The Riyadh Rent Freeze: What It Is and What It Means for Tenants

If you rent in Riyadh, three things shifted in your favour in 2025:

1. Your rent can’t be raised until 2030. Inside Riyadh’s urban boundary, annual rent increases are suspended for five years from 25 September 2025, on existing and new residential and commercial leases.
2. Your landlord can refuse to renew only for three reasons. In Riyadh, a landlord may decline to renew only for non-payment, a structural defect that affects the property’s safety, or to use the unit themselves or for a first-degree relative (REGA). For that last reason, a residential landlord must give you at least 365 days’ notice.
3. An increase above your current rent isn’t enforceable. You don’t have to pay it, even if it appears in a renewal letter. Breaking the provisions can cost a landlord a fine of up to 12 months’ rent, plus compensation.

This guide covers what the freeze is, where it stops, and exactly what to do if a landlord acts as though the rules don’t exist.

The Provisions in One Paragraph

On 25 September 2025, following a directive from the Crown Prince, regulatory provisions approved by the Council of Ministers suspended annual increases in the total rent of residential and commercial leases inside the urban boundaries of the City of Riyadh for five years. The same provisions made every lease in the Kingdom renew automatically unless one side gives notice at least 60 days before it ends, and limited when a Riyadh landlord may refuse to renew. In December 2025, the Real Estate General Authority (REGA) added a 365-day notice period for residential landlords who decline to renew because they, or a first-degree relative, will live in the property.

The freeze applies to existing and new contracts. It doesn’t reduce rents already in place.

A quick note on geography: the freeze covers the City of Riyadh — the municipality bounded by Riyadh’s urban perimeter. It does not cover the wider Riyadh Region (the administrative province), so towns and cities in the region that sit outside the urban boundary remain on market-driven pricing.

The Freeze in Context

The rent freeze didn’t land in isolation. It was one of a package of housing measures rolled out in September 2025 to stabilise the Riyadh market while supply expands:

• The five-year residential and commercial rent cap (this article).
• Accelerated land release for residential development inside Riyadh.
• New incentives for developers building affordable and middle-income housing.
• Tightened oversight on Ejar registration and rental compliance.
• A push to expand long-tenor financing and rent-to-own options for Saudi families.

REGA’s 365-day notice decision followed in December 2025. The cap is the headline number, but it’s the supply-side and tenancy-rights measures around it that determine what happens when the cap eventually lifts.

What the Freeze Covers (And What It Doesn’t)

It covers: residential leases across the full range of Riyadh housing stock — studio apartments, family flats, townhouses, villas, and compound units — on standard tenancy contracts of 3 months or longer. It also covers commercial rentals including offices, retail units, and industrial space, anywhere inside the City of Riyadh’s urban boundaries. Existing contracts are frozen at their current rent.

New contracts depend on the unit’s history. A vacant unit that was let before keeps its last rent registered on Ejar, so a new tenant can’t be charged more than the previous one. Only a unit that has never been let starts at whatever landlord and tenant agree. Before you sign, ask what the last registered rent was.

It doesn’t cover: anything outside the city’s urban limits. Jeddah, Dammam, Medina, the rest of the Riyadh Region, and every other Saudi city continue to operate on market-driven rent adjustments.

It doesn’t cover short-term rentals. Leases under 3 months — daily, weekly, and short-stay arrangements typical of furnished/serviced apartments and holiday lets — sit outside the freeze. Those continue to be priced by the market.

It doesn’t reduce existing rents. If you were paying SAR 90,000 at the top of the 2025 spike, SAR 90,000 is still what you pay. The cap stops increases — it doesn’t roll them back.

Utilities aren’t rent. Electricity and water follow their own tariffs. Service charges are listed separately in your Ejar contract, so check how yours are defined and compare them with your last registered contract.

The Numbers That Made It Inevitable — And Why 2030

The freeze didn’t come out of nowhere. It came out of a rent curve that was breaking the market and that, on its own trajectory, was on track to reach 2030’s projected levels by 2025. That single point is why the cap stops where it stops.

Riyadh rents rose 20–25% between 2023 and 2025, with some northern districts seeing spikes above 30%. Al Malqa, Hittin, and Al Yasmin — the areas housing the middle of Riyadh’s professional workforce — moved from affordable to prohibitive in under two years. If you extrapolate normal rent inflation forward from a healthy baseline, the values the city was already paying in 2025 are roughly the values you’d have expected to see arrive in 2030. The market had pulled five years of growth into two.

