Travel in Saudi Arabia: a pilgrims' country open to tourists since 2019

How the kingdom opened to tourists

Saudi Arabia announced in December 2013 that it would begin issuing tourist visas for the first time, and did so on 27 September 2019, to visitors from 49 countries, by an online eVisa or on arrival. Wikipedia records 24,000 foreign visitors entering in the first ten days, led by arrivals from China, the United Kingdom and the United States. Even now, Wikipedia notes, tourism in the kingdom largely means religious pilgrimage.

The British government's entry guidance, read on 2 October 2026, sets out the current structure for British passport holders. A visa is needed for any visit, chosen by purpose and length of stay. Tourists can apply for an eVisa online or on arrival at an international airport, and the eVisa includes health insurance. The Hajj requires its own separate visa. A passport needs six months of validity on arrival, and travellers whose passports show travel to Israel, or birth there, may be refused entry. Some visas allow entry only by air, so visitors crossing from Bahrain by the causeway are advised to check theirs first.

Residents leave and return under different rules. Foreign residents need an exit or re-entry permit from their sponsor, and a foreign woman married to a Saudi needs her husband's permit to leave the country, as do the children of Saudi nationals.

Why Mecca and Medina work differently

The two holy cities are the reason most visitors have come. Mecca holds the Grand Mosque and the Kaaba, and Medina the Prophet's Mosque. Jeddah has been the port through which pilgrims arriving by sea reach Mecca since the seventh century, when the caliph Uthman made it the city's official harbour. Non-Muslims are not permitted to enter Mecca under Saudi law, and Wikipedia notes that using false documents to do so can lead to arrest; in Medina the restriction covers the Prophet's Mosque and its precincts, and the closed sanctuary of Mecca is much larger than that of Medina.

The Hajj falls between the 1st and 10th of Dhu al-Hijja, the last month of the lunar Islamic calendar, so it moves about eleven days earlier each year against the Gregorian calendar; the 9th, the Day of Arafah, is the day of the Hajj itself. Its present pattern goes back to the pilgrimage Muhammad made in 632. During the pilgrimage the authorities stop travellers who are not performing it from flying into Jeddah, Madinah and Taif, according to the British guidance, although other airports stay open. The Umrah, the lesser pilgrimage, can be made outside the Hajj season, and since 2022 the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah has run Nusuk, a digital platform for booking visits to the holy cities.

Numbers fell after 2019: in 2020 and 2021 the government admitted only very limited numbers of pilgrims already resident in the kingdom because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2025 GASTAT counted 1,435,017 pilgrims arriving by air, 66,465 by land and 5,094 by sea, and 314,337 used the Makkah Route Initiative, which completes entry formalities in the pilgrim's home country.

What the Hajj asks of a pilgrim

The rites follow a fixed sequence over five or six days. On the 8th of Dhu al-Hijja pilgrims put on ihram, for men two unstitched white cloths, for women ordinary modest dress with hands and face uncovered, and go to Mina. On the 9th they stand from noon to sunset on the plain of Arafat, about 20 kilometres east of Mecca, the rite without which a Hajj is not valid, then spend the night at Muzdalifah collecting pebbles.

The 10th is the day of sacrifice, which Muslims elsewhere keep as Eid al-Adha. Pilgrims throw seven stones at the largest pillar of the Jamarat at Mina, now walls rebuilt in 2004 and reached by a multi-level bridge, have an animal sacrificed, mostly through vouchers bought in advance, cut or shave their hair and return to Mecca to walk seven times anticlockwise around the Kaaba. Stoning continues on the 11th and 12th, and a farewell circuit of the Kaaba closes the pilgrimage. Many pilgrims then travel about 450 kilometres to Medina to pray at the Prophet's Mosque.

What the World Heritage Sites hold

UNESCO lists eight sites in the kingdom, seven cultural and one natural, inscribed between 2008 and 2024.

UNESCO describes Historic Jeddah's late nineteenth-century tower houses, built by merchant families when the Suez Canal and steamships brought trade and pilgrims, as the last surviving urban ensemble of the old Red Sea building tradition, and Nasseef House in its al-Balad district, built in 1872, has been a museum since 2009. Hegra lies in the AlUla area, where the Winter at Tantora festival is held in the old town. At-Turaif sits on the north-western edge of Riyadh, and the capital's National Museum, opened in 1999, sits in the King Abdulaziz Historical Centre.

Where visitors go beyond the holy cities

What Riyadh keeps of its old town

Riyadh grew from a walled oasis town on Wadi Hanifa whose walls were taken down in the 1950s. What survives of it is small: the Masmak fort, with parts of the old wall and a gate restored or rebuilt, and a number of mud-brick houses within the old limits, most of them dilapidated. The town stopped being the seat of government in 1938, when Abdulaziz moved to the Murabba Palace outside it. Diriyah, with the ruins of At-Turaif, is on the north-western edge of the city. Highway 40 links Jeddah and Mecca in the west with Riyadh and Dammam in the east.

