How to Get a Registered SIM Card in Saudi Arabia?

Unregistered SIMs will get blocked: Several of the Hajj, Umrah and general Travel agencies and services around the world will sell the Saudi Mobile SIMs to their clients or customers.

However, after the new requirement which has been mentioned above, introduced by the Saudi authorities, all Saudi Mobile SIMs which are sold to any person by an unofficial seller or a roadside seller will get blocked after a few days only.

Where to buy them? When you have entered Saudi Arabia by a legal way, next step is to get a registered SIM card so that you can communicate with others. SIM cards are available almost on every Mobile Shop in Saudi Arabia and most of the newcomers buy from them. They will get your biometrics using biometrics machine.

If they don’t have a facility to take your biometrics, don’t even buy the SIM from them. The Saudi Government’s CITC has just recently made it mandatory to have biometric fingerprinting while you are purchasing a new Saudi Mobile SIM.

Additionally, if you are visiting Madina or Makkah, you will encounter several people sitting with small desks selling SIMs outside the Masjid e Nabvi and the Masjid Haram. Even those SIMs will stop working after a few days only.

It is advised to all people traveling to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to purchase the Saudi Mobile SIMs from the official service centers of the Saudi Mobile Operators. If you are a visitor in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, you can purchase a Saudi Mobile SIM with your passport as identification.

The list of official Saudi Mobile Operators is as follows;

Lebara KSA
Virgin Mobile KSA
Zain
Bravo
STC
Mobily
Any traveler or visitor to the Kingdom can easily find these official service centers of the Saudi Mobile Operators located at all the major locations which also include the surrounding area of Masjid e Nabvi and Masjid Haram. It is always better to buy SIMS from there.