How many people are imprisoned in Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabia's prison population is 48,660 people. This figure aggregates all forms of detention counted by the source: sentenced prisoners, pre-trial detainees, and administrative detentions.

What is the incarceration rate in Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabia's incarceration rate is approximately 140 people per 100,000 population.

How many prisons are there in Saudi Arabia?

World Prisons indexes 17 individual facilities in Saudi Arabia. Each entry links to a detail page with contact information, capacity, oversight reports, and known conditions.

All countries

Asia · Western Asia

Saudi Arabia

Q: Does Saudi Arabia have the death penalty?

Saudi Arabia's death-penalty status is: retentionist. Seeded from Amnesty International 2024 categorisation + Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.

High confidence

Verified 20 May 2026 · Data dated 1 Jan 2019

Fresh · 2mo ago

Public statistics extremely limited. Figure is a WPB estimate.

Compare Saudi Arabia World Prison Brief page

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

Prison population

48,660

Year: 2019

Rate per 100,000

140

Per 100,000 residents

Occupancy

—

At or under capacity

Pre-trial / remand

48.3%

Share not yet sentenced

Female prisoners

1.9%

Foreign nationals

51.4%

Figures from official sources · verified 20 May 2026 · methodology

Conditions risk — across 17 facilities

Average of our computed Conditions Risk Score across the country's facilities. Methodology · Browse highest-risk

—

national average

17 unknown

retentionist on capital punishment. Last known execution: 2025.Methods: beheadingICCPR-OP2 (death-penalty abolition protocol): not a signatory

Seeded from Amnesty International 2024 categorisation + Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.

Executions by year (Amnesty International)

2019
184
2020
27
2021
65
2022
196
2023
172
2024
345

Source: Amnesty International + Cornell Death Penalty Worldwide.

How Saudi Arabia compares

vs Asia (16) & global averages

Rate per 100,000this: 140 · region: 165 · global: 214

Pre-trial sharethis: 48% · region: 32% · global: 32%

The vertical ticks mark the global (grey) and regional (amber) means. Bars are clipped at the high end for readability.

Prison population over time

Annual figures, latest survey year

1998: 23,088+110.8% over 21y2019: 48,660

Source: World Prison Brief / unodc

What we know — and don't

Transparency about the boundaries of this data. Click sources where linked.

What we don't know

Official annual figures not released; capacity and demographics unpublished.

Prisons in Saudi Arabia

Browse all 17 →

17 facilities in our database. Saudi Arabia has many more facilities than listed here; we're expanding the database with verified entries.

Al-Ha'ir Prison

Saudi Arabia

Maximum

Type

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Capacity

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Held

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Al Malaz Prison

Saudi Arabia

Type

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Capacity

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Held

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Dammam prison

Saudi Arabia

Type

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Capacity

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Held

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Dhahban Central Prison

Saudi Arabia

Type

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Capacity

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Held

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Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia

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Data completeness

85%

Score based on how many fields are populated. We surface this so you know where the gaps are.

National population: 34,810,0002019
Source-verified: 20 May 2026
Source links: 2 cited

Sources

Direct citations for the figures on this page.

Primary reference
World Prison Brief (ICPS, Birkbeck) — Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research
Amnesty International â country pages — Amnesty International
See /data-sources for our methodology.

ISO 3166-1 alpha-3: SAU

Cite this page

Under CC-BY-4.0. Include the URL and access date; the site is a living reference and entries can change.

APA

World Prisons. (2026). Saudi Arabia — prison statistics. Retrieved July 20, 2026, from https://worldprisons.com/countries/saudi-arabia

Chicago

"Saudi Arabia — prison statistics." World Prisons. Accessed July 20, 2026. https://worldprisons.com/countries/saudi-arabia.

BibTeX

@misc{worldprisons-saudi-arabia,
  author = {{World Prisons}},
  title = {Saudi Arabia — prison statistics},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://worldprisons.com/countries/saudi-arabia},
  urldate = {2026-07-20}
}