What the Red Sea coast holds

Jeddah's old quarter, al-Balad, is the World Heritage site, with the Historic Jeddah Festival held in its streets and the Jeddah Regional Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, which shows finds from the Acheulean period onwards, among its museums. Offshore, fringing coral reefs line much of the Red Sea coast, and Wikipedia's tourism article lists Red Sea diving among the kingdom's draws. Further north, Yanbu and Tabuk are on the same article's list of the places most visited; Tabuk Castle, dating from 1559, has been restored as a museum.

Why AlUla draws visitors north

The AlUla area of the Madinah region holds Hegra, the Nabataean tomb city, and was the site of Dedan, the capital of the older kingdom of Lihyan, at the site of modern al-Ula. Arab News pictured the rock formation known as Elephant Rock as one of AlUla's attractions in January 2026, and the old town hosts the Winter at Tantora festival. In the Hail region, rock art records human and animal figures over about 10,000 years.

What the south-west and the east offer

The south-west is the kingdom's mountain country: the Asir highlands around Abha, terraced and watered by the summer rains, where houses carry the painted wall decoration of al-qatt al-asiri; the coffee terraces of Jazan; and Taif, known for its roses and for Souk Okaz, an annual cultural event named after a market of ancient times. The Hima Cultural Area, with its rock inscriptions, is also in the south-west.

The Eastern Province faces the Gulf. Al-Hasa, the oasis of springs, canals and gardens around Hofuf, is a World Heritage site, and Dammam has a national museum on the fourth floor of its public library.

When the climate allows travel

The seasons decide most itineraries. Britannica describes summers from June to August with shade temperatures above 38 °C almost everywhere and up to 55 °C in the desert, and humidity that can be oppressive on the coasts. Winters from December to February are cool, with averages of 14 °C at Riyadh and 23 °C at Jeddah, and frost or snow is possible in the highlands. The highlands of Asir, around Abha, are the exception in summer: milder, terraced and watered by monsoon rain between May and October.

The events calendar follows the same pattern. Riyadh Season is a six-month entertainment festival, camel races are held on many winter weekends, and the rose harvest in Taif begins in March. Wikipedia notes that the government has spent heavily on bringing wrestling, tennis, motor racing and concerts to the kingdom to build up tourism. The date of Ramadan moves earlier each year with the lunar calendar, and with it the shortened working hours and the evening gatherings that come with the fast.

How visitors move around the country

Distances are long and most visitors fly. Wikipedia counts 13 international and 15 domestic airports, served by Saudia and the low-cost carriers Flynas and Flyadeal, with Riyadh Air flying from late 2025. Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport lies 35 kilometres north of the city; Mecca is served mainly through King Abdulaziz International Airport at Jeddah and the regional airport at Taif.

The Haramain High Speed Railway opened in 2018 and links Mecca and Medina through Jeddah, its airport and King Abdullah Economic City at up to 300 kilometres an hour, covering the route in about two hours. Wikipedia lists two further railway projects under way, one linking Riyadh with Jeddah and Mecca and one running north from Riyadh to Buraydah and Ha'il. During the Hajj an elevated metro carries pilgrims between Arafat, Muzdalifah and Mina. By road, a highway across the Empty Quarter to Oman opened in September 2021, and a causeway links the kingdom with Bahrain.

What rules visitors live under

Alcohol is banned throughout the kingdom, and Wikipedia reports a statement in 2025 that it would not be sold even during the 2034 World Cup. The public-decency rules require modest dress but do not require the abaya, including for foreign women, and hotels no longer ask Saudi couples for proof of marriage. Shops no longer have to close at prayer times. The weekend is Friday and Saturday.

The British guidance also notes strict customs rules, under which anything that may be prohibited or dutiable must be declared, and the fines, detention and deportation that can follow an overstayed visa.

What the visitor numbers show

The Ministry of Tourism counted 116 million domestic and international visitors in 2024, of whom 29.7 million came from abroad and 86.2 million were domestic trips, and a preliminary 122 million in 2025, when spending reached about 300 billion riyals. Its target for 2030 is 150 million visitors a year, 70 million of them international, and a Tourism Development Fund was set up in 2020 with initial capital of US$4 billion to finance private projects. Pilgrims are a large part of any such count: Wikipedia's tourism article gives, without a date, about four million Umrah visits outside Ramadan and the Hajj season and around two million during Ramadan.

Much of the new capacity is still being built. The Red Sea development, where construction began in 2019, is planned as a beach resort area with its own dress rules, and Skift reported in January 2026 that nearly 80% of the hotel supply then under development was in the luxury and upscale tiers. Saudi Arabia: culture covers the customs visitors meet, and Saudi Arabia: geography the land they cross.