Saudi Business Confidence Holds at 56.7 Points, 6.7 Above the Neutral Line
Saudi Arabia’s business confidence index reached 56.7 points in August, up 0.2 points on July, the statistics authority said on Wednesday. The index runs from 0 to 100 with 50 as neutral, so August sits 6.7 points inside optimistic territory, and all three published sectors sit above the line.
The authority describes the reading as reflecting prevailing optimism in the business sector.
Thirteen months of the series
| Month | Points | Month | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| August 2025 | 60.8 | March 2026 | 52.1 |
| September 2025 | 61.7 | April 2026 | 54.5 |
| October 2025 | 61.1 | May 2026 | 55.6 |
| November 2025 | 60.7 | June 2026 | 56.6 |
| December 2025 | 62.0 | July 2026 | 56.5 |
| January 2026 | 61.6 | August 2026 | 56.7 |
| February 2026 | 60.7 |
The authority’s full published series for the thirteen months. December 2025 is the highest reading in it.
The shape of the series is one step down and a partial climb back. Between February and March the index fell 8.6 points on our calculation, to within 2.1 points of neutral. It then added 4.5 points across April, May and June, giving back 0.1 in July and adding 0.2 in August, so it has recovered 53.5 percent of the fall on our calculation. The authority publishes no explanation for the March move.
August is 4.1 points below the same month last year and 5.3 points below the December peak, both on our calculation.
All three sectors are optimistic and they sit close together
Industry rose to 55.8 points from 54.7, which the authority attributes to confidence in overall performance and employment. Services rose to 56.1 from 55.3, attributed to fixed investment expenditure and overall performance. Construction eased to 57.3 from 57.7, attributed to expectations about input costs this month and next, and remains the most confident of the three.
The spread between the highest and lowest sector is 1.5 points. The index covers non-oil activities only, which the authority states in its own notes, so it reads the diversified economy rather than the whole of it. No breakdown by company size is published, and the sub indices for production, orders, employment and prices appear only as narrative, not as numbers.
Why it matters: The level is what matters most here and it is comfortably positive: 56.7 points with every sector above neutral, in the non-oil economy specifically. The series adds the useful qualification that the index has moved very little since June, adding 0.1 point across two months, so the rapid recovery of the spring has flattened into a plateau well above the neutral line rather than continuing upward.
Outlook: The September index is due in early October and the authority’s July industrial production figures are due tomorrow. Two things are worth watching: whether construction’s small decline extends, since input costs are the stated reason and it is the only sector easing, and whether the index resumes the pace of April to June, when it added 4.5 points in three months on our calculation.
Sources: General Authority for Statistics of Saudi Arabia.
