Saudi Arabia's Foreign Property Ownership Zones, Mapped

Five cities and six project areas. Saudi Arabia’s Council of Ministers approved the Geographic Zones Document on 23 June 2026, and with it the complete list of places where non-Saudis may own real estate: Riyadh, Jeddah, Makkah, Madinah and AlUla, plus NEOM, AMAALA, the Red Sea destination and the special economic zones at Jazan, Ras Al-Khair and King Abdullah Economic City [S1]. Counted as individually mapped areas rather than headline destinations, the document designates more than 100 — a number dominated by Jeddah’s 55 numbered development areas and AlUla’s 17.

The detail that surprises most first-time readers is at the top of the restricted list. Makkah and Madinah are open to foreign buyers. The 2000 law had excluded both entirely; the 2025 replacement lets non-Saudis in, and eleven zones in Makkah and ten in Madinah appear on the map. The condition is religious rather than geographic: a non-Saudi individual may acquire property in either holy city only if they are Muslim, resident in the Kingdom or abroad [S2]. That single line is why Umm Al Qura for Development and Construction — the developer of the Masar destination in Makkah — closed limit-up at +10.00% the day after the Cabinet decision [S9].

This page is the map. It exists because no complete, structured, city-by-city list of the designated zones has been published in English outside REGA’s own portal, which is built for deed lookups rather than reading. For the law itself — eligibility, process, costs, penalties — see the companion explainer on the law governing foreigners buying property in Saudi Arabia. That page owns who and how. This one owns where.

The zone list is also not the project list. Several designated areas already have development profiles here — Qiddiya, NEOM, King Abdullah Economic City — covering masterplans, budgets and delivery. What follows covers only their status as foreign ownership zones.

The Complete List of Saudi Foreign Ownership Zones

Every area below was named in the Geographic Zones Document endorsed by the Council of Ministers on 23 June 2026, in a session chaired by King Salman bin Abdulaziz [S1]. The zone names are corroborated across Arab News, AGBI, Enterprise and IMI Daily, all reporting the same Cabinet record [S1] [S3] [S4] [S5].

The document arrived a quarter late. REGA’s spokesman, Taysir Al-Mufarrej, said on the day the law took effect that the zones would be published “within the Geographic Zones Document for Ownership during the first quarter of this year” [S11]. It landed on 23 June — five months during which the law was in force and there was nowhere to apply it. Ministers then framed the result as a corporate competitiveness measure rather than a housing one. Commerce Minister Majid Al-Qasabi called it “a strong catalyst for companies to expand their businesses” and “a key enabler for attracting global talent”; Investment Minister Fahd bin Abduljalil Al-Saif, appointed in the February 2026 reshuffle, said it would strengthen “the presence of foreign companies” in the Kingdom [S1]. Neither mentioned individual buyers.

Two caveats the table cannot carry. The type column describes each development’s own programme, not the property class REGA has authorised inside it. And “standard eligibility only” means no religious restriction — not unconditional. The Geographic Zones Document sets, per zone, the in-rem rights available (freehold, usufruct or another right), a maximum ownership percentage and a maximum usufruct duration [S6]. Those parameters are not uniform.

How the Zone Count Differs Between Sources

Published tallies disagree by one or two entries for clerical reasons. Arab News lists ten Riyadh items by splitting “Sports Boulevard” and “Arts District”; AGBI and Enterprise report nine, keeping the pair as the single designation the Cabinet used [S1] [S3] [S4]. The same happens with “Makkah Zones 1 and 2” and “Madinah Zones 1 and 2”. The resolution: nine Riyadh designations covering ten named places, eleven mapped areas in Makkah, ten in Madinah. Where a count matters, the portal boundary is the authority — not any published list, including this one.

Zones Reported but Not Confirmed

Four names circulate in secondary coverage without corroboration in the Cabinet record as reported by Arab News, AGBI, Enterprise or IMI Daily. A Saudi property portal’s transcription of the REGA map adds Makkah Zone 3, a Makkah Tower Building entry, Rou’a Al Haram Al Makki, and an ALAROUS zone in Jeddah [S17]. Each is plausible — Al Arous is a real Jeddah waterfront district and may be one of the 55 numbered areas under a portal label rather than a separate designation — but none is confirmed. They are reported, not documented, and are deliberately absent from the table.

Which Areas of Riyadh Are Open to Foreign Property Ownership?

Nine designations, and they share a logic: every one is a state-directed development with an identifiable master developer. There is no legacy Riyadh neighbourhood on the list.

