agency misses its 48-hour deadline, the suspension is treated as void.

Ignoring a suspension carries its own fine under Article 68: EGP 50,000 to 1,000,000, or twice the agreed advertising fee if greater. Under Article 75 the court orders a conviction to be published, at the offender’s expense, in a daily newspaper and on widely read websites, and the Agency posts final judgments on its own website for three years, so the reputational cost can outlast the fine. Enforcement is visible: when we checked on 31 October 2026, the Consumer Protection Agency’s homepage carried news items on companies referred to the public prosecution for misleading advertising.

When a request arrives, the practical response is to pause the ad across every platform where it runs (including boosted copies and influencer posts), gather the evidence behind the challenged claim, and reply within the deadline through your legal adviser. Correcting fast is almost always cheaper than defending a claim you cannot prove.

If you are not sure whether your current campaigns would pass this checklist, a business diagnosis session is a structured way to review them with the RX team and leave with a clear list of what to fix; this is not a legal review, and for legal questions your counsel has the final word.