EV Charging Stations in Saudi Arabia: The Real Coverage

Key Takeaways

• EVIQ, the national charging company, targeted 60 stations by the end of 2025 across Riyadh, Jeddah and the Eastern Province — a real network built from a very small base.
• Reported city figures at that point: Riyadh 20, Jeddah 7, Dammam 5, plus 3 completed in the Eastern Province awaiting inauguration.
• 2026 is the highway year. EVIQ's stated focus shifted to intercity coverage, naming Jeddah–Madinah, Riyadh–Dammam and Riyadh–Qassim.
• We do not publish a public charging tariff, because we did not verify one. Check the operator's own app before you depend on a price.

How much public charging does Saudi Arabia actually have?

Enough to be real, not enough to be assumed.

The anchor number comes from Arab News reporting published 3 November 2025, in which EVIQ chief executive Mohammad Gazzaz described the company completing 60 charging stations by the end of 2025 across Riyadh, Jeddah and the Eastern Province. The city breakdown reported at that point was 20 operational stations in Riyadh, 7 in Jeddah, and 5 in Dammam, with **3 further Eastern Province stations completed and awaiting inauguration**.

The same reporting cites a national goal of 5,000 stations. We note it without a date attached, because that article states the objective without a timeline; wider coverage commonly frames the 5,000 figure against 2030 and around 1,000 strategic locations, and we flag that as the secondary framing it is rather than folding it into the primary claim.

Figures as of August 2026, from reporting dated 3 November 2025.

An honest note on freshness: a network in active build-out moves faster than any article about it. Treat these as the last figures we could attribute to a dated source, and check EVIQ's own location finder for what exists on the day you need it.

What changes in 2026?

Highways, which is the change that matters most for whether an EV works as a household's only car.

Gazzaz's stated focus for 2026 was stronger highway coverage to enable easier intercity travel, with the Jeddah to Madinah, Riyadh to Dammam and Riyadh to Qassim corridors named. Those are exactly the routes that decide whether Saudi EV ownership is an urban proposition or a national one.

Until that build-out lands, the practical rule is unchanged: intercity EV travel in Saudi Arabia is a planned activity, not an assumed one. Confirm charger locations and status before departure, and carry a plan for the leg with the largest gap. That is a normal constraint for an early network, not a defect.

What does public charging cost?

We do not know, and we are not going to estimate it.

No public charging tariff was verified for this guide. Charging prices in early networks vary by operator, by connector speed, and sometimes by time of day, and publishing a plausible-sounding number would be exactly the behaviour this site exists to avoid. Check the operator's own app or website before you rely on a figure.

What we can say with confidence is the comparison that actually drives ownership economics: charging at home on the residential tariff is far cheaper per kilometre than either petrol or, almost certainly, public fast charging. Public DC charging is priced to recover expensive hardware and grid connections; home AC charging is priced at whatever your electricity costs. The arithmetic is in our guide to charging an electric car at home in Saudi Arabia.

How does this compare with running a petrol car?

Saudi petrol is cheap by global standards, which sets a genuinely demanding benchmark for EVs here.

At the time of writing, 91-octane was SAR 2.18 per litre and 95-octane SAR 2.33 per litre, both unchanged since the start of 2026 under the government price cap that has been in place since July 2021, with Aramco reviewing prices monthly.

That is the number every Saudi EV case has to beat. It still loses to home charging by a wide margin — the per-100km comparison, with every assumption labelled, is in our home charging guide — but it explains why Saudi EV adoption is driven more by product appeal and running-cost curiosity than by fuel-price pain. It also explains why public charging tariffs matter so much: a public network priced aggressively enough can erode the advantage that home charging preserves.

Where does this leave EV ownership in Saudi Arabia today?

Workable in the three big metros, planned elsewhere.

Riyadh's 20 stations, Jeddah's 7 and the Eastern Province cluster cover the cities where most Saudi EVs are. The official retail side is genuinely established — Tesla opened its first Saudi showroom in Riyadh in April 2025 and BYD sells through an official Saudi channel, as covered in our guide to electric cars in Saudi Arabia.

What is still thin is the long-distance layer, and that is precisely what the 2026 highway programme is aimed at. An EV as a second car, or as a first car for a household that drives within a metro and charges at home, is a straightforward proposition today. An EV as the only car for a household that regularly drives between regions needs the route checked first.

What should you check before buying an EV in KSA?

Where you will charge overnight. This is the question that decides everything else. A villa with a dedicated parking space and a fitted charger is a different ownership experience from an apartment with shared parking and no outlet.

Which connector your car uses, and whether the stations on your routes support it at the speed you need.

Your actual driving pattern, honestly measured. Most Saudi urban driving sits comfortably inside a single overnight charge; the exceptions are intercity trips, which are the ones to plan around.

And what your electricity actually costs, because that is what a kilometre costs. The slab structure, the VAT treatment and the value of each kilowatt-hour are set out in our guide to the Saudi electricity tariff. Our method page explains how each figure on this page was checked, and which we declined to publish.