Saudi office rents: the official figures end in 2024

REGA, the real estate regulator, has published office rents for Saudi cities every quarter since 2019, through its Ejar rental indicators, with the number of contracts behind each figure. In 2024, 78,917 office leases were registered nationally, 2.4% of all registered leases (REGA, 13 regional files).

We read REGA's office figures as SAR per square metre a year. The last usable quarter is Q4 2024: Riyadh stood at 639 (REGA, Riyadh region) and Jeddah at 540 (REGA, Makkah region). In the 2025 files every commercial rent is zero, across all 52 quarterly files, while contract counts keep coming (REGA). That series went dark three quarters before Riyadh's five-year commercial rent freeze started on 25 September 2025.

Where a number exists only in private broker surveys, we say so and publish a labelled Omran estimate instead. The Riyadh office market and Dubai office market pages work the same way.

Key figures at a glance

Office rents, city by city

REGA covers offices for rent but not for sale (REGA), so there is no official office price series to set beside the rent indicator.

REGA does not state the unit. We read commercial rows as rent per square metre per year and residential rows as rent per unit per year.[^unit] The levels sit close to what listed funds disclosed for FY2025, taking annual income over building area (SEDCO Capital REIT, 31 Dec 2025).

Omran estimate: average office rent by city, 2024. Each quarter's average is weighted by its contract count across the four 2024 quarters, from REGA's thirteen regional files (Riyadh, Makkah, Eastern Province and ten more). Cities under 30 contracts are left out, which leaves 32. Ad Diriyah, on 94 contracts, comes out above Riyadh.

City	2024 office rent (SAR/sqm/yr, Omran-weighted)	n (contracts)
Ad Diriyah	711	94
Riyadh	603	39,547
Jeddah	517	16,887
Al Khobar	466	4,775
Makkah	391	3,153
Dammam	347	5,753
Kingdom, all cities	519	78,917

Omran estimate: Riyadh and Jeddah office rents. Same method, offices only.

Year	Riyadh (SAR/sqm/yr)	Jeddah (SAR/sqm/yr)
2021	447	455
2022	477	489
2024	603	517

Until 2022 Riyadh was the cheaper of the two. By 2024 it was 17% above Jeddah, over the years when the headquarters programme's rules on government contracts started to bite.

What the 2025 files still carry

Rents are gone from the commercial rows, but residential rents are still filled in, and so are contract counts. Riyadh city registered 11,319 office leases across 149 districts in Q4 2025 (REGA).[^snap]

REGA's monthly bulletin still covers non-residential leasing as a whole. In March 2026 it counted 46,737 contracts, down 2% year on year (REGA).

What the headquarters programme asks of an office

More than 700 regional headquarters had licences by the end of 2025, against a 2030 target of 500 (RCRC). The tax break is 0% corporate income tax and 0% withholding tax for thirty years. To keep it, a company needs "a physical office in KSA, which may be either owned or leased" (ZATCA). It must also reach 15 full-time employees within a year. For the municipality licence it has to show a lease or title deed, plus "an external photograph of the RHQ office, clearly showing its prominent signage" (RHQ Programme). A multinational bidding for a Saudi government contract must hold the licence (MISA), so every firm in the regional headquarters programme that wants that work is a tenant or owner of a signed, photographed office.

Omran estimate: minimum office demand from RHQs. 700 headquarters with at least 15 staff each is at least 10,500 people. At 10 sqm per workstation that is 105,000 sqm of occupied space, at 15 sqm 157,500 sqm. Both are floors, since 15 is the licence minimum and nobody publishes what these entities actually occupy.

How much office space there is

No Saudi authority publishes total office floorspace. KAFD's Arabic site, read in August 2026, gives more than 908,000 sqm of offices across 95 towers (KAFD, Arabic). The English page prints "908+ sqm", with the thousands dropped (KAFD, English), so check the Arabic before copying it.

The 1.4 million sqm of offices PIF announced for New Murabba in 2023 (PIF, archived) now appears on the developer's site under "Retail GFA", with no office area given (New Murabba). A supply schedule still counting it as New Murabba offices is using a number the developer now gives to shops. KAFD's 908,000 sqm is then the only Riyadh supply figure we trust, and it is a floor.

