Riyadh Office Market: What the Public Data Shows (2025-2026)

Riyadh runs the tightest major office market in the Gulf, and you can see it in the primary record without a single broker report. More than 700 international companies have based a regional headquarters in the Kingdom, the flagship district is two-thirds leased, listed landlords report their Riyadh buildings at or near full, and the government has frozen Riyadh rents for five years. This piece builds the picture only from primary public sources, government indices, listed-REIT disclosures, and developers' own filings, with a source and a date on every figure. Where a number exists only in private brokerage surveys, we say so and, where useful, publish a clearly-labelled Omran estimate instead of borrowing theirs.

Key figures at a glance

Why demand keeps outrunning supply

One policy explains most of the pressure. Saudi Arabia's Regional Headquarters (RHQ) programme requires multinationals bidding for government contracts to base their regional HQ in the Kingdom, and it has channelled that demand straight into Riyadh's best office space. The Royal Commission for Riyadh City reports the programme attracted more than 700 international companies by the end of 2025, having already beaten its 2030 target of 500 (RCRC). That is the end point of a steep climb: over 571 companies in 2024 (Vision 2030 2024 Annual Report), around 600 by March 2025 (Saudi Press Agency), then past 700 by year-end, with 34 new RHQ licences issued in Q2 2025 alone (MISA Economic & Investment Monitor, Q2 2025).

You can watch that demand land in one place. At King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD), Riyadh's prime cluster, more than 580,000 sqm of office space has been leased, against a total office footprint of over 900,000 sqm, so the district is roughly two-thirds committed. It now holds more than 100 companies and over 20,000 employees, including 19 regional offices of firms such as the Public Investment Fund, Aramco, Goldman Sachs, PepsiCo and Bain (KAFD, Aug 2025; office and land totals per KAFD official site).

The macro engine behind it is broad. The IMF records private-sector employment up 12% on average in 2024 and non-oil GDP up 4.5% (IMF Article IV 2025). The Riyadh region holds 8.59 million people (2022 census) with a 71.9% employment rate and just 2.0% unemployment as of Q1 2026 (GASTAT / DataSaudi). Every new regional office needs institutional-grade space, and there is very little standing empty.

How full is the market?

No Saudi government body publishes a city-wide, grade-level Riyadh office vacancy rate; that specific number exists only in private brokerage surveys, and we do not use it. What the public record does give you is the occupancy that listed landlords disclose in their own audited reports, building by building.

Omran occupancy proxy (from listed-REIT disclosures). Across Tadawul-listed real-estate funds, portfolio occupancy clusters between roughly 96% and 100%: Riyad REIT at 98% with an 8.98-year weighted lease term (Dec 2025), Al Maather REIT 99.2% (Q2 2024), SEDCO Capital REIT 97.2% (Dec 2024) and Derayah REIT 96% (Dec 2023). At the Riyadh asset level, Riyad REIT's Olaya Tower and Al-Raed Building both report 100%, Bonyan REIT's two Riyadh office towers 100%, and Al Rajhi REIT's Riyadh multi-tenant office 96.04%. Read this as an institutional, prime-skewed signal, not a whole-market vacancy rate: these are professionally-managed funds, and several assets are single government tenants on long triple-net leases. (Sources: Riyad REIT, Al Maather via Argaam, SEDCO, Derayah, Bonyan, Al Rajhi REIT.)

The honest counter-example sits in the same disclosures. SEDCO Capital REIT's Al Khalidiya Business Center, a multi-tenant Jeddah office, ran at 74% occupancy with a lease term under a year, against 100% at its single-tenant Al Rawdah office (SEDCO, Dec 2024). That is the spread that matters: prime, well-let, government-anchored stock is effectively full, while older multi-tenant space carries real vacancy. A single "Riyadh occupancy" headline hides it.