Three forces drove it: population growth outpacing housing construction (Riyadh is projected to hit 15 million people by 2030), Vision 2030 megaproject hiring pulling in both Saudi and expat labour, and landlords raising rates on renewals because the market allowed it.

That’s the logic of the 2030 end date. The freeze is a five-year pause button that holds rents at a level the city is already paying — a level the long-term trend was always expected to reach by the end of the decade. By 2030, supply is meant to have caught up, and the price the market lands on shouldn’t be a shock; it should be roughly where the underlying trendline always pointed.

Renewal: the 60-Day Rule, the Three Grounds and the 365-Day Notice

This is the quieter half of the reform and, day to day, the more useful one. Three rules work together:

Leases renew automatically. Anywhere in the Kingdom, a lease renews unless one side tells the other, at least 60 days before it ends, that they don’t want to renew. The exception is a fixed-term contract that had 90 days or less left when the provisions took effect.

In Riyadh, a landlord can refuse only on three grounds. If you want to stay, a landlord inside the urban boundary can refuse to renew only for non-payment, a structural defect that affects safety, or to use the unit themselves or for a first-degree relative. Selling the property, redeveloping it, or simply wanting a higher-paying tenant are not on the list.

Family use needs a year’s notice. When a residential landlord declines to renew for their own use or a first-degree relative’s, the notice must be at least 365 days before the lease ends (REGA decision of 2 Rajab 1447 AH, December 2025). If it comes later than that, the lease renews for as long as it takes to complete the 365 days. The rule covers existing residential contracts too.

What this means in practice: renewal is no longer a casual decision for a Riyadh landlord, and you’re not under rushed exit pressure. If the notice does come on the family-use ground, you have a year to find a place, compare neighbourhoods, line up financing and move on your timeline instead of theirs.

What to Do If Your Landlord Tries to Raise Your Rent Anyway

Not every landlord will honour the freeze gracefully. Some will send renewal notices with increases baked in, hoping the tenant doesn’t know the rule. Here’s the straight answer:

Any rate increase above your current rate is not legally enforceable. You do not have to pay it. You do not have to negotiate it. The freeze overrides contract language that contradicts it.

If the landlord pushes, escalate to REGA. The Real Estate General Authority is the enforcing authority. Complaints can be filed through REGA’s official channels, and unlawful increases are reversed through that process. The provisions set a fine of up to 12 months’ rent, plus compensation, for violations.

Keep a paper trail. Save the WhatsApp message, the renewal notice, any email or written communication about the increase. If it gets escalated, documentation is what settles it.

Your Ejar contract is your proof of the original rate. The lease registered on the government Ejar platform is what REGA will reference. That’s the legal record of what you owe.

No polite fiction about this: some landlords will try. Knowing the rule is how you don’t lose to it.

The Negotiation Leverage You Just Gained

Even if your landlord is honouring the freeze cleanly, the rules shift the broader relationship in ways worth using.

Renewal discussions start from “you’re staying” as the default. A Riyadh landlord can only refuse to renew on three grounds, so assuming you want to stay and pay on time, the lease continues at your current rate. You negotiate improvements — not survival.

You can ask for things that were previously unthinkable. Maintenance upgrades, appliance replacement, small renovations — landlords who value predictable occupancy over potential churn are more flexible now.

You have time to shop around. If you do decide to move, you can line up monthly rent financing, compare neighbourhoods properly, and negotiate with new landlords from a position of having options instead of urgency.

You’re not a one-year tenant anymore. In a frozen market, a good tenant is a five-year asset. Landlords who understand this will treat you accordingly.

When Moving Still Makes Sense

The freeze is protection, not a prison. Moving still makes sense in specific cases:

Your current place doesn’t fit anymore. A growing family, a new job across the city, a neighbourhood that doesn’t match your life — the freeze doesn’t fix those.

The rate you signed at was inflated. If you committed at a 2025 peak and a comparable unit is now available at a lower frozen rate, moving may be worth the friction.

Your landlord is a problem. Slow on maintenance, aggressive on fees, unpleasant on communication — the freeze doesn’t soften any of that. Quality of the relationship matters.

In all three cases, a monthly rent platform makes the move itself easier — you don’t have to liquidate savings for an annual upfront at a new place.

Who This Changes the Most

The cap is neutral on paper but asymmetric in practice:

Tenants on existing leases gain a five-year ceiling and protection against non-renewal. Biggest relative winner.