Qiddiya, New Murabba, Diriyah Gate and King Salman Park are the four Public Investment Fund destination projects announced for the capital. King Abdullah Financial District is the only fully operational commercial district on the Riyadh list — towers already leased, with a Regional Headquarters Programme tenant base that made it the obvious first candidate for foreign freehold. SEDRA is the outlier in category: a mass-market residential community in northern Riyadh developed by ROSHN, the PIF housing developer, and the only zone on the Riyadh map whose product is ordinary family housing rather than destination real estate.

The Sports Boulevard and the Arts District are treated as one designation. The Sports Boulevard is the 135km green corridor from Wadi Hanifah to Wadi Al Sulai along Prince Mohammed bin Salman Road, due to complete in 2027 with 4.4 million sq m of open space; the Arts District sits at its intersection with Prince Turki Road and carries investment plots for retail and residential development [S15]. Geographically the pairing makes sense. It also means a buyer cannot assume the two carry identical rights — a per-plot question for the portal.

King Salman International Airport and the transit-oriented development sites reveal the strategy. Neither is a housing scheme. The airport designation covers the commercial estate around the terminals; the TOD sites are parcels adjacent to Riyadh Metro stations. Both are infrastructure-adjacent land where the state wants private capital to fund development it does not intend to fund itself.

What the Riyadh list omits is as informative as what it contains. Olaya, Al Malqa, Hittin, the Diplomatic Quarter — the districts where expatriate professionals actually live — are not designated. A resident who wants to buy where they already rent is relying on the single-home exception described below, not on the map.

Jeddah: Jeddah Central and 55 Numbered Development Areas

Jeddah is the most open city on the map by a wide margin, and the least legible. Alongside Jeddah Central — the PIF waterfront regeneration on 5.7 million sq m south of the port — the Cabinet designated Development Areas 1 through 55, distributed across Jeddah Governorate [S1] [S4].

The numbered areas are the hardest part of the scheme to use. They are defined by mapped polygons, not district names, and no official English gazetteer maps number to neighbourhood. Enterprise, working from the Cabinet record, could report them only as “55 development areas across the governorate” [S4]. For Jeddah — and only for Jeddah — the question “is this area open?” cannot be answered from any list, only by entering a title deed number into the portal.

The opacity looks deliberate. Fifty-five discrete polygons let the state open specific regeneration sites to foreign capital without designating a whole city, and adjust boundaries administratively. It is also the mechanism most likely to generate disputes: a buyer relying on a broker’s description of a district rather than a deed lookup can be inside the zone on one side of a road and outside it on the other.

Can Foreigners Buy in NEOM, Qiddiya or the Red Sea Project?

Yes to all three, with no religious restriction, and the giga-projects were the least contentious part of the decision.

NEOM in Tabuk Region, AMAALA on the north-west coast, and the Red Sea destination are each designated in full rather than by sub-zone [S1]. Qiddiya, being inside Riyadh Governorate, sits on the Riyadh list. Together these are the assets the reform was principally written for: PIF-owned destinations with residential components that need international buyers to clear at the prices underwritten in their business cases.

There is evidence the demand is real and evidence it is thin, and both belong in the same paragraph. Red Sea Global had booked SAR1.8bn ($480m) of residential sales with a further SAR2bn in the pipeline as of the June 2026 reporting, with foreign buyers accounting for roughly 20% of transactions [S3]. Over the same window, Diriyah sold 38 homes in Q1 2026 against 170 in Q1 2025, a 77% fall [S3]. Two PIF destinations, two opposite trajectories, one shared conclusion: the constraint was never the appetite of international buyers in the abstract. It was product, price and the absence of a legal route for anyone without an Iqama.

The map removes the legal obstacle. It does not remove the other two.

Are Makkah and Madinah Open to Foreign Buyers?

Yes — and this is the most misreported element of the reform. Both appear on the map, with eleven mapped areas in Makkah and ten in Madinah [S1] [S3]. The 2000 law excluded them outright; the 2025 law permits non-Saudi acquisition in both, and the June 2026 document names the zones.

The restriction is religious. REGA’s statement on the day the law took effect is unambiguous: ownership in the two holy cities “is restricted to Saudi companies and Muslim individuals, whether residing inside or outside the Kingdom” [S2]. A non-Muslim cannot acquire property in Makkah or Madinah under any designation, inside a zone or outside one.

What Muslim-Only Ownership Means in Practice

Three mechanics matter, and they are not obvious from the zone names.

The right granted is frequently usufruct, not freehold. Long-term usufruct of up to 99 years is the common instrument in the holy cities rather than outright title, particularly for the hotel-residential towers around the Haram [S6]. A buyer acquiring a Jabal Omar or Abraj Makkah unit is in most cases acquiring a term right, and needs to know its remaining duration.

