Saudi Arabia · Residency by investment
Premium Residency — Real Estate Owner
Introduced 17 January 2024, this residency lasts as long as the qualifying property is held. It was materially reshaped by the Law of Real Estate Ownership by Non-Saudis, gazetted 25 July 2025 and in force 21–22 January 2026. Its Executive Regulation and designated zones were approved by Cabinet on 23 June 2026, three weeks ago.
This is the route most changed by the January 2026 property law, which for the first time lets foreigners own residential property in most Saudi cities. But the designated-zone regime is only weeks old. Buying SAR 4m of Saudi residential property today means underwriting an untested legal framework in an illiquid market.
Qualifying routes
This route requires a minimum SAR 4m (roughly USD 1.07m) in residential property. The property must be mortgage-free and independently valued by a Taqeem-accredited valuer. Residency stays tied to continued ownership.
The facts
- Minimum investment
- 4M SAR
- Total landed cost
- Expect a SAR 4m property, plus a transfer fee of up to 5% for non-Saudi buyers on top of the standard 5% Real Estate Transaction Tax. Budget roughly 10% in total transaction taxes and fees, plus a SAR 4,000 application fee.
- Route type
- Residency by investment
- Timeline
- 2–4 months (8–14 weeks, including title and valuation verification)
- Physical presence
- None published
- Family
- SpouseChildrenParents
- Permanent residency
- No. Status persists only while the property is held.
- Citizenship
- Effectively none
- Language test
- Not applicable
- Dual citizenship
- Not permitted. You would have to renounce.
- Requirements
- residential property of at least SAR 4mproperty must be mortgage-freeTaqeem-accredited independent valuationRegistration in the national Real Estate RegistryA clean criminal recordA medical report
- The qualifying property must be mortgage-free. You cannot leverage the asset that buys your residency. That is a real capital-efficiency cost compared with the UAE, which permits mortgages.
- Combined transaction taxes on entry run roughly 10% (up to 5% non-Saudi transfer fee plus 5% RETT). That is double the UAE's 4%, and it is money you will not get back.
- The designated-zone regime was approved by Cabinet on 23 June 2026 and is effectively untested. Per-zone ownership percentage caps and usufruct limits are still being worked out, and were not published in a retrievable form at the time of writing.
- Makkah and Madinah remain restricted, with narrow exceptions. Muslim expatriate residents may purchase within designated zones, subject to conditions. The Premium Residency Law separately allows usufruct of up to 99 years there (Article 2(e)).
- Residency depends entirely on the asset. Sell it, or let its value fall below SAR 4m at review, and the status goes with it.
- Saudi residential property is far less liquid than Dubai's, with a thin foreign bid. The risk sits in exiting, not in entering.
- Compare this honestly against the SAR 800,000 permanent tier. That option costs one fifth as much, is permanent rather than tied to continued ownership, and requires no property at all.