A guide to private serviced offices, fitted, furnished and managed offices and office space to rent in Riyadh, as well as general information that may be useful if you are thinking of renting office space in the city.
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Arabian heartlands
Riyadh lies at the heart of the Arabian Peninsula and is the capital of the modern-day Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Its recorded origins date back to before the foundation of Islam, to a time when the Nejd region was inhabited by various tribes that spent much of their time at war with one another or with external forces.
The Banu Hanifa tribe is credited with founding the settlement, which has since become one of the most important sites in the Middle East, but for hundreds of years it was known as Hajr and lay in the province of Al Yamamah. The city was controlled by various locally powerful empires in the years preceding 630 AD, but it took a more prominent role in its own right during the Ridda Wars that followed the founding of Islam in Mecca, a few hundred miles to the southwest.
Hajr was the largest settlement in Al Yamamah right up until the 14th century, when the legendary traveller of the Islamic world, Ibn Battuta, passed through on his way to Mecca on pilgrimage. For somewhat obscure reasons, the city eventually became known as Riyadh, with the first reference to it as such dating from the 17th century.
Saudi States
There have been numerous attempts to form a country similar to the one we now know as Saudi Arabia. Three of the best-known and most successful efforts to this end resulted in the creation of the three Saudi States, the first two of which were formed and then fell during the 18th and 19th centuries, respectively.
Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab and Muhammad ibn Saud were the two men principally responsible for founding the First Saudi State in 1744, and their two families have been closely linked, partly through marriage, ever since. The First Saudi State had Riyadh as its capital, and its founding resulted in dramatic changes throughout the region, with the overriding theme portrayed as a return to traditional Islamic values and practices.
Both Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab and Muhammad ibn Saud left their own indelible marks on the way life in Riyadh and the Arabian Peninsula was to develop during the subsequent 250 years or so, with the former having a huge influence on the Islamic faith and the latter founding the House of Saud, which remains the country’s royal family.
The Second Saudi State was rather less successful than the first in terms of the territory it took, but it nonetheless lasted from 1824 to 1891, with Riyadh again as its capital and mainstay. The city was taken by the Al Rashid clan soon after in the late 19th century, but the House of Saud was again restored to power in 1902, with the now-legendary King Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud in command. The third and current Saudi State was formally established in 1932, with one of Ibn Saud’s three dozen sons, King Abdullah, on the throne.
An Oil Economy
Saudi Arabia has the largest proven oil reserves of any country on earth, and this remarkable abundance of a resource sought after by virtually every other country has inevitably affected its capital city. A sizeable proportion of the Saudi Arabian economy is based entirely on the exploitation and export of its oil reserves, with the majority of the annual national budget revenues originating from the sector.
Saudi Aramco is the majority state-owned petroleum and natural gas company and the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, and it had the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves at more than 270 billion barrels in 2026.
It was the fifth-largest company in the world by revenue, recording $448 billion in 2025.
As of March 2026, Saudi Aramco was the largest oil and gas company in the world, with a market cap of $1.75 trillion.
It seemed likely that Riyadh’s economy and its worldwide perception would remain closely linked to oil for many years to come, but steps are being taken to promote a more diversified economy, and the city is gaining a reputation as a regional leader in high-tech and banking-related industries. In addition, the city is, as it has been for centuries, a centre of commercial activity and all manner of region-wide trading.
Riyadh and the KSA continue to evolve not just in terms of their reliance on oil, but also in how they wish to be seen by the world.
KSA is dismantling existing frameworks, meaning national and international companies can employ Saudi women to advance women’s economic empowerment, for instance.
The evolution is fuelled by Saudi Vision 2030, the government program aimed at increasing diversification across cultural, economic, and social spheres and attracting international tourists.
As part of Saudi Vision 2030, both Riyadh and the KSA have become increasingly high-profile, partly due to the launch of the annual Riyadh Season in 2019 and the Riyadh Comedy Festival in 2025.
The lineup of the 2025 Riyadh Comedy Festival included performances by Aziz Ansari, Bill Burr, Louis C.K., Jimmy Carr, Dave Chappelle, Pete Davidson, and Kevin Hart.
