Income and wealth percentile in Saudi Arabia
a year per adult, before tax; half of adults in Saudi Arabia earn less
The wealth ladder in Saudi Arabia
The middle adult in Saudi Arabia holds SAR 291,502 in net worth. The top 10% of holders begins at SAR 1,943,059 and the top 1% at SAR 13,031,992, which is 45 times the middle.
In Saudi Arabia the middle adult earns SAR 80,733 a year before tax and holds SAR 291,502 in net worth. The top 10% of earners begins at SAR 332,518, and the top 1% of wealth at SAR 13,031,992. Figures are per adult, in SAR.
Every published line
Income and net worth per adult in Saudi Arabia, in SAR.
| The line | Income | Net worth |
|---|---|---|
| Median | SAR 80,733 | SAR 291,502 |
| Average | SAR 176,935 | SAR 1,667,454 |
| Top 10% | SAR 332,518 | SAR 1,943,059 |
| Top 1% | SAR 1,457,601 | SAR 13,031,992 |
| Top 0.1% | SAR 6,342,702 | SAR 94,859,263 |
| Top 0.01% | SAR 28,155,055 | SAR 690,476,198 |
What the numbers say about Saudi Arabia
Saudi median income is around SAR 80,700 per adult, roughly $21,500 at current exchange rates. The average sits at SAR 177,000, more than double the median. The country has no personal income tax, a 15 percent VAT, and a state spending pattern dominated by oil revenue and the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the country's sovereign wealth vehicle that has grown to over $900 billion in assets.
Roughly 38 percent of Saudi residents are foreign-born, mostly from South and Southeast Asia, Egypt, and other Arab countries, working in construction, healthcare, hospitality, and domestic services. The headline median averages across very different groups. A senior Saudi national in a state-affiliated firm or in a Vision 2030 project may earn SAR 600,000 a year. A Filipino domestic worker may earn SAR 24,000. Saudi nationals also receive significant transfer income through public-sector employment quotas and direct welfare programmes that do not show up cleanly in per-adult averages.
Vision 2030, launched in 2016, is the structural attempt to diversify the economy away from oil. The PIF has channeled hundreds of billions into giga-projects (NEOM, Qiddiya, the Red Sea Project), domestic tourism, entertainment licensing, and significant equity stakes in foreign firms from Lucid Motors to Newcastle United. The programme has succeeded in raising female labour-force participation from around 17 percent in 2016 to over 35 percent today. It has also succeeded in attracting some return migration of Saudis trained abroad. Whether it can produce a non-oil tax base large enough to fund the welfare state remains the open question.
Wealth concentration at the top is sharp. The top 1% threshold for net worth sits above SAR 13 million, with the top 0.1% above SAR 95 million. The Al Saud royal family and a small group of merchant families dominate the top of the wealth distribution. The 2017 anti-corruption campaign, which detained dozens of princes and businesspeople in the Ritz-Carlton Riyadh, was both a political consolidation and a wealth-redistribution event whose full effects are still working through the system. Real estate in Riyadh and Jeddah has appreciated sharply since 2020.
Two themes shape the next decade. The pace of social liberalisation, including women driving (legalised 2018), entertainment venues, and a softening of guardianship rules, has changed the labour market faster than most observers expected. And the country's fiscal break-even oil price remains in the high $80s per barrel, which leaves limited room for Vision 2030 spending if oil weakens.
Common questions
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Where do these figures come from?
Nearby by median income
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Method and sources
- World Inequality DatabasePretax national income per adult and net household wealth per adult.
- World Bank Informal Economy DatabaseInformal output as a share of GDP, the input to the level correction.
How the lines are worked out
The national distribution is fitted as a log-normal body with a Pareto top tail and read at each published point, per adult. Where a country’s own records measure less activity than its output implies, the level of the distribution is lifted toward the implied figure and the spread is left as published: that correction is set out in full on how we measure.
How a percentile is read off it
A percentile is the share of adults at or below a figure. The percentile methodology page states the fit, the anchors and the vintage.
What these figures do not cover
- Per adult, not per household. Couples are counted separately, so household figures run higher.
- Income is gross, before income tax and employee contributions.
- Local currency at the reference rate carried with the record, SAR 1 = $0.27.
- A national figure says nothing about a region or an occupation inside it.
Last updated July 2026.
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