PKR to SAR Rate Today

The rate at the top of this page is the mid-market rate — the wholesale benchmark banks use among themselves. It's the cleanest reference number available, but it isn't what you'll pay or receive at any real-world counter. In Pakistan, four parallel PKR-SAR markets operate simultaneously, and they don't quote the same number on the same day.

Interbank rate. The rate Pakistani commercial banks quote to each other for large-volume SAR settlement, set within bands managed by the State Bank of Pakistan. This is usually within 0.3–0.8% of the mid-market rate. You will never see this rate unless you are a corporate treasurer transacting in eight-figure rupee amounts.

Open market rate. The rate quoted by licensed exchange companies and Saraffa shops in Pakistan's regulated retail market — Habib Qatar, Wall Street Exchange, Dollar East, NCEC, and the larger Saraffa houses in Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, and Islamabad. Historically this rate sat 1–3% above the