Money To Take On Arrival As New Hire

Bring a couple hundred dollars, your checkbook, and your ATM card from home. Have to get your ATM card unlocked for international travel - do that before you leave

NOTE: You won't be opening an account until your iqama (permanent residence card) is processed (it will be a few weeks)

The airport will convert your currency - you get the best rate here. The bank at the compound used to do it but now they offer the service if you have an account opened. See below about getting you to open accounts so they can occasionally freeze your funds LOL

The bank will cash a check for you up to $2000 no questions asked - using your Aramco ID
Our ATM cards work at most of the local banks

We never opened an account here anyway - they have this nasty habit of freezing accounts that we just never felt was very cool.

Best

It depends on when in the month you arrive, and when you'll get your first pay, and also how often you mind or don't mind going to the ATM or a bank to cash a check (if you don't have a car and have to take a taxi or bus just to run that errand, it can get annoying pretty fast). Personally, I think having at least SR2000 in cash upon arrival is better for a family than SR500. The cash we brought didn't last us long, and we're not extravagant spenders -- just needed to get groceries, pay for taxis, gardener setup, stuff like that. We arrived during Ramadan when it was hard to do ANYTHING and we had no greeters here in the camp to help us settle in, so we spent a lot on taxis just to get around and food to set up our cupboards those first few weeks. It was hard to do off-camp grocery shopping using the shopper's buses in the heat, so we had to shop a lot more at the commissary, which is more expensive than going outside. We brought SR with us from our US bank because, although we had made arrangements with our US bank to use our bank card in KSA, we didn't want to run the risk of arriving and finding out that there had been some glitch. Glad we did, it made it easier. BTW, the US ATM card worked fine. It took 8 weeks for us to get our iqamas (long wait for getting driver's license, opening bank account), so during that time, we were withdrawing cash from our US debit card and getting hit up with foreign transaction fees every time. Once we had the iqama, my husband set up a Saudi bank account, and we have living expenses put into the local account and the rest deposited in the US. We've not experienced this bank account freezing that someone mentioned here.

Yes, Texas. When renting from the in-camp rental company, they know where you live, and where to find you -- and I'll wager that a good bulk of their long-term auto rentals come from new arrivals, so the lack of Iqama is something quite common. They took photocopies of various ID, etc. Life gets a lot easier once the Iqama clears though. For us, the driver's license got to be an issue after being in Kingdom for 30 days and still no Iqama to get a Saudi license or buy a car. As we understand it, you can drive on your home country's license for 30 days, but after that, you're supposed to get a Saudi license. Someone here may correct me if this is misinformation. Also, when you sign the auto rental contract, ask about driving outside compound. I do not believe that it's necessarily true that you have to stay inside.There's been advice here that you can only rent for in-camp use, but I think that advice may be erroneous at this time. That's definitely a point to clarify with the rental company.