Saudi Arabia has 506,005 hotel rooms, most of them in Makkah

Saudi Arabia had 506,005 hotel rooms at Q1 2026, according to GASTAT figures released on 2 July 2026. Add serviced apartments and the licensed total reaches 615,862 rooms. Most of the hotel stock serves pilgrims: Makkah and Madinah regions hold 86.4% of it.

The number of licensed facilities more than doubled in just over two years, from 2,343 at Q4 2023 to 6,122. We think most of that is existing buildings getting a licence, with few new hotels among them.

Key figures at a glance

What the official count covers

The 615,862 rooms are only those in facilities with an active Ministry of Tourism licence that are linked to the ministry's monitoring platform. GASTAT marks every table as preliminary.

GASTAT does not say what a "room" is, and its methodology report does not list room count among its six indicators. The definition comes from the ministry instead, on page 5 of its H1 2025 report: an apartment "should be counted as one unit/room irrespective of the number of rooms (one or more) it consists of" (Ministry of Tourism). So the 109,857 apartment rooms are lettable units, counted like a hotel key, and nobody publishes how many bedrooms sit behind them.

Why supply doubled without a building boom

Licensed facilities rose 161.3% between Q4 2023 and Q1 2026 (the Q4 2023 figure now only survives in the Q3 2024 release).

The trigger was a rule that took effect on 1 January 2025: travel agents and booking platforms had to delist unlicensed properties (SPA). Fines rose at the same time, from up to SAR 250,000 in October 2024 (SPA) to SAR 1 million, closure, or both (SPA, May 2025). A hotel without a licence could no longer sell its rooms online.

In H1 2025 the ministry licensed 987 new facilities with 76,350 keys, so 14.0% of the 544,879 keys on the register at 30 June 2025 arrived in six months. Hotels are not built at that speed. Neither publisher splits new keys into newly built and newly registered, though, so this strongly points to a registration catch-up without proving it.

The rush is now almost over. Quarterly growth in facility numbers was down to 3.1% at Q1 2026.

Where the rooms are

Makkah region held 365,503 hotel rooms at Q1 2026 and Al-Madinah 71,742. Riyadh region had 29,149, plus slightly more in serviced apartments (30,707).

New rooms keep going to the same places. Of the 41,333 hotel rooms added between Q3 2025 and Q1 2026, Makkah took 30,496 (73.8%), by our subtraction across the two workbooks. Pilgrim demand is covered on our Makkah hotel market page.

In the other eleven regions serviced apartments outnumber hotel rooms, 74,565 against 68,760. Hotels there are also much smaller: 83.6 keys on average, against 219 in Makkah region.

Nationally, apartments make up 51.6% of facilities but only 17.8% of rooms, because an apartment operation is far smaller than a hotel. Counting facilities instead of rooms overstates apartment supply about fivefold.

In Q1 2026 hotels averaged SAR 423 a night and apartments SAR 206, before VAT and municipal fees (Table 1.3; more on the Saudi hotel ADR page). Hotel occupancy was 60.8% and apartment occupancy 51.6% (city by city here).

Part of the fall in hotel rates is a change in the mix. The average hotel rate has fallen 17.9% since Q1 2023. GASTAT averages across all licensed hotels, and that group more than doubled over the period. The newcomers are smaller: hotels licensed in H1 2025 averaged 138.5 keys (ministry appendix p.26), well below the existing base. An average like that can fall even if no hotel cuts its price, and nobody publishes a like-for-like series that would separate the two effects.

Two traps in the official figures

GASTAT publishes rooms by region, never by city, and even official statements mix the two up. On 23 July 2026 the Madinah Region Development Authority put facilities "in Al-Madinah" at 661 with 80,223 rooms, "about 15%" of the national total (SPA). Those are the regional figures from GASTAT Tables 2.1 and 2.2, and 80,223 of 615,862 is 13.0%.

The second trap is column order. Table 2.2 lists "Hotels, Serviced apartments, Total" in the Q3 2025 workbook and "Serviced apartments, Hotels, Total" in Q1 2026. Match the columns by position and you get growth of over 400% that never happened. The real rise was 8.9%.

What a feasibility study cannot find

No Saudi source publishes rooms under construction or RevPAR, the two numbers a feasibility study needs most. The short-let register is not published either, only the flow of new licences: 8,357 private hospitality licences in 2024 against 1,929 in 2023 (SPA). The licensing flow is the closest thing to a pipeline, but it counts new licences, not new buildings.

We estimate Q1 2026 RevPAR at about SAR 257 for hotels and about SAR 106 for serviced apartments, using the ministry's own method (H1 2025 report, pp.5 and 7) on GASTAT's occupancy and rates. Weighted by room count, hotels earn about 92% of licensed room revenue with 82.2% of the rooms.

Hajj shows how tight Makkah gets. The 1447H season brought 1,707,301 pilgrims (GASTAT, 26 May 2026), between four and five for every licensed hotel room in Makkah region, all within a few days. Rooms on the ministry's temporary Hajj licences (SPA) are not in any published count.

We build Gulf hospitality supply from the primary records, with the table and date attached to every figure. Ask for the underlying room table, or scope a hospitality data briefing.

FAQ

How many hotel rooms does Saudi Arabia have? 506,005 in hotels and 615,862 across all licensed facilities at Q1 2026. The count only covers facilities licensed by the Ministry of Tourism, and a serviced apartment counts as one room whatever its size.

Were all those new hotels actually built? Most were probably already operating. The licensed base rose 161.3% between Q4 2023 and Q1 2026, the period when booking platforms had to delist unlicensed properties, and new licences in H1 2025 alone added 76,350 keys.

Is there a published pipeline of hotel rooms under construction? No. The only proxy is the licensing flow.

Should a feasibility study use GASTAT or the Ministry of Tourism? GASTAT for quarterly national and regional room counts, the ministry for city and governorate keys. Both agree on the register: at 30 June 2025 they count 2,527 hotels and 2,799 apartments and others.

Sources

• GASTAT, Tourism Establishments Statistics Q1 2026 workbook (Tables 1.1 to 1.4, 2.1, 2.2): link
• GASTAT, Tourism Establishments Statistics Q1 2026 bulletin (6,122 facilities, up 22.7%): link
• GASTAT, Tourism Establishments Statistics Q3 2025 workbook (464,672 hotel rooms; reversed column order): link
• GASTAT, Tourism Establishments Statistics Q3 2024 workbook (Q4 2023 facility anchor): link
• GASTAT, Methodology and Quality Report V-4.1 (licensed population; published variables; preliminary data): link
• Ministry of Tourism, Hospitality Sector Performance H1 2025 (544,879 keys; city and province tables; room-key definition; RevPAR method): link
• Saudi Press Agency, Ministry of Tourism delisting requirement effective 1 January 2025: link
• Saudi Press Agency, Ministry of Tourism penalty schedule, 27 October 2024: link
• Saudi Press Agency, Ministry of Tourism penalty ceiling of SAR 1 million, 18 May 2025: link
• Saudi Press Agency, Ministry of Tourism private-facility licences in 2024 (8,357): link
• Saudi Press Agency, Ministry of Tourism Hajj-season temporary licences, 12 March 2026: link
• Saudi Press Agency, Madinah Region Development Authority, 23 July 2026 (661 facilities, 80,223 rooms): link
• GASTAT, Hajj Statistics Report 1447H (1,707,301 pilgrims, released 26 May 2026): link