Bybit in Saudi Arabia: the Islamic Account, riyals and fees

Bybit answers a question many Saudi buyers ask before they ask about fees: is there a way to trade that a Sharia board has actually looked at? Since September 2024 it has offered an Islamic Account, a spot-only mode with a screened token list certified by ZICO Shariah and CryptoHalal. Add a SAR P2PP2PPeer-to-peer: you buy directly from another user on the exchange, which holds the coins in escrow until the seller confirms your bank or wallet transfer. market where Al Rajhi, SNB, Alinma and stc pay show up on ads, and you have the second most used exchange in the Kingdom after Binance. This review covers availability, what the Islamic Account does and does not do, the riyal rails, fees, and where Bybit loses to a card-first or Gulf-licensed platform.

We checked Bybit's help centre, its press announcements and the Saudi regulators' statements in October 2026. Bybit's restricted-countries page timed out on direct fetches, so what we report about it comes from the help-centre snippet; we flag that below rather than hide it.

Who Bybit suits in Saudi Arabia

Three profiles get the most from Bybit. First, anyone for whom the halal question comes before the price: the Islamic Account mode strips out margin, futures and interest products and limits you to screened spot tokens, so you can use the exchange without seeing a leverage button. Second, people who want to pay in riyals from a Saudi bank or stc pay rather than a dollar-charged card; the SAR P2P market is the second deepest after Binance. Third, expats, because user reports say KYCKYCKnow Your Customer: the identity check (ID document, selfie, sometimes proof of address) an exchange runs before it lets you trade or withdraw. accepts an Iqama as well as a national ID, which is not documented for every competitor.

It is a weaker fit if you want a published SAR fee schedule, a licensed Gulf entity or a plain card purchase with no P2P. For those, a Gulf-licensed platform such as CoinMENA gives you an official SAR bank deposit, and a card-first exchange charges your Visa in dollars without a chat window. Bybit's own card route works, but through third-party processors at a surcharge.

Availability and the licensing sentence

Bybit publishes a "Service Restricted Countries" article in its help centre. According to the summary of that article (last updated May 2026), the excluded jurisdictions include the United States, mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Uzbekistan, Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine, Sevastopol, Sudan, Syria and Dubai. Saudi Arabia is not named on that list as far as the help centre shows. We could not load the full article directly, so if you are reading this before opening an account, check the page yourself; the link is in our sources.

Not restricted is not the same as licensed. Bybit holds no licence from the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) or the Capital Market Authority (CMA), and neither does any other crypto exchange; the 2018 Standing Committee statement that virtual currencies are not approved and nobody is licensed to deal in them remains the official position. Using Bybit from Saudi Arabia is not prohibited for an individual, but it is unregulated: no Saudi authority will mediate if something goes wrong, and SAMA-supervised banks offer no crypto services of their own. Our legal guide explains what that means for bank transfers and account reviews.

The Islamic Account: what it is and is not

Bybit launched the Islamic Account on 24 September 2024. Switching it on turns your account into a spot-only environment: no margin, no futures or perpetuals, no lending or interest-bearing Earn products. The token list is screened, with 75 tokens at launch, and the mode supports dollar-cost-averaging and grid trading bots built on spot orders. Bybit states that the screening and structure are certified by ZICO Shariah, a Malaysian Sharia advisory firm, and by CryptoHalal. No other large global exchange offers a comparable account mode; Binance's Sharia Earn is a staking product, not a trading mode, and Rain's Shariyah Review Bureau certificate covers its Bahrain brokerage for three coins.

Two cautions keep this honest. First, a certificate from a Sharia advisory firm is an opinion of that firm's scholars; it is not a fatwa from the Council of Senior Scholars, which has issued no collective ruling on crypto, and it does not change the view of scholars such as Sheikh Abdullah Al-Manea, who said in 2018 that Bitcoin resembles usury and gambling. Second, the account mode cannot make an individual token halal if the project itself fails the conditions commonly cited: no ribaRibaInterest or usury, prohibited in Islamic finance; the reason most scholars exclude lending and interest-bearing Earn products., no ghararGhararExcessive uncertainty or speculation, which scholars compare to gambling when a product has no real underlying utility., real underlying utility, spot rather than leveraged. Our halal guide sets out the positions on each side so you can decide with full information.

Getting riyals in: the SAR P2P market

Bybit has no SAR wallet, no SARIESARIEThe Saudi instant interbank transfer system used by every local bank for riyal payments. deposit and no mada rail. Riyals enter through P2P: you choose an ad selling USDT for SAR, Bybit locks the seller's coins in escrowEscrowCoins held by the exchange during a P2P trade and released to the buyer only after the seller confirms payment., you pay from your own bank app or wallet, mark the order paid, and the seller releases. Bybit began recruiting SAR merchants in July 2022 with bank transfer, Apple Pay, Alinma, SABB, Al Rajhi and Al Ahli as the planned methods. User test reports from this year list Al Rajhi, SNB, Alinma, stc pay and SAB on live ads. Bybit itself does not publish an official Saudi method list, so open the SAR market, filter by payment method and read the ad before you count on a bank.

