Riyadh Prayer Times

Prayer Times in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Riyadhprayer times are calculated based on the city's precise geographic coordinates (24.7136°N, 46.6753°E) using the Umm al-Qura calculation method — the standard followed by most mosques in Saudi Arabia. Times shown are for today's date and update automatically at midnight.

The five daily prayers — Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, and Isha — are calculated from the sun's position relative to Riyadh's latitude and longitude. As the sun's declination changes throughout the year, prayer times shift by several minutes each day. This is why a Riyadh prayer time calendar for the full month is shown below — so you can plan ahead without checking daily.

How Riyadh's prayer times are worked out

Riyadh sits 790 km (491 miles) from the Kaaba in Mecca, so the Qibla from here is 244° from true north — you face southwest to pray. Fajr and Isha depend on how far the sun drops below the horizon, and Saudi Arabia follows the Umm al-Qura method set by Umm al-Qura University, Makkah: Fajr begins when the sun is 18.5° below the horizon, and Isha is fixed at 90 minutes after Maghrib rather than an angle. A city that used ISNA's 15° instead would get a noticeably different Fajr — which is why the method, not just the coordinates, decides the answer.

Day length is what really moves the timetable in Riyadh. Measured with the Umm al-Qura method, the longest daily fast here — from Fajr to Maghrib — runs about 15h 12m around June, while the shortest is roughly 12h 00m in December: a swing of 3h 12m across the year. That spread is set by Riyadh's latitude (24.71°N); cities nearer the equator barely vary, while far-northern ones swing by many hours.

Riyadh sits close to the meridian of its Asia/Riyadh time zone, so the sun peaks within 1 minutes of clock noon and Dhuhr lands near midday — today at 11:59 AM. Dhuhr always tracks the sun's peak, not the clock. The nearest cities we also publish times for are Ad Dir‘īyah, Al Kharj, Ad Dawādimī — close enough that their times differ from Riyadh's by only a few minutes.