"How much does it cost to rent an excavator in Riyadh?" is the question we are asked most. The honest answer has a range, a method and a sample size attached.
What follows is not a price list. It is what suppliers quoted on real requests between April and August 2026 (13,820+ of them) reduced to the middle half of the offers for each size, with the number of quotes printed next to it.
In short
- Riyadh, excluding VAT. Each range is the middle half of quotes: a quarter of offers came in below it and a quarter above.
- The quote count is part of the price. A size the whole market quotes is a market; one a few yards quote is an anecdote.
- A month is about twenty-five days of the daily rate, not thirty.
- Jeddah tracks Riyadh closely; Dammam runs a little higher: indicative, not measured to the same depth.
What the most-quoted machines rent for
One row per family, taking the size that suppliers quoted most often, which is also the size you are most likely to be able to find:
| Machine and size | Per month, SAR | How often quoted |
|---|---|---|
| Crawler excavator, 20 t | 16,000-20,000 | Most quoted |
| Backhoe loader, 74-109 hp | 12,375-15,000 | Most quoted |
| All-terrain crane, 50 t | 22,000-25,000 | Most quoted |
| Forklift, 10 t | 13,000-16,125 | Most quoted |
| Crawler excavator, 50 t | 35,000-40,000 | Often quoted |
| Motor grader, 12-14 ft | 23,250-27,000 | Often quoted |
| Generator, 500 kVA | 13,000-15,500 | Often quoted |
| Wheel loader, 5 m³ | 15,000-18,000 | Often quoted |
| Dozer, D8 class | 36,250-44,500 | Some quotes |
Day, week, month
Where a machine was quoted for more than one period, the relationship is consistent: the month lands near twenty-five days of the daily rate, and four weeks costs at least as much as a month.
| Machine | Per day | Per week | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crawler excavator, 20 t | 650-800 | 4,000-5,250 | 16,000-20,000 |
| Backhoe loader, 74-109 hp | 500-560 | 2,888 | 12,375-15,000 |
Many sizes have no daily figure at all: 10-tonne forklifts, 500 kVA generators and the mid-size wheel loaders were quoted monthly only. That is not an omission; it is how this market trades.
How these numbers were made
The rule we hold ourselves to
A size is only published when at least five suppliers have quoted it. Below that the page says so rather than filling the gap, which is why you will find machines listed here with no price against them.
What the range means
It is the 25th to 75th percentile of the offers for that size: the middle half. A quarter of quotes sat below the low end, so "from X" would be a misleading way to write it, and a single midpoint would hide how wide the market is.
What is not in the number
- VAT: all figures exclude it.
- Transport: mobilisation is quoted separately and charged in both directions; the median one-way figure runs from about 1,000 SAR on a 20-tonne excavator to 5,500 on a D8 dozer.
- Fuel, not captured in the quotes at all. Agree who fills the tank.
- The operator: included in some offers and not others, and it varies by size inside the same machine class.
Cities
Jeddah tracks Riyadh closely. Dammam runs slightly higher. Those two statements are indicative rather than measured to the same depth as the Riyadh rows, and we would rather say that than dress them up.
Getting a real number for your job
- Use the table as a sanity check. If an offer sits far outside it, ask what is different: scope, condition, distance or duration.
- Give the duration up front. It is the largest single lever on the total.
- Ask for transport, operator and fuel as separate lines, so two offers can be compared at all.
- Ask several yards the same written question. On the most-quoted machine in the market the middle half of offers still spans a quarter of the price.
Per-machine figures, updated as new quotes arrive, are on the rental rates page. How a request works explains the rest.
Source: Moedatech platform data. The published ranges rest on 13,820+ supplier quotes given on the platform between April and August 2026. Figures on this page are Riyadh unless stated, in Saudi riyals, excluding VAT. A quote count in a table is the number of offers received for that one machine size in that period; it is not a measure of how many suppliers or machines are on the platform, which the company publishes separately. Operator share and mobilisation are medians across the quotes for that size, and a price range is the middle half of them, so a quarter of offers sit below it and a quarter above.