Saudi Arabia’s real GDP growth expanded by 4.8 per cent in 2025, and the 2026 growth rate was forecast at 4.3 per cent.
This growth was underpinned by a strong 4.9 per cent expansion in the non-oil sector.
Architecture
Prior to the modern era and the Third Saudi State, virtually all the buildings in and around Riyadh were made of clay or mud bricks, which unfortunately means that the vast majority have not stood the test of time. There are exceptions, with perhaps the best known being the Masmak Fort, which still stands in the centre of Riyadh and was an important site in Ibn Saud’s recapture of the city just over a century ago.
Modern constructions in the Saudi capital could hardly look more different from their century-old counterparts, with some of the world’s most incredible skyscrapers in the city’s main business district. Among them are the Kingdom Centre, which rises to close to 1,000 feet and hosts the Four Seasons Hotel, and the 44-storey Al Faisaliyah Centre, designed by the renowned British architect Norman Foster.
Development in recent years has gained pace, and in 2025, the pipeline included the Rise Tower, planned to be the world’s first two-kilometre-tall building. The development of what would be the world’s tallest building was proposed to commence in 2026 and be completed in 2030.
It would stand almost twice as tall as Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.
Office Space for Rent in Riyadh
When we started publishing this article in 2013, the majority of office space to rent in Riyadh was to be found in the central business district, where much of its commercial activity goes on, but major development projects were underway that would see new office space made available in different parts of the city, principally to the north. The Saudi economy grew only slightly in 2012 but was expected to see growth rates closer to 3.5 per cent for the following few years. As a result, there was likely to be considerable demand for office space in the Saudi capital city.
Even so, real estate analysts at DTZ at the time had expressed some concern that there would be an oversupply of office space to rent in Riyadh over 2014 and 2015, simply because so many new developments were set to come on stream at roughly the same time. Speaking to Cityscape Intelligence, the company’s head of consulting, Martin Cooper, described Riyadh as being “one of the most cost-effective locations in the Middle East region for office space”, ahead of its most notable nearby rivals, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
At the end of 2025, Savills reported that Riyadh’s five-year rent freeze covering existing residential and commercial property had created assurances for incumbent occupiers and contributed to greater market stability.
Following previous rent increases, rent levels have broadly stabilised, and only modest increases were observed across prime office stock.
In late October, the Minister of Investment announced that more than 700 global companies have established regional headquarters in Riyadh, surpassing the Vision 2030 target of 500.
Incumbent blue-chip occupiers included Amazon, Deloitte and KPMG, and new entrants in Q4 2025 included Darktrace, Union Bancaire Privé, The Edge, and the National Bank of
Egypt.
Savills also reported that Grade A office occupancy was stable at 98.5 per cent in Q4 2025, and that prime office rents in Riyadh had risen 1 per cent quarter-on-quarter over the year and 12 per cent year-on-year.
Schemes delivering approximately 950,000 square metres of brand-new Grade A space were due to complete by late 2026, including Diriyah Gate, Prime Business Resort, and the Prince Mohammed bin Salman Nonprofit City, Misk.
Riyadh announced its foreign direct investment framework in January 2026, making the office market accessible to international investors and increasing liquidity and depth.
Savills reported that leasing momentum carried through into Q1 2026, with strong demand from occupiers in the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI), Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT), Engineering and Manufacturing, TMT, and pharmaceutical sectors.
New occupiers in Riyadh in the first quarter included the UK software company, Vega IT.
Prime office rents in Riyadh’s Zone A stood at SAR 2,896 per square metre per annum in Q1 2026.
Zone A includes locations such as Diplomatic Quarter, KAFD, Nawafeth, and North Yard by OUD.
Prime office space in Zone C stood at SAR 2,457 per square metre per annum.
Zone C includes locations such as Digital City, Granada Business Park, Kingdom Centre Tower, Moon Tower, Olaya Towers, Riyadh Business Gate and Riyadh Front Business Area.