A note on grades. "Prime," "Grade A" and "Grade B" are not interchangeable, and the quantified split between them is one of the figures only private brokers publish. We keep the tiers conceptually separate throughout, because conflating them is the single most common error in reading this market. See what "Grade A office" actually means in the Gulf.

What is happening to rents

Two public signals frame Riyadh's rent story, and neither comes from a brokerage. The first is direction. Saudi Arabia's official Real Estate Price Index shows commercial property prices up 7.0% year-on-year through Q3 of FY2025, against just 1.5% for residential (Ministry of Finance Budget Statement FY2026, on GASTAT data), extending a commercial run the central bank puts at +25.7% since 2021, a rise it explicitly credits in part to the RHQ programme (SAMA Financial Stability Report 2025). By Q1 2026 the quarterly commercial print had cooled to +3.4% year-on-year while residential fell 3.6% (GASTAT, Q1 2026), moderating but still the only major real-estate segment holding positive. This index tracks capital values across land, buildings and shops, so treat it as a proxy for rent direction, not a rent level.

The second signal is policy, and it is decisive. On 25 September 2025, Riyadh froze rent increases for five years, on both residential and commercial lease contracts, existing and new, inside the city's urban boundaries (REGA). For a market where prices had been compounding at double digits, a cap on contractual increases resets the entire forward rent outlook: landlords can no longer raise the headline rent on a sitting or new Riyadh contract for half a decade.

Omran implied-rent band (calculation, not a market rent). Non-broker sources do not publish a Riyadh prime rent in SAR per sqm. Dividing individual REIT assets' disclosed annual rent by their leasable area gives a rough implied band of roughly SAR 300-730 per sqm per year across disclosed KSA commercial/office assets: Mulkia REIT's Elite Mall ≈ SAR 730, SEDCO's Al Rawdah office ≈ SAR 494, Mulkia's Dinar Building ≈ SAR 307 (Mulkia REIT; SEDCO). This mixes cities and asset grades and is emphatically not a Riyadh prime headline; it is a floor-and-ceiling sanity check built from primary disclosures.

What is coming

The supply answer is: not enough, soon enough, to loosen a market this tight. The largest confirmed pipeline is New Murabba, with 1.4 million sqm of office space inside a 25-million-sqm downtown, targeted for delivery around 2030 (PIF). KAFD's 900,000+ sqm across 95 buildings is largely built and, as above, already two-thirds leased (PIF). To gauge orders of magnitude, a single listed fund, Riyad REIT, controls 799,463 sqm of net leasable area on its own (Riyad REIT, Dec 2025).

Omran minimum-footprint note. Because no non-broker source publishes a total Riyadh office GLA, any market-wide stock figure in circulation traces back to a brokerage and is excluded here. What can be stated from primary disclosures is a verifiable floor: KAFD's 900,000 sqm plus New Murabba's 1.4 million sqm of announced office plus the identifiable Riyadh REIT office assets already run into the millions of square metres. The true market total is larger; we publish the floor, not a guess at the ceiling. The net addition each year, after slippage, withdrawals and demolitions, is not published by anyone (see pipeline vs net supply).

Financing is keeping pace with construction. Bank real-estate loans reached SAR 970.9 billion by Q1 2026, 28.9% of all bank credit, and corporate credit to real-estate activities jumped 39% year-on-year to about SAR 384 billion by mid-2025 (SAMA, Q1 2026; SAMA via Arab News).

What the public record will not tell you

The figures above are real, sourced and current, and they are built entirely from primary public data. But four numbers that an investment committee, a feasibility study or a leasing strategy actually turns on are published by no government body, no exchange filing and no developer, only by private brokerage surveys:

• A city-wide Grade A vacancy rate, the single-number market read. We publish an institutional REIT-occupancy proxy instead, and label it as such.
• A prime headline rent in SAR per sqm. We can show price direction (the commercial RPI) and an implied band from REIT assets, not a surveyed prime level.
• Total Riyadh office GLA. We publish a verifiable floor from disclosed footprints, not a market total.
• Net absorption, the quarter-by-quarter take-up flow. Occupancy tells you the market is full; only absorption tells you how fast it filled (see absorption rate).