Corporate ownership is capped twice. A Saudi-incorporated company with foreign shareholders may hold property in Makkah and Madinah, but aggregate non-Saudi ownership of that company cannot exceed 49%, and no single non-Saudi shareholder may hold more than 5% [S4]. Unlisted foreign companies may acquire only to meet operational requirements or house staff, and CMA-licensed vehicles hold subject to Capital Market Authority rules [S8]. Non-Saudi companies incorporated abroad, and non-Saudi non-profit entities, are otherwise excluded.

The listed developers are the tradeable proxy. Because most holy-city zones sit inside listed companies, the market repriced them within a day. On 24 June 2026 Tadawul’s real estate index rose 4.11%; Umm Al Qura for Development and Construction (4325), owner of the Masar destination, closed limit-up at +10.00% on SAR18.48; Knowledge Economic City (4310) — itself a designated Madinah zone — rose 9.77%; Jabal Omar Development (4250) rose 4.92% and Makkah Construction and Development (4100) 3.81% [S9]. The Cabinet did not merely designate zones. It designated balance sheets.

AlUla and the Special Economic Zones on the Map

AlUla Zones 1 to 17 are designated, and one point causes persistent confusion: AlUla sits administratively inside Al Madinah Region, but the holy-city condition attaches to the cities of Makkah and Madinah, not the regions containing them. AlUla is roughly 300km from Madinah city and is not reported as carrying a religious restriction [S1] [S17]. Buyers should still confirm each zone’s conditions on the portal rather than infer them — the region-versus-city distinction is nowhere spelled out in the published English summaries. For the destination itself, see the AlUla investment profile.

Three special economic zones are on the map: King Abdullah Economic City at Rabigh, Jazan, and Ras Al-Khair in the Eastern Province — three of the four zones launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on 14 April 2023 under the Economic Cities and Special Zones Authority [S14].

The fourth is missing, and its absence is the tell. The Cloud Computing SEZ at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology does not appear, because it is a regulatory perimeter for data and computing services rather than a land parcel with developable real estate. The Geographic Zones Document is drawn around land that can be built on and sold, not around policy regimes. For the wider framework, see the guide to Saudi Arabia’s special economic zones.

How Do I Check Whether a Property Is Inside a Designated Zone?

Use REGA’s portal, not a list. Two entry points do different jobs. For browsing the map, saudiproperties.rega.gov.sa/zones renders the designated boundaries interactively; search a location and read its ownership status directly [S13]. For testing a specific property, aqar.rega.gov.sa takes a title deed number after authentication through a Nafath or Absher digital identity and returns that deed’s status [S5].

The enforcement mechanism is what makes this authoritative rather than advisory. A transfer to a non-Saudi buyer on property outside a designated zone is blocked at registration. The check is not a courtesy step before a purchase; it is the gate the purchase must pass through. Penalties reach SAR10m ($2.7m) for the most serious violations, with graduated fines set as a percentage of property value for misrepresentation [S6].

Three application routes exist. Residents holding an Iqama apply directly through the portal with automated eligibility screening. Non-residents must first obtain a digital identity through a Saudi diplomatic mission abroad. Foreign companies without a Saudi presence register with the Ministry of Investment through Invest Saudi before filing [S4].

The One Exception to the Map: A Single Home Outside the Zones

The zones are not the whole answer, and this is the most useful line here for anyone already living in the Kingdom. A non-Saudi individual legally resident in Saudi Arabia — including a Premium Residency holder — may own one residential property for personal use outside the designated zones, on top of whatever they buy inside them [S7]. Non-residents have no such right.

The exception does not reach the holy cities on the same terms: outside the designated zones in Makkah and Madinah, the right is limited to Premium Residency holders and granted as usufruct of up to 99 years rather than freehold.

This splits the market in two. An expatriate professional in Riyadh who wants a family home in Al Malqa is exercising the single-home exception and is not a zone buyer at all. An overseas investor who wants a Red Sea villa is a zone buyer with no alternative. Both read the same map for entirely different reasons — which is why coverage treating “foreign ownership” as one question keeps producing answers wrong for half its readers.

Why This Matters for Vision 2030

The zone map is the transmission mechanism between two Vision 2030 targets that have not been meeting.

The first is foreign direct investment, where the ambition is $100bn a year by 2030 and inflows have run persistently below it [S3]. Real estate absorbs retail and mid-size international capital faster than any other asset class, because it requires no licence, partner or sector approval — only a deed. Opening 100-plus mapped areas converts a policy aspiration into a transactable product line.

