Makkah vs Madinah

1. Saudi Properties portal — zone list
   The portal lists twelve designated zones in Makkah and ten in Madinah; the twelfth Makkah zone is 'Makkah Al-Mukarramah – Zone (3)', code L337 — about 1.29 km², its nearest boundary roughly 3.7 km south-west of the Grand Mosque, with the same ownership rules as the others.

2. Arab News — zones list · 24 Jun 2026
   The designated zones named in Makkah are Abraj Makkah, Al-Manar, Burj Ajyad, King Salman Gate, Tilal Village, Jabal Omar, Thakher (Dhakhir) Makkah, Dahiyat Sumou, Masar, and Makkah Zones 1 and 2, eleven named areas in all.

3. GASTAT — Hajj statistics · 1 Jun 2026
   Hajj 2026 had 1,707,301 pilgrims, of whom 1,546,655 came from abroad.

4. Emirates 24|7 — Emaar hands over Makkah flats · 9 Jul 2013
   Residences in the Abraj Al Bait Makkah Clock Royal Tower were sold on a 23-year leasehold, with an optional rental pool run by Fairmont Hotels & Resorts — not as freehold.

5. General Authority for Awqaf — King Abdulaziz Endowment
   The Abraj Al Bait complex stands on land King Fahd endowed as the King Abdulaziz Endowment for the Two Holy Mosques, developed on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis with a use term of 35 Hijri years.

Where each fact above comes from, with the source’s own date where it gives one.

1. Arab News — zones list · 24 Jun 2026
   The designated zones named in Madinah are Al-Ghurra, Madinah Zones 1 and 2, Al-Mahwa, Darat Al-Hijra, Downtown Madinah, Diyar Al-Maqar, Rua Al-Madinah, Knowledge Economic City, and Mishraf, ten named areas in all.

2. TAIBA — company website · 10 Sep 2026
   Taiba Investments, a Saudi-listed hospitality company, operates hotels in Madinah and is developing a Waldorf Astoria of around 300 rooms and a Sheraton of around 435 rooms near the Prophet's Mosque.

Where each fact above comes from, with the source’s own date where it gives one.

1. REGA — system enters into force · 22 Jan 2026
   In Makkah and Madinah, non-Saudi ownership and real rights are limited to Muslim natural persons (Law Art. 2(4)); REGA states this applies whether residing inside or outside the Kingdom.

2. REGA — law text, Art. 2(4) · 25 Jul 2025
   Article 2(4) of the Law of Real Estate Ownership by Non-Saudis (Royal Decree M/14, in force 22 January 2026) limits the non-Saudi right to own property (تملك) and to acquire other real rights over it in Makkah and Madinah to Muslim natural persons, and the right it restricts is ownership itself, so a Muslim individual may own inside the designated zones and is not limited to usufruct.

3. REGA — law text, Art. 2(3) · 25 Jul 2025
   In Makkah and Madinah, non-Saudi purchases are only possible inside the designated geographic zones; the 'one residence outside zones' right for residents does not apply to the two holy cities.

4. GDN — Saudi hotel sector, Makkah RevPAR rises 8.7pc: JLL · 26 Aug 2026
   JLL reported that in Q2 2026 Makkah hotel occupancy rose 4.0 percentage points year on year to 68.2% with RevPAR up 8.7%, while Madinah recorded the Kingdom's highest occupancy at 75.1% with RevPAR down 2.4%.

5. Ministry of Justice — الصفقات العقارية 2026 الربع الثاني (open.data.gov.sa) · 30 Jun 2026
   The Ministry of Justice publishes every registered real-estate sale in the Kingdom each quarter on the national open-data portal as a per-transaction table (region, city, district, date, property class, number of properties, price and area) under the Open Data Licence; the second-quarter 2026 file holds 34,664 sales, 1,373 of them in Makkah and 2,315 in Madinah.

6. Knight Frank — Saudi Arabia residential market review, H1 2025 · 1 Aug 2025
   Knight Frank reported that in the first half of 2025 residential transaction values in Madinah rose 49% year on year to SAR 3.4 billion with volumes up 38%, while in Makkah transaction values fell 33% and volumes rose 11%.

7. REGA — law text, Art. 2(4) read with Art. 5 · 25 Jul 2025
   A Premium Residency holder who is a Muslim natural person may own property inside the designated zones of Makkah and Madinah under the 2026 Law of Real Estate Ownership by Non-Saudis (Art. 2(4)), because Art. 5 of that law preserves Premium Residency rights; the older Premium Residency Law wording (ownership only outside the two holy cities, usufruct of up to 99 years inside) no longer states the governing rule for such a buyer.

8. Argaam — Umrah H1 2025 · 15 Jul 2025
   20.7 million Umrah pilgrims were recorded in the first half of 2025.

9. CMA announcement via GlobeNewswire · 28 Jan 2025
   On 27 January 2025 the Capital Market Authority allowed foreign investors to buy shares or convertible debt of Saudi-listed companies that own real estate in Makkah and Madinah, with combined non-Saudi ownership capped at 49% of a company's shares and foreign strategic investors excluded.

10. CMA announcement via GlobeNewswire · 28 Jan 2025
    Non-Saudis have been permitted since 2021 to subscribe to real estate funds that invest within the boundaries of Makkah and Madinah, according to the Capital Market Authority.

11. FHWA — Capacity Analysis of Pedestrian and Bicycle Facilities (FHWA-HRT-98-107) · 1 Feb 1998
    The US Federal Highway Administration's pedestrian capacity study recommends a walking speed of 1.2 metres per second for most conditions, and 1.0 metres per second where more than a fifth of the people using a facility are aged 65 or over.

12. Saudi Properties portal — zone boundaries
    Zone areas and distances on this site come from the boundaries the Saudi Properties portal publishes for each zone; a distance is the straight line from the nearest point of that boundary to the Grand Mosque or the Prophet's Mosque, so the walk is always longer.

13. Ministry of Justice — الصفقات العقارية (open.data.gov.sa)
    Zullfa's district figures are counts and medians of the ministry's residential deeds (price divided by deed area, land and built property together, only districts with at least ten sales in the quarter), and they describe what changed hands in a district, which is different from the price of a finished apartment.

14. Saudi Properties portal — zone boundaries
    A designated zone is not necessarily near the mosque: measured from each zone's nearest boundary point, Makkah's zones run from about 310 metres to about 16.7 kilometres from the Grand Mosque, and Madinah's from about 650 metres to about 12.4 kilometres from the Prophet's Mosque.

Where each fact above comes from, with the source’s own date where it gives one.