Occupancy in listed funds

Listed funds are the only source that reports occupancy building by building (see our guide to Saudi REIT reports and what Grade A office means in the Gulf). Two of the three we read do so. Twelve of their buildings contain offices, and at 31 December 2025 five were partly let, the lowest at 71%. The other seven report 100%, each let whole to one tenant, as set out in their reports (Riyad REIT; SEDCO Capital REIT). The third, Mulkia, reports only a portfolio figure of 87.35% leased (Mulkia).

Riyad REIT's two mixed retail-and-office assets in Riyadh, 88% let, have its shortest remaining leases, which will now be re-let under the freeze at the rent in their last Ejar contract (REGA).

The commercial price index has no offices in it

GASTAT's Real Estate Price Index has eight property types and none is an office. Commercial plots make up most of the commercial sector's weight, about nine-tenths, so the commercial index mostly tracks land (GASTAT, Q2 2026).

SAMA's Financial Stability Report 2025 says "the commercial real estate index has increased by 25.7 percent since 2021" and credits the headquarters programme (SAMA). That is this GASTAT series, mostly land. In Q2 2026 it stood at 111.96, down 3.2% from a year earlier.

Ask for the office rent table behind this page, or scope a briefing on one city.

FAQ

Does anyone officially publish Saudi office rents? REGA's Ejar rental indicators cover offices by city and quarter from 2019 to Q4 2024. Riyadh's Q4 2024 figure is 639 on 10,805 contracts, Jeddah's 540 on 4,727. In the 2025 files commercial rents are zero while the contract counts continue.

What is the Saudi office vacancy rate? No authority publishes one. The closest evidence is building-level occupancy in listed funds at 31 December 2025, where multi-tenant office buildings range from 71% let upwards. Any city-wide Grade A vacancy figure comes from a broker.

The central bank said commercial real estate is up 25.7% since 2021. Up in what? The GASTAT commercial index, which is mostly land and has no office category. It says nothing about what an office costs in any Saudi city.

[^snap]: Based on the latest open-data files we hold, refreshed 22 May 2026. The portal does not respond to our servers, so a later fix would not reach us.

[^unit]: From Q1 2025 REGA split its single average column into average rent and متوسط الايجار لكل متر مربع (average rent per square metre), which supports this reading.

Sources

• REGA, Real Estate Indicators platform FAQ (offices covered for rent, excluded from sales): link
• REGA (Ejar) rental indicators, Riyadh region, 2019 to 2024, obtained from a public mirror of the Saudi open-data portal: link
• REGA (Ejar) rental indicators, all 13 regional files (the national office contract count and the contract-weighted estimates): link
• REGA (Ejar) rental indicators, Makkah region (Jeddah and Makkah cells): link
• REGA (Ejar) rental indicators, Eastern Province (Dammam and Al Khobar cells): link
• REGA (Ejar) quarterly rental indicators 2025, zeroed commercial values, snapshot 22 May 2026: link
• REGA, Monthly Bulletin of the Saudi Real Estate Market, March 2026 (non-residential leasing): link
• REGA, Riyadh landlord and tenant provisions of 25 September 2025 (the five-year freeze): link
• Royal Commission for Riyadh City, regional headquarters programme (more than 700 by end-2025): link
• ZATCA, Guideline for Regional Headquarters in KSA (thirty-year 0% rate, physical-office condition): link
• ZATCA, Regional Headquarters tax rules page (board resolution of 4 February 2024): link
• RHQ Programme official site (15-employee minimum, municipality licence documents): link
• Ministry of Investment, RHQ Investor Manual (government-procurement condition): link
• KAFD official site, Arabic (more than 908,000 sqm of office space): link
• KAFD official site, English (the "908+ sqm" unit error, 95 towers, 1.6M sqm site): link
• Public Investment Fund, New Murabba release of 16 February 2023, archived capture: link
• New Murabba Development Company, homepage (1.4M sqm relabelled "Retail GFA"): link
• GASTAT, Real Estate Price Index Q2 2026 workbook (weights, levels, eight property types): link
• SAMA, Financial Stability Report 2025 (commercial index up 25.7% since 2021): link
• Riyad REIT Fund, Annual Report 2025 (asset cards, occupancy definition, WAULT): link
• SEDCO Capital REIT, Annual Report 2025 (office assets, occupancy, income, WALE): link
• Mulkia Gulf Real Estate REIT, Annual Report 2025 (87.35% leased, income-share column): link