The second is the giga-project financing gap. Diriyah, NEOM, the Red Sea destination and Qiddiya were underwritten on residential and hospitality sales assuming an international buyer base which, until January 2026, could not legally exist for non-residents. The map makes those business cases arithmetically possible. Whether it makes them work is a different question: Diriyah’s 38 sales in Q1 2026 suggest legal access was not the only binding constraint [S3].

The macro backdrop argues for caution. Saudi real estate transactions reached SAR112bn ($29.9bn) in Q1 2026, up 6.8% year on year [S12] — but GASTAT’s price index fell 1.6% over the same quarter to 103.3 points, residential down 3.6%, with Riyadh Region off 4.4%, Madinah Region 5.0% and Makkah Region 0.7% [S10]. Foreign capital is being invited into a market with rising volumes and softening residential prices: a better entry point for a buyer than for a developer, and not how the reform is usually narrated. For the wider picture, see the Saudi real estate market analysis and the real estate investment guide.

Risks, Contradictions and Open Questions

The zone boundaries are administrative, not statutory. The Council of Ministers designated them and can redraw them. Nothing in the published framework fixes a boundary for a defined term, and no compensation mechanism has been described for an owner whose zone is narrowed. This is the largest unpriced risk in the scheme and no law firm alert examined for this page addresses it.

Jeddah’s 55 numbered areas have no published gazetteer. Neither REGA nor any outlet has published a mapping from area number to district name in English. A market where the most-designated city cannot be described in words is a market where broker misrepresentation is close to inevitable.

The per-zone parameters are not aggregated anywhere. Ownership caps, permitted right types and usufruct maxima vary by zone [S6], but no consolidated schedule has been published. A buyer comparing two zones must query each separately. That is a transparency gap, not a legal one, and it is fixable.

The map post-dates the law by five months. The instrument is Royal Decree No. M/14 of 14 July 2025, gazetted on 25 July 2025 and in force from 22 January 2026 [S2] [S16] — but the zones it depends on were not designated until 23 June 2026. Transactions attempted in that window had no map to check against. The date sequence, including why some firm alerts give 21 January, is resolved in the companion article on the law.

The fee position was reported inconsistently and is resolvable. Early coverage described a disposal fee of “up to 5%” on non-Saudi transfers [S5]; the implementing regulations set the rate at 2% in the four principal cities — Riyadh, Makkah, Madinah and Jeddah — with zero-rating for judicial disposals, qualifying developer sales and transfers to wholly-owned domestic entities [S6]. The 5% figure is the statutory ceiling, not the applied rate; the separate 5% Real Estate Transaction Tax still applies. The full cost stack belongs to the companion article on the law, not to the map.

Absorption is unproven. One quarter of designated status is not a track record, and Red Sea Global’s 20% foreign share [S3] is the only published foreign-participation figure for any zone — measured before the June designation.

What to Watch Next

• Q3 2026 GASTAT real estate price index, expected October 2026. The first quarter falling entirely after designation. Watch the Riyadh and Makkah region series against the Q1 declines of 4.4% and 0.7%.
• A published Jeddah area-number gazetteer. If REGA issues one, the largest usability gap closes. If not by end-2026, treat the numbered areas as deed-lookup-only.
• Zone additions or boundary amendments. Dammam and the Eastern Province urban core are the obvious candidates for a second tranche; neither is designated today.
• Cityscape Global 2026 in Riyadh. The first edition at which non-resident foreign buyers can transact under the full framework — the clearest read on international demand.
• Developer disclosure on foreign-buyer share. Watch for FY2026 equivalents of Red Sea Global’s 20% from Diriyah Company, ROSHN and NEOM.
• Any REGA enforcement action. The first published penalty under the SAR10m ceiling will define how strictly the zone perimeter is policed.

Last verified: 31 July 2026, against REGA’s announcement of entry into force, the Cabinet record of 23 June 2026 as reported by Arab News, AGBI, Enterprise and IMI Daily, and Greenberg Traurig’s analysis of the implementing regulations.

Related Vision 2030 Context

• The law on foreigners buying property in Saudi Arabia — eligibility, process, costs and penalties; the canonical explainer this map defers to
• Can foreigners own property in Saudi Arabia? — the short-form answer for first-time readers
• Investing in NEOM — the giga-project profile behind the largest single designated zone
• Investing in King Abdullah Economic City — the SEZ that combines economic-zone incentives with residential designation
• Diriyah Company — the developer whose Q1 2026 sales fall frames the absorption question
• Saudi Arabia’s real estate developers — who actually builds inside the designated zones
• Premium Residency in Saudi Arabia — the status that carries outside-zone ownership rights
• Special economic zones regulation — the ECZA framework governing Jazan, Ras Al-Khair and KAEC
• Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 — the programme the ownership reform serves

