Last week I was sourcing Riyadh 3PL space for a Shenzhen seller. The September quote was SAR 95 per pallet per month. October: SAR 140. And they insisted on a six-month commitment.
That is not an outlier. Gulf warehouse space is genuinely tight this year.
Saudi Arabia does roughly 35-40% of its annual e-commerce volume in Q4. Available pallet capacity grew less than 8% year on year. Do that math yourself.
Dubai is subtler. Ocean rates never came back down after the late-August Red Sea diversions, so plenty of sellers moved to air to protect lead times. Cargo lands early, no slot is booked, and pallets sit at the port.
At Jebel Ali, a 40ft container starts accruing about AED 100 a day in detention from day eight. That is roughly AED 3,000 a month, well above the storage cost itself. One client learned this last October: 600 cartons landed on the 2nd with nowhere to go, and they re-exported half to Bahrain at their own cost.
White Friday lands around 27 November. Sea freight from China to Jeddah runs 22-28 days in a normal week, plus clearance and inbound handling. To make it, your container has to sail by late September. Booking in October means you have quietly chosen air freight.
Before you sign, check three lines: minimum pallet commitment, inbound cutoff date, and the tiered overstay rate. The first two decide whether you get in at all. The third decides how much you lose after peak.
I would not stock Egypt or Iraq right now. Cairo warehouse turnover runs two weeks slower than Saudi on average, and Iraqi clearance swings harder. Parking inventory there means parking cash somewhere you cannot control.
My rule for Q4: split by SKU. Only your top 20 SKUs belong in a local Saudi warehouse. Long tail stays in Dubai or ships direct from China. Paying 15% more per pallet beats a locked six-month contract.
Honestly, this year is not about price. It is about availability. Riyadh's main 3PLs were booked out for Q4 by mid-September. Our own Riyadh facility stopped taking new clients in early September.
Are you really going to wait until October to book?