On stc pay specifically: it operates under stc bank, a SAMA-supervised bank, and its published terms contain no clause about crypto one way or the other. It appears as a P2P method per user reports only; do not read that as stc pay permitting or endorsing anything. The same applies to bank transfers from Al Rajhi, SNB or Alinma: a domestic transfer between two individuals clears normally, but an unusual pattern of inbound transfers can trigger a compliance review at any bank. Pay only from an account in your own name matching your Bybit profile, keep the memo neutral, and never release before the money has landed. The P2P guide lists the scams aimed at Saudi buyers.

Fees and limits you will actually see

Bybit's spot fee at the base tier is 0.1% for both maker and taker, and P2P trades carry no Bybit fee for either side, according to fee comparisons rather than a Bybit fee page we could render. That makes the seller's premium over the 3.75 peg the real P2P cost; it moves with demand and is typically a small margin, so compare ads rather than assume a number. One-click buys with a Saudi Visa, Mastercard or Apple Pay run through processors such as Banxa or Mercuryo that add roughly 2–4%; in user tests Apple Pay went through where a mada debit card was declined by the issuing bank. Withdrawal fees depend on the network, with USDT on TRC-20 the cheapest common route.

SAR rails

P2P only; no SAR wallet, SARIE or mada deposit

SAR P2P methods (user reports)

Al Rajhi, SNB, Alinma, stc pay, SAB; no official Saudi list published

Spot fee

0.1% maker / 0.1% taker at base tier (secondary source)

P2P fee

0% (secondary source); seller premium is the real cost

Card / Apple Pay

Via third-party processors, roughly +2–4%

Islamic Account

Spot only, screened tokens, DCA and grid bots; ZICO Shariah and CryptoHalal

KYC documents

National ID or Iqama plus selfie (user reports)

Licence relevant to KSA

None; Saudi Arabia not named on the restricted list

P2P limits are set per ad by the advertiser. Account-level withdrawal limits depend on verification tier; user reports cite a default of 1,000,000 USDT per day for verified accounts, which is far beyond what any retail buyer needs. Bybit did not publish a Saudi-specific figure on the pages we reached, so check your own limits page after KYC.

Opening an account from Saudi Arabia

1. Register and secure the account

   Email or phone, then enable two-factor authentication before anything else. Fake "Bybit support" messages are the usual entry point for account takeovers.

2. Verify with national ID or Iqama

   Upload the document and pass the selfie check. User reports say both Saudi national ID and Iqama are accepted; keep a passport ready in case the scan is rejected.

3. Decide on the Islamic Account mode

   If you want a spot-only, screened environment, switch it on before you fund the account. It removes futures, margin and interest products from your view.

4. Add a payment method and open the SAR market

   Enter your bank account, stc pay or other method in exactly the name on your ID. Filter USDT/SAR ads by that method and pick a seller with a high order count and completion rate.

5. Pay from your own account and mark as paid

   Send the exact amount with a neutral memo, tap "Paid", and wait for the seller to release. You never release anything as the buyer.

6. Withdraw what you are not trading

   Move long-term holdings to a wallet you control. Double-check the network before sending; a wrong network is not recoverable.

Bybit vs CEX.IO and Rain

Against CEX.IO the question is riyals versus simplicity. CEX.IO takes no SAR; it charges a Saudi card or Apple Pay in dollars at a published 0.49%–4.99% plus service charge, lists Pi as an IOU, and never asks you to chat with a seller. Bybit takes riyals through P2P at close to zero platform fee but with the counterparty work that implies, does not list Pi, and adds the Islamic Account that CEX.IO has no equivalent for. Against Rain, Rain is a Central Bank of Bahrain category-3 licensee with a 2019 Shariyah Review Bureau certificate for its Bahrain brokerage, which is a stronger regulatory story than Bybit's; but Rain's own pages do not document SAR deposits for Saudi residents, so for riyal funding Bybit's P2P market is the proven route and Rain is the one to confirm in-app. The full comparison ranks all eight.

Verdict

An exchange balance is not a bank deposit and prices can move while a P2P order is open, so keep on Bybit only what you are trading. If you would rather skip P2P, a card-funded purchase in dollars takes minutes; if you need an official SAR bank deposit under a Gulf licence, start with CoinMENA.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and references

1. Bybit help centre — Service Restricted Countries
2. Bybit — official site
3. Finextra — Bybit launches Islamic Account (24 Sep 2024)
4. Cointelegraph — Bybit Shariah-compliant account certified by ZICO Shariah and CryptoHalal
5. Cryptowisser — Bybit recruits SAR P2P merchants (Jul 2022)
6. Bybit wiki — Bybit Card country availability
7. stc bank — general terms and conditions (no crypto clause)
8. Capital Market Authority — Standing Committee statement on virtual currencies (2018)

Related pages

• Best exchanges8 platforms that serve Saudi residents, compared
• P2P tradingHow SAR P2P works and how to avoid scams
• USDT with STC PayBuy Tether with STC Pay (stc bank) via P2P
• Bank transferAl Rajhi, SNB, Riyad Bank and SARIE
• Crypto cardsWhat is actually available to Saudi residents