Sources

• [S1] Arab News, Foreigner Real Estate Ownership Changes Given Cabinet Approval, Enhancing Saudi Competitiveness, news report, 24 June 2026. https://www.arabnews.com/node/2648393/business-economy
• [S2] Real Estate General Authority (REGA), Non-Saudi Property Ownership System Enters Into Force as of Today, official announcement, 22 January 2026. https://rega.gov.sa/en/media-center/news-announcements/rega-non-saudi-property-ownership-system-enters-into-force-as-of-today/
• [S3] AGBI, Saudi Arabia Opens Up Property Market to Foreigners, news report, 24 June 2026. https://www.agbi.com/real-estate/2026/06/saudi-arabia-opens-up-property-market-to-foreigners/
• [S4] Enterprise, Mapping the Real Estate Foreign Ownership Zones, market briefing, 30 June 2026. https://enterpriseam.com/ksa/2026/06/30/mapping-the-real-estate-foreign-ownership-zones/
• [S5] IMI Daily, Saudi Cabinet Approves Foreign Ownership Zones in Riyadh, Jeddah, and the Muslim Holy Cities, news report, 1 July 2026. https://www.imidaily.com/mena/saudi-cabinet-approves-foreign-ownership-zones-in-riyadh-jeddah-and-the-muslim-holy-cities/
• [S6] Greenberg Traurig, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Publishes Implementing Regulations to the Foreign Ownership of Real Estate Law, legal alert, July 2026. https://www.gtlaw.com/en/insights/2026/7/the-kingdom-of-saudi-arabia-publishes-implementing-regulations-to-the-foreign-ownership-of-real-estate-law
• [S7] King & Spalding, Saudi Arabia Introduces New Legal Framework for Foreign Ownership of Real Estate, legal analysis, 2025. https://www.kslaw.com/news-and-insights/saudi-arabia-introduces-new-legal-framework-for-foreign-ownership-of-real-estate
• [S8] Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, Real Estate Ownership by Non-Saudis — Law Now Published, legal analysis, July 2025. https://www.bclplaw.com/en-US/events-insights-news/real-estate-ownership-by-non-saudis-law-now-published.html
• [S9] Sahm Capital, +10% Limit-Up: MASAR (4325) Leads Saudi Property Rally as Cabinet Approves Non-Saudi Ownership Zones, market report, 24 June 2026. https://www.sahmcapital.com/news/content/10-limit-up-masar-4325-leads-saudi-property-rally-as-cabinet-approves-non-saudi-ownership-zones-2026-06-24
• [S10] Argaam, Saudi Real Estate Prices Fall 1.6% in Q1 2026, GASTAT statistics report, 20 April 2026. https://www.argaam.com/en/article/articledetail/id/1897833
• [S11] Argaam, REGA to Disclose Geographic Zones for Non-Saudi Real Estate Ownership in Q1 2026, news report, 22 January 2026. https://www.argaam.com/en/article/articledetail/id/1874690
• [S12] Economy Middle East, Saudi Real Estate Transactions Grow 6.8 Percent to $29.85 Billion in Q1 2026, market report, 2026. https://economymiddleeast.com/news/saudi-real-estate-transactions-grow-6-8-percent-to-29-85-billion-in-q1-2026-amid-improved-financing-conditions-stronger-access-to-capital/
• [S13] Real Estate General Authority (REGA), Saudi Properties Geographic Zones Portal, official interactive map service, accessed 28 July 2026. https://saudiproperties.rega.gov.sa/zones
• [S14] Saudi Vision 2030, Special Economic Zones, official programme page, zones launched 14 April 2023 (site blocks automated retrieval; zone list corroborated by PwC Middle East and ECZA). https://www.vision2030.gov.sa/en/explore/projects/special-economic-zones
• [S15] Saudi Vision 2030, Sports Boulevard, official project page (site blocks automated retrieval; 135km, 4.4m sq m and 2027 completion corroborated by Global Construction Review and the Royal Commission for Riyadh City). https://www.vision2030.gov.sa/en/explore/projects/sports-boulevard
• [S16] Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, Saudi Arabia’s New Law on Foreign Ownership of Real Estate, legal analysis, 2025. https://www.curtis.com/our-firm/news/saudi-arabias-new-law-on-foreign-ownership-of-real-estate-a-major-development-in-the-saudi-real-estate-sector
• [S17] Mulk, REGA Designated Zones for Foreign Property Ownership in Saudi Arabia (2026), property-portal transcription of the REGA zone map, updated 27 June 2026. https://mulkksa.com/law-and-regulations/designated-zones/