Report contents
MENA · Emerging
Saudi Arabia
Crypto Livability Index 2025·data to 31 Dec 2025
Scoreboard
Five pillars, then the 22 sub-pillars scored 0 to 4. Empty sub-scores are held out of the total, not zeroed.
The number behind the rank
| Raw capability score | 42 / 84 |
| P2P liquidity bonus (tie-breaker) | +2 |
| Inflation 2% · unbanked 21% · remittances 0% GDP · capital controls 0.3 · sanctions 0 | CNI 0.110 |
| Need multiplier | ×0.666 |
| Livability score | 0.333 |
Raw 42/84 = 0.500 capability. Crypto-Necessity Index 0.11, from five components: inflation 2% (three-year average 2023 to 2025), unbanked 21% of adults, remittances 0% of GDP, capital-control intensity 0.30 (KAOPEN 2023), sanctions exposure 0. Need multiplier ×0.67. Livability score 0.333, rank #64 of 79.
Three findings
The best gift-card spending catalog in MENA, on a grey-market base
Saudi Arabia posts a top-band 4 for gift cards: Bitrefill launched the market with 73 brands and has expanded well past 100 unique SKUs, spanning Noon, Amazon.sa, STC, Careem, LuLu, Tamimi, Nahdi, Carrefour, and food delivery, the deepest catalog of any MENA country outside the UAE, fuelled by high disposable income and a digitally native young population.
A zero-tax haven without a domestic exchange
With no personal income tax and no capital gains framework, individual crypto activity is taxed at zero, structurally identical to the UAE. Yet SAMA bars banks from processing crypto absent explicit approval and no domestic exchange is licensed, so residents reach offshore platforms and Bahrain-licensed Rain, and merchants, ATMs, and utility bills all score zero.
Capability the need side discounts: a -8 slide
Saudi Arabia ranks #56 raw but #64 once need is applied, because the Crypto-Necessity Index reads 0.11 on 2 percent inflation and modest controls, and as the world's second-largest remittance-sending economy with more than 40 billion dollars flowing out, its inbound remittance corridor scores 0. The pillar reads near-floor by construction for a wealthy net sender.
In one line
"Saudi Arabia gives crypto holders zero tax and one of the richest spending catalogs in the region, then withholds a single licensed exchange. The appetite and the wealth are there; the rulebook has not yet caught up to them."
Watch in 2026
Trajectory 2/4, stable with a late-2025 positive signal. The 2018 effective prohibition held through the year, but in November 2025 Minister Al-Hogail announced plans for nationally regulated stablecoins under joint SAMA and capital-market oversight, and SAMA took indirect Bitcoin exposure via a MicroStrategy stake in May 2025. No draft legislation existed at the cutoff, so the signal is ministerial intent rather than enacted policy.