Tenants signing new leases pay no more than the unit’s last registered rent, or an agreed first rent if it has never been let, and there’s no 2027 rent shock to plan for.

Landlords of residential portfolios in the City of Riyadh lose annual rent growth. The investment case recalibrates.

Commercial property owners face the same rent growth cap, but the longer-duration leases already common in commercial practice soften the immediate impact.

Short-term rental operators — furnished apartments, serviced suites, holiday lets on contracts under 3 months — sit outside the freeze entirely. Their pricing remains market-driven.

Tenants and landlords outside the City of Riyadh — including elsewhere in the Riyadh Region — see nothing change on rent, though the 60-day renewal rule and the 365-day family-use notice apply Kingdom-wide.

What Comes After 2030

The freeze is five years. It expires. The question is what happens then.

If Riyadh’s housing supply catches up with demand — Vision 2030’s residential development targets are aggressive, and the September 2025 land-release and developer-incentive measures are designed to accelerate exactly that — post-freeze rents may moderate on their own. If supply lags, the market will see a compressed correction when the cap lifts.

The sensible planning assumption is that locking in at 2025 rates is an advantage worth keeping for the full five years. No extension has been announced as of April 2026.

The Short Version

From 25 September 2025, rents inside the City of Riyadh can’t rise for five years, on existing and new leases, residential and commercial. A vacant unit keeps its last registered rent. Leases everywhere renew unless someone gives 60 days’ notice, a Riyadh landlord can refuse to renew only on three grounds, and refusing for family use needs a year’s notice. Any landlord who says otherwise is wrong, and REGA is the referee. Short-term rentals and anything outside the city sit outside the freeze.

Ejari is a REGA-licensed platform (#2200001825) that enables tenants to pay rent monthly while landlords receive the full year upfront. Explore how Ejari works at ejari.sa.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the freeze apply to my existing lease?

Yes. Both new and existing leases in the City of Riyadh are covered, regardless of when they were originally signed — provided the tenancy is 3 months or longer.

My landlord is trying to raise my rent for 2026. Is that legal?

If your property is inside Riyadh’s urban boundaries, no. Increases are suspended until 2030. You are not legally obligated to pay any increase above your current rate.

What if I want to move during the freeze — does it follow me?

In a way, yes. A unit that was let before keeps its last registered rent, so a new lease there can’t cost more than the previous tenant paid. Only a never-let unit starts at a freely agreed rent. Either way, once you sign, your rent is frozen for the rest of the period.

Does the freeze mean my landlord can’t evict me?

The freeze doesn’t stop eviction for breach, such as non-payment. At renewal, a Riyadh landlord can refuse only on three grounds, and the family-use ground needs 365 days’ notice.

What happens if my landlord wants to sell the property?

A sale alone doesn’t end your lease. The new owner inherits your contract under its existing terms, including the frozen rate. A sale isn’t one of the three grounds for refusing renewal in Riyadh.

Does it apply to commercial rentals?

Yes. The provisions cover residential and commercial rentals within the city’s urban boundaries.

Does the freeze apply to short-term rentals (under 3 months)?

No. The freeze applies to standard tenancy contracts of 3 months or longer. Daily, weekly, and short-stay rentals — typically furnished or serviced apartments, holiday lets, and similar arrangements — are not covered and remain priced by the market.

Does the freeze apply outside the City of Riyadh?

No. It’s specific to the city’s urban limits. The wider Riyadh Region and other Saudi cities are not covered.

Why does the freeze run until 2030 specifically?

Because the rents Riyadh hit in 2025 were already at the levels a normal inflation curve would have reached around 2030. The cap pauses the market at that already-elevated level for the period it would have otherwise taken to “earn” those prices — giving supply time to catch up.

How is the freeze enforced, and where do I complain?

REGA is the enforcing authority. Unlawful rent increases are not legally enforceable, violations carry a fine of up to 12 months’ rent plus compensation, and tenants can file complaints through REGA’s official channels. Keep your Ejar contract, written communications with your landlord, and any rate-increase notices as documentation.

Will the freeze extend past 2030?

That depends on market conditions and policy decisions closer to 2030. No extension has been announced as of April 2026.

Is this the first rent freeze in Saudi Arabia?

Yes, at this scale. Previous Saudi rental regulation focused on dispute resolution and contract standardisation (via Ejar), not price caps. This is the first comprehensive rate freeze applied to a major urban market.