What Saudi Arabia's official rent index shows, and what it leaves out

Saudi residential rents slipped 0.81% in the second quarter of 2026, according to the official index, but they are still up about a fifth since 2022. On apartments, the country's two official rent measures now point in opposite directions.

REGA, the real estate regulator, publishes the index, and Ejar, the national lease platform, supplies the contracts. The "rental price indicator" listed among Ejar's own features is a separate tool for landlords and tenants (REGA, 29 Sep 2024).

Key figures at a glance

We cite REGA's bulletins and rental open-data files from a public mirror, because REGA's own bulletins page loaded with no PDF link and the national open-data portal returned a bot check. REGA remains the publisher of every figure.

How the index is built

REGA publishes the index every quarter on its Real Estate Indicators platform, and only Ejar contracts feed it. It compares today's rents with those of the base period, then averages two versions of that comparison, one using the mix of homes rented back then and one using today's mix (REGA methodology). Statisticians call this a Fisher index. It counts rented units, whatever the number of contracts, after removing extreme values.

REGA claims coverage from Q1 2019, but the platform only serves Q3 2023 to Q2 2026, and a request for a 2019 start is reset to 07/01/2023.

Six of the eight rental property types in REGA's FAQ have their own index. Duplexes and studios do not (REGA FAQ). Over the period, villas rose fastest at 28.71%, ahead of offices at 25.93%. More on the platform is in our guide to REGA's indicators.

How a registration rule distorted February's figures

Since 25 September 2025, a landlord with a lease outside Ejar must register it, and the tenant can apply too. The other party then has sixty days to object, after which the details stand (REGA). Not registering can cost up to twelve months' rent.

That rule also distorted single months. In February 2026 residential lease contracts were 37% above the year before, which REGA's March bulletin puts down to a rush of old leases being registered for the first time. By March the increase was back to 1%.

Two ways to count an average rent

REGA's monthly bulletins print lease contracts and rental transactions as separate lines, and in Q1 2026 they were 24.3% apart (REGA bulletins). The open-data catalogue says its rental files count contracts, while the column inside is headed "number of transactions".

Omran estimate. Dividing Q1 2026 residential rent by transactions gives an average of SAR 20,279; dividing by contracts gives SAR 23,834. The two figures come from the same quarter and the same source, yet differ by 17.5%.

District figures also need their counts. In the Riyadh region's Q4 2025 rental file, 1,630 of 3,430 district and property-type combinations rest on fewer than six transactions (REGA open data). We only use a figure alongside its count, as in our Riyadh district rent table.

There is no Riyadh rent index

The rent index on the Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam city pages is simply the national series under a city label (REGA). For Riyadh, use GASTAT, the statistics authority, whose inflation data includes regional rents. Annual rent inflation in Riyadh slowed from 15.703% in August 2025 (GASTAT, Aug 2025) to 5.258% by July 2026 (GASTAT, Jul 2026), largely because a vacant unit in the city must now be re-let at its last Ejar rent (the freeze, rule by rule).

Where REGA and GASTAT disagree

From Q2 2022 to Q2 2026, REGA's index rose 22.0% while GASTAT's rose 35.9% (Omran arithmetic on REGA and GASTAT). On apartments they disagree on direction.

Apartments make up 59% of GASTAT's rent basket, so the gap matters. The reason is what each one counts. REGA prices newly registered Ejar contracts. GASTAT surveys rents paid by households, including tenants who have stayed in the same home for years.

What the index cannot tell you

REGA publishes the overall index and the indices for each property type, but not the weights that link them. In 8 of the 12 commercial quarters, the overall commercial index sits outside the range of shops, offices and showrooms, which should not happen if it were built from them. Treat them as separate publications. The index is also rounded to two decimals, so it cannot show a quarterly move much below 1%.

Rents get far less method than sales: just the phrase "after excluding extreme values" (REGA). Four rental indicators, including a Rental Yield Index, are defined in the platform's code but never displayed, which is why our Saudi rental yield work combines two separate official series. Which source carries which number, and on what licence, is in how we source Saudi real-estate data.

Ask for the rental series with transaction counts attached if you need more than the headline figure.

FAQ

Does the index tell me what is happening to rents in Riyadh? No. The city pages show the national series. GASTAT's regional data shows Riyadh rents up 5.258% in the year to July 2026, against 4.266% nationally.

Which measure should I use? REGA for a new letting, since it tracks newly registered contracts. GASTAT for an existing lease, since it follows rents households actually pay.

Sources

• REGA, Real Estate Indicators platform (index level, base, sub-indices, cards): link
• REGA, commercial rental toggle (offices, shops, showrooms): link
• REGA, Rental Indicator Development Methodologies (Fisher construction, coverage claim): link
• REGA, platform FAQ (eight rental property types, platform data sources, district search): link
• REGA, Data Refinement and Verification Mechanism (outlier test and floor, sales chain): link
• REGA, Riyadh city page (identical national series, rent to income): link
• REGA, Ejar registers over 10 million contracts (29 Sep 2024): link
• REGA, landlord and tenant provisions (60-day objection, Riyadh freeze, vacant re-lets, penalties): link
• REGA, monthly bulletins January to March 2026 (contract and transaction lines, rental values): link
• REGA, open-data catalogue (rental files described as contracts): link
• REGA, Riyadh region rental indicators Q4 2025 (cell and transaction counts): link
• GASTAT, CPI tables July 2026 (actual rentals, regional and by dwelling type): link
• GASTAT, CPI tables August 2025 (pre-freeze Riyadh rent inflation): link