INLAND PORT PROFILE — RIYADH
Riyadh Dry Port Profile
The Kingdom’s largest inland port and the customs frontier for the capital: 918,639 m² of yard on the Dammam freight railway, operated by Saudi Global Ports under a Saudi Arabia Railways concession, on a path to 1.5 million containers a year.
Type
Inland customs port · rail terminal
Owner
Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR)
Operator
SGP Riyadh (Saudi Global Ports)
Area
918,639 m²
Opened
1982
Capacity target
1.5 million containers / year by 2030
Operator and ownership
- Owner
- Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR), the PIF-owned national rail company, whose mandate covers rail infrastructure, stations, dry ports and end-to-end logistics.
- Operator
- SGP Riyadh, an entity of Saudi Global Ports — the PSA International and Public Investment Fund joint venture that also runs the container terminals at King Abdulaziz Port Dammam.
- Concession
- A 10-year concession signed on 7 December 2021 following a public-private partnership tender under the Kingdom’s Privatization Supervisory Committee. SGP assumed operations on 14 March 2022, in under four months.
- Scope
- The concession covers the Riyadh Dry Port Ecosystem — three facilities across Riyadh and Dammam, including the Riyadh Empty Yard for repositioning empty export boxes.
- Customs authority
- Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA), which operates the customs post that makes this an inland port rather than a container yard.
Location and coordinates
In the As-Sinaiyah industrial district of Al-Malaz, Riyadh, adjacent to Riyadh railway station and reached from Exit 16 on the ring road — inside the city, which is both its advantage for last-mile distribution and its constraint on expansion.
- Coordinates
- ≈24.65° N, 46.75° E
- Area
- 918,639 m²
- Warehouses
- Six, of 6,480 m² each
- Rail
- On SAR’s East network, 556 km from King Abdulaziz Port Dammam
- Established
- 1982 — the Kingdom’s first and largest inland port
Cargo types handled
Terminal facilities
- Container yard
- The main handling area, served by more than 100 units of container and cargo handling equipment purchased and commissioned by SAR and SGP around the handover.
- Warehouses
- Six warehouses of 6,480 m² each for general and consolidated cargo.
- Rail sidings
- Direct sidings on SAR’s East network, taking trains from Dammam, Jubail Commercial Port, King Fahd Industrial Port and Ras Al-Khair.
- Customs inspection
- ZATCA inspection facilities on site — the point at which sea freight destined for the capital is actually cleared.
- Riyadh Empty Yard (REY)
- A dedicated facility for repositioning empty containers for exports, opened as part of the SGP concession.
- Gate & weighbridge
- Weighbridge and gate handling, with published overweight limits of 25 tonnes for a 20 ft unit and 30.5 tonnes for 40 ft and longer.
A dry port is a customs frontier that happens to be inland. That is the function to hold on to: the value here is not the yard, it is the ability to move a sealed box 556 km from the quay and clear it where the consignee is.
Annual tonnage and TEU
| Metric | Figure | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Containers handled | 500,000 TEU | 2013 |
| Capacity target | 1.5 million containers / year | by 2030 |
| SAR network containers moved | ≈878,100 | 2024 |
| SAR network cargo moved | 28.6 million t | 2024 |
| Rail link capacity | up to 140 TEU per train | current |
| Current annual throughput | n/p | not published |
Neither SAR nor SGP publishes a current annual throughput series for the dry port, so the throughput cell stays n/p. The network-level SAR figures are published and are the best available context. Historically the facility grew from around 21,000 containers in both directions in 1981 to more than 318,000 in 2006.
SOURCES · Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR) · Saudi Global Ports · PSA International · Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani)
Main carriers and shipping lines
A dry port has no shipping lines of its own. The container lines calling at Dammam and Jubail route boxes here under through bills of lading, with SAR as the rail operator and SGP as the terminal operator. MSC was the line on the inaugural Jubail-to-Riyadh container train.
Road and rail connections
- Rail — Dammam
- SAR’s East network runs 556 km from King Abdulaziz Port Dammam through Al-Ahsa, Abqaiq, Al-Kharj and Haradh to this terminal. It is the Kingdom’s only established port-to-inland container railway.
- Rail — Jubail, Ras Al-Khair
- SAR’s networks also connect the dry port with Jubail Commercial Port, King Fahd Industrial Port Jubail and Ras Al-Khair Port. The first container train from Jubail carried 78 TEU on a line rated for up to 140 TEU per trip.
- Road
- Exit 16 on the ring road, with the Eastern Ring Road and Highway 40 to Dammam. Road remains the majority mode for Riyadh-bound sea freight; rail is the growth story rather than the incumbent.
- Air
- King Khalid International Airport is roughly 40 km north.
Customs facilities
This is a full ZATCA customs post — the point of clearance for a substantial share of Riyadh-bound sea freight, and the reason it is called a port rather than a terminal.
Containers move inland from Dammam and Jubail under customs seal in bonded transit and are cleared here, which puts the clearance, the inspection and the delivery point in the same city as the consignee.
FASAH carries the declarations. Automation of customer services on a 24/7 basis is one of the stated objectives of the SGP concession.
Cold-chain capability
Reefer plugs are available on the yard for temperature-controlled boxes in transit, but the dry port is a handling and clearance facility rather than a cold-storage operator.
Riyadh’s deeper cold-chain capacity sits in the surrounding logistics estates and in the air-cargo cold stores at King Khalid International Airport. Riyadh is the fastest-growing cold-chain region in the Kingdom, largely because SFDA, customs and the major healthcare buyers are all in the capital.
Dangerous-goods capability
IMDG-classified containers move by rail under SAR and ZATCA rules, with prior approval and class restrictions.
Restricted classes are commonly routed by road rather than rail, and explosives move through King Abdulaziz Port Dammam’s dedicated Berth 39 rather than through the inland network.
Expansion projects
- SGP modernisation programme
- Under the concession, SAR and SGP are working to raise the efficiency of the Riyadh–Dammam freight line and more than double handling capacity to 1.5 million containers a year by 2030, with 24/7 automated customer services, cost-effective last-mile delivery and enhanced rail services and incentives for exporters.
- Riyadh Empty Yard
- A dedicated empty-container repositioning facility, opened to support export flows out of the capital.
- Integrated Dammam operation
- SGP operates the dry port and Dammam seaport as a single system to improve network flow and reduce logistics cost.
- SAR logistics corridors
- SAR’s wider programme of new freight corridors, aimed at shifting a larger share of inland container movement from road to rail.
Official contact links
- Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR) ↗
- The owner and rail operator — freight services and network.
- Saudi Global Ports ↗
- The terminal operator — tariffs and customer services.
- ZATCA ↗
- Customs clearance and bonded-transit rules.
- FASAH ↗
- The national trade single window.
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Latest related news
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Frequently asked questions
What is a dry port?
An inland facility with a customs post, connected to a seaport by rail or road, where containers arriving by sea are cleared. Riyadh Dry Port is the Kingdom’s largest and oldest — open since 1982 — and it clears a substantial share of the capital’s sea freight without that cargo ever being cleared at the coast.
Who operates Riyadh Dry Port?
SGP Riyadh, part of Saudi Global Ports — the PSA International and PIF joint venture — under a 10-year concession from Saudi Arabia Railways signed in December 2021, with operations assumed on 14 March 2022.
How does cargo get there from the coast?
By rail on SAR’s East network, 556 km from King Abdulaziz Port Dammam via Al-Ahsa, Abqaiq, Al-Kharj and Haradh, with connections also from Jubail Commercial Port, King Fahd Industrial Port and Ras Al-Khair. Boxes travel under customs seal and are cleared on arrival. Road remains the majority mode.
How many containers does it handle?
No current annual series is published, so this desk prints none. The recorded figure is 500,000 TEU in 2013, against a concession target of more than 1.5 million containers a year by 2030. Across its whole network SAR moved about 878,100 containers and 28.6 million tonnes of cargo in 2024.
How big is the site?
918,639 m², with six warehouses of 6,480 m² each, in the As-Sinaiyah district of Al-Malaz next to Riyadh railway station.
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