SAMBA (Spectroscopy Applied to Material Based on Absorption) is a hard X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) beamline. SAMBA is open to a broad scientific community spanning from physics to chemistry, surface and environmental sciences. The design of SAMBA optics is optimized in order to be very versatile and to cover the 4.5-43 keV energy range with a high flux of photons and stability and optimum energy resolution. A new 35 pixels HPGe fluorescence detector is available since 2012 for measurements on highly diluted specimens.