That is exactly the line where recycled market commentary stops and primary work begins. Omran assembles the Gulf office market from primary public sources, REIT disclosures, government indices and developer filings, into one dated, sourced view, and fills the gaps the public record leaves with transparent, clearly-labelled estimates rather than borrowed survey numbers. Request the underlying dataset or book a 30-minute data briefing scoped to your requirement.

FAQ

How tight is the Riyadh office market? Very. Listed landlords report their Riyadh offices at or near full occupancy (Riyad REIT 98% portfolio-wide, several Riyadh assets at 100%), the prime KAFD district is about two-thirds leased of 900,000+ sqm, and more than 700 multinationals have set up regional headquarters in the Kingdom. Older multi-tenant stock runs softer, as low as 74% in one disclosed Jeddah office.

What is driving Riyadh office demand? Chiefly the Regional Headquarters programme, which pushed past 700 companies by end-2025 (its 2030 target of 500 was met five years early), plus 12% private-sector employment growth in 2024 and broad non-oil expansion. Demand for institutional space is outrunning a supply pipeline that is largely years away.

Are Riyadh office rents still rising? Commercial real-estate prices rose 7.0% year-on-year through Q3 of FY2025 (vs 1.5% residential) and are up 25.7% since 2021 on the central bank's index, though the quarterly commercial print cooled to +3.4% by Q1 2026. Crucially, Riyadh froze rent increases, residential and commercial, for five years from 25 September 2025, capping contractual increases across the city.

How much office space is Riyadh adding? The largest confirmed pipeline is New Murabba's 1.4 million sqm of office space, targeted for around 2030. Net annual additions after slippage and withdrawals are not published by any public source.

What does public data not reveal about Riyadh offices? City-wide Grade A vacancy, a prime SAR/sqm headline rent, total market GLA and net absorption are all published only in private brokerage surveys. This analysis substitutes transparent, labelled estimates built from primary disclosures.

Sources

• Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC), RHQ programme (700+ by end-2025): link
• Saudi Press Agency, ~600 RHQs by March 2025: link
• Vision 2030 2024 Annual Report (571+ RHQs), via Arab News: link
• MISA Economic & Investment Monitor Q2 2025 (34 RHQ licences), via Arab News: link
• KAFD, 580,000 sqm leased (via Argaam): link
• KAFD official site (900,000 sqm office, 1.6M sqm land): link
• Public Investment Fund, KAFD (95 buildings): link
• Public Investment Fund, New Murabba (1.4M sqm office): link
• Riyad REIT Fund, Annual Report 2025 (98% occupancy, WAULT, NLA): link
• SEDCO Capital REIT, Annual Report 2024 (97.2%; Al Khalidiya 74%): link
• Al Maather REIT (99.2%), via Argaam: link
• Derayah REIT, Annual Report 2023 (96%): link
• Bonyan REIT, Annual Report 2023 (Riyadh office towers 100%): link
• Al Rajhi REIT, Annual Report 2023 (Riyadh office 96.04%): link
• Mulkia Gulf Real Estate REIT, Annual Report 2024 (implied rents): link
• Ministry of Finance, Budget Statement FY2026 (commercial RPI +7.0%): link
• GASTAT, Real Estate Price Index Q1 2026: link
• SAMA, Financial Stability Report 2025 (commercial +25.7% since 2021): link
• SAMA, Key Economic Developments Q1 2026 (RE loans SAR 970.9bn): link
• REGA, Riyadh five-year rent freeze (25 Sep 2025): link
• IMF, Article IV Saudi Arabia 2025 (employment, non-oil GDP): link
• GASTAT / DataSaudi, Riyadh region (population, labour): link