In Q1 2026, the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) had been completed. At over 1.6 million square metres, the scheme was the world’s largest Platinum-certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, mixed-use business district, home to state-of-the-art office spaces, world-class venues, and luxury residences.
One of the schemes in the pipeline in Q1 was the 138,000-square-metre Prime Business Resort, which would include 60 prime office buildings all due to complete in a single phase in Q3 2026.
Riyadh reflects other office markets and has a growing flexible office space and workspace sector that offers a range of agile alternatives to leased office space, including private serviced offices, fitted, furnished, and managed offices, and coworking space solutions.
These are available on short-term contracts, often with options to upsize or downsize floorspace mid-term, and are offered with all-inclusive rents so that overheads such as cleaning, reception services, and utilities are covered by the monthly fee.
The business space options that require little or zero capex are available in a range of buildings in locations across Riyadh including Airport Road, Al Mohammadiyyah, Al Olaya, Al Qirawan, Al Safarat, Al Wurud, Ar Rabwah, Diplomatic Quarter, Imam Saud Bin Abdulaziz Bin Muhammad Road, King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD), King Fahd Road, King Khalid Airport, Laysen Valley, Prince Mohammed bin Salman Road, Prince Turki Ibn Abdulaziz Al Awwal Road, Roshn Business Front, Spring Plaza, Tahlia Street, and The Business Gate.
Profiles of the office providers and flexible workspace operators in Riyadh can be seen in this directory.
Sport
Possible because it is located in the middle of the Arabian desert, Riyadh had not had a particularly strong tradition of sporting prowess, at least not on an international stage. However, there was plenty of enthusiasm for football and cricket, with the local teams in both sports counted among the very best in the country. Elsewhere, investment in high-quality indoor arenas and facilities is helping the next generation of Riyadh youngsters practice their disciplines away from the baking heat of the Arabian sun.
Under the stewardship of His Excellency Turki Alalshikh, the Chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority (GEA) and the founder of Riyadh Season, which commenced in 2019, Riyadh has effectively reshaped global boxing by funding mega-fights and partnering with international promoters like Matchroom Boxing and Queensberry Promotions.
Saudi Arabia has been a fixture on the Formula One motor racing calendar since 2021. However, the 2026 Formula 1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, scheduled for April in Jeddah, was cancelled by the FIA and Formula 1 Management due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
LIV Golf was launched in 2022, primarily financed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. It is a professional men’s golf tour designed to rival the PGA Tour.
‘LIV’ is named for the Roman numeral for 54, which was the number of holes that were played at events when the tour was launched. However, the number has since increased to 72.
Riyadh Season has also hosted UFC tournaments since 2024.
Transport
In terms of transport, Riyadh is now well served by modern ring roads and highways, keeping traffic flowing in and out of the city’s various areas. King Fahd Road is perhaps the most widely used street in the centre of town as it runs right through the heart of what must be one of the busiest areas in the Middle East.
Railways link Riyadh with the other major Saudi cities, including Mecca and Jeddah, while buses get plenty of people to and from their places of work each day.
The most dramatic aspect of Riyadh’s transport infrastructure, though, is its airport, King Khalid International Airport. It is one of the busiest airports in the Middle East and served 40.8 million passengers in 2025, up 8.7 per cent on the previous year.
Tourism
Riyadh is not often considered a holiday destination of choice for Western travellers, but the city benefits from the many millions of pilgrims who visit Saudi Arabia each year. For those who can afford them, the city boasts some of the most spectacular and luxurious hotels in the world, not least the Four Seasons or the Al Faisaliah Hotel. Of course, there is plenty of demand for business travel accommodation in Riyadh, and places like the Radisson Blu and the Sheraton Riyadh offer overnight or longer-term hotel experiences that would be hard to top in the Middle East or anywhere else.
The growth in air travel in Riyadh and throughout Saudi Arabia in 2025 was driven by the country advancing its Vision 2030 plans to become a global aviation and tourism hub through airport expansions, airline growth, and improved connectivity. Its 2030 target is 150 million annual visitors.
Passenger numbers travelling through Saudi airports increased by 9.6 per cent year on year, reaching 140.9 million in 2025.
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