Paying a Saudi bank account from Ireland

Your euro is converted once, into riyal, and paid into an account at Al Rajhi Bank, Saudi National Bank, Riyad Bank or Alinma. Saudi Arabia uses IBANs, so the 24 character number is all you need from the person or company being paid. Transfers from a funded balance reach the Saudi bank the same day in most cases.

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Send money to Saudi Arabia

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Money leaving Ireland for Saudi Arabia

This corridor runs outward rather than homeward, and that shapes everything about it. There is no large Saudi community in Ireland sending money back. What there is instead is Irish people working in the Kingdom and Irish companies doing business there.

The workers have been going for decades. Irish trained doctors, nurses and radiographers in the big hospital groups in Riyadh and Jeddah, engineers and project managers on construction and infrastructure contracts, pilots and instructors in aviation, teachers in international schools in Al Khobar and Dhahran. When they move, money follows them out of Ireland before the first Saudi salary arrives: a rental deposit, school fees for the children, a car, the setup costs that always come before the payroll does.

The companies are the other half. Irish agri-food exporters, engineering consultancies, software firms and training providers hold Saudi contracts, and those contracts mean paying local partners, agents, subcontractors and staff in riyal, on terms the Saudi side sets.

The third group is smaller and quite specific: Muslims in Ireland paying Saudi providers for Umrah or Hajj arrangements, where the invoice is in riyal and the date is not negotiable.

Sending riyal from Ireland

Open the account

No cost, roughly five minutes and one valid identity document. Better done before you leave Ireland than after you land in the Kingdom.

Fund in euro

Move euro onto the balance from AIB, Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB, An Post Money, a credit union or Revolut by SEPA transfer.

Convert and send

Paste the 24 character Saudi IBAN, check the riyal figure and the fee, and confirm. The credit appears at the Saudi bank as a local deposit.

What a euro to riyal transfer costs

The riyal is not a freely floating currency. It is managed against the US dollar, which means the euro to riyal rate largely tracks the euro to dollar one, and a provider quoting an unusually attractive number on this pair is generally recovering it elsewhere.

So compare on the arriving amount. Take the euro you intend to send, and write down the riyal each service says will reach the account at Al Rajhi or Riyad Bank. That single figure absorbs both the fee and the rate, and it is the only number the recipient in Riyadh or Jeddah ever sees.

The riyal figure is locked at confirmation

The rate is shown before you confirm and fixed at that moment, so the amount credited in Saudi Arabia is the amount you were quoted, regardless of what the market does while the payment is in flight.

On this corridor that is usually a contractual matter rather than a convenience. A Saudi invoice, a school fee schedule or a rental agreement states a riyal amount, and paying a few riyal short because the rate drifted is not a rounding error to the person on the other end. Fixing the figure before you commit is what lets you pay the number on the document.

How this compares with an Irish bank sending an international payment

This is not a SEPA payment, so an Irish bank handles it as an international transfer with the pricing and the timescale that go with one, and with the rate typically disclosed once the payment is under way rather than while you are still deciding whether to make it. Grey reverses that order: the riyal figure and the fee are both on screen before you confirm, the rate is fixed at that point, and the transfer is trackable until it settles at the Saudi bank. For anyone paying the same Saudi account more than once, a relocating family or a company on a contract, the saved recipient and the held euro balance take most of the work out of the second and third payments. GreyTag also moves money free and instantly between Grey users, which is useful when colleagues are splitting a cost.

What the Saudi recipient sees

Riyal credited to their own account, appearing as a local deposit rather than an international wire. No collection point, no agent and no Grey account needed.

The Saudi banks

Al Rajhi Bank, Saudi National Bank, Riyad Bank, Alinma and others, all reached with the IBAN and nothing else.

Timing

From a funded balance the riyal reaches the account the same day in most cases, which suits invoices with dated payment terms.

Repeat payments

Save the Saudi recipient once. Monthly payments to the same account afterwards take a few taps and a confirmation.

Funding the Irish side

Payments to Saudi Arabia are usually tied to a date on a contract, a lease or a fee schedule, so the euro wants to be ready before that date.

Set the payee up once

Add your Grey euro details to your Irish banking app and every later top up is an ordinary domestic payment.

Fund ahead of the deadline

Saudi counterparties tend to be precise about payment dates. Move the euro across when the invoice arrives rather than the day it is due.

From another Grey user

A business partner or family member on Grey can send you euro by GreyTag, free and instant, before the riyal payment goes out.

Keep the Saudi IBAN saved with a note of what it is for, because a company paying both an agent and a landlord will otherwise be checking two long numbers every month.

What Ireland sends to Saudi Arabia

Setting up before the salary starts

Rental deposits, agency fees and the first months of living costs in Riyadh or Jeddah, sent from Ireland before the Saudi payroll begins.

School fees

International schools in the Kingdom bill by term in riyal, often before the academic year starts. The amount has to match the invoice exactly.

Contracts and partners

Irish firms paying Saudi agents, subcontractors and locally engaged staff against contracts denominated in riyal.

Pilgrimage arrangements

Payments from Ireland to Saudi providers for Umrah or Hajj services, where the riyal amount and the date are both fixed in advance.

Four patterns cover most of this corridor, and all four involve a riyal amount that somebody else has already written down.

Send money to Saudi Arabia

Why use Grey between Ireland and Saudi Arabia

The arriving figure comes first

You see the riyal that will be credited before you agree to anything, which is what a Saudi invoice or fee schedule actually requires.

One conversion, no second leg

Euro to riyal is done once inside Grey. Nothing further is applied when the money reaches Al Rajhi or Saudi National Bank.

Suits a move as well as a payment

Euro, sterling and dollar balances, the dollar account provided by Lead Bank, and a virtual Mastercard, which is useful while you are between two countries.

Who Grey is

Grey is not a bank. It is an authorised financial services provider working with regulated partners in the EU.

Tracked to settlement

Each payment is encrypted and followable from confirmation in Ireland to the moment it lands in the Saudi account.

Two things decide whether this goes smoothly: having the full Saudi IBAN, and knowing exactly which riyal figure is expected.

Saudi counterparties, schools and landlords generally state an exact amount and an exact date, and they are not flexible about either. Because Grey fixes the rate when you confirm, you can send the number written on the document rather than an approximation of it. The person or company receiving it does not need a Grey account, and what reaches their bank looks like a local deposit rather than something that has crossed a border.