Saudi Arabia is very strict in its policies and rules to curb the spread of corona virus and 20 countries including India & Pakistan are currently banned and people from these countries are not allowed to travel directly to Saudi Arabia.

However, Saudi Arabia has recently opened its borders starting from 17th May and now Saudi Citizens are allowed to travel to most of the countries (with few exceptions) by adhering to the travel requirements of respective countries. Similarly, people from all those countries which are not in the list of banned countries are allowed to travel to Saudi Arabia with certain conditions including a negative PCR test before travel, institutional quarantine for unvaccinated travellers and allowing vaccinated travellers to go home without any institutional quarantine.

Saudi Arabia has a list of allowed covid vaccines and people who have vaccination certificate for these permitted vaccines are allowed to travel without institutional quarantine. People who get vaccinated by any other vaccine which is not in the approved vaccines list will be treated same as un-vaccinated people and will be required to go through quarantine process.

List of Approved Vaccines by Saudi Arabia

As of now (by 29th May 2021), following are the approved vaccines by Saudi Arabia for travellers coming to Saudi Arabia from abroad:

•  Pfizer BioNTech Vaccine (2 Doses)
•  Oxford AstraZeneca Vaccine (2 Doses)
• Moderna Vaccine (2 Doses)
• Johnson and Johnson’s coronavirus vaccines (Single Dose)

Is Chinese Vaccine Sinopharm and Sinovac Accepted by Saudi Arabia?

At the time of writing this post (29th May 2021), Covid-19 Vaccines produced by Chinese companies (Sinopharm and Sinovac) are not approved by Saudi Arabia for people travelling to Saudi Arabia.

Update: Chinese vaccines with a booster shot are accepted now in Saudi Arabia. Refer to below article for more details on it.

Chinese Vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac Accepted By Saudi Arabia

Is Russian Sputnik V Vaccine Approved by Saudi Arabia?

Russian Covid-19 Vaccine (Sputnik V) is also not accepted or approved by Saudi Arabia for travellers travelling to Saudi Arabia as of now (29th May 2021)