About How to Saudi Arabia

We built How to Saudi Arabia because when we moved to the Kingdom, we couldn't find a single place that explained things properly in English. How to open a bank account in Saudi Arabia. How Iqama renewal actually works. What GOSI deducts from your salary. Which visa you need and how long it takes. Everything was scattered across government PDFs in Arabic, outdated forum posts, and contradicting blog articles.

So we started writing it down ourselves. Every process we went through - getting a work visa, activating Absher, registering on Qiwa, figuring out Saudi tax obligations through ZATCA, comparing bank accounts at Al Rajhi and SNB, sorting out health insurance under CCHI - we documented it step by step. Not the theoretical version. The version where you actually sit in front of your laptop and do it.

This site covers the things expats in Saudi Arabia deal with every day. Cost of living in Riyadh versus Jeddah. How to rent an apartment on Ejar. How to get a Saudi driving license. Which SIM card to pick between STC, Mobily, and Zain. How the Kafala sponsorship system works after the reforms. What Premium Residency means and whether it's worth it. How to file a tax return with ZATCA. The nitty-gritty stuff that nobody explains well.

We are independent. Nobody pays us to write what we write. No embassy, no company, no Saudi government body. When we say Al Rajhi has the best app for expats or that a certain visa process is a nightmare, that's our genuine take based on going through it.

Some pages on this site contain affiliate links. That means if you click a link and sign up for something - a bank account, an eSIM, insurance - we might earn a small commission. It costs you nothing extra. We use this to pay for hosting, research, and keeping content up to date as Saudi Arabia evolves under Vision 2030. These links do not influence what we recommend. We pick what's best first. If an affiliate program happens to exist for it, great. If not, we recommend it anyway. We will never promote something we wouldn't use ourselves. That's the deal.

We're not lawyers, not financial advisors, not immigration consultants. We're expats who figured things out and wrote them down so you don't have to start from scratch. Saudi Arabia changes fast - new Absher features, updated Saudization requirements, revised GOSI contribution rates, new Riyadh Metro lines. We do our best to keep up, but always double-check the official source before making big decisions.