Saudi Arabia extends alcohol sales to higher-earning residents

The slow loosening of rules around access to alcohol is in line with wider efforts to ease social restrictions and make Riyadh a more competitive hub for business and investment.

Saudi Arabia has taken further steps to relax rules around the sale of alcohol by allowing non-Muslim foreign residents with monthly earnings of 50,000 riyals ($13,300) or more to make purchases, according to people familiar with the matter.

Residents must prove their income by showing a salary certificate to gain entry to the country’s only liquor outlet, located in Riyadh, said the people, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. The store opened last year for sales to foreign diplomats and recently extended access to non-Muslims with so-called premium residency status.

There have been no official communications about the changes and the government didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Customers at the Riyadh outlet can make purchases under a monthly point-based allowance system, the people said. New liquor stores are also being built in two cities elsewhere in the country, Bloomberg has previously reported.

The slow loosening of rules around access to alcohol is in line with wider efforts to ease social restrictions and make Riyadh a more competitive hub for business and investment. Saudi Arabia sees drawing foreign talent and capital as critical to its economic transformation.

In the past several years, the country reversed a ban on women driving, allowed public entertainment, music and the mixing of genders, and encouraged tourism. The pace of change highlights how delicate a task it is to modernize the kingdom, the birthplace of Islam and home to the religion’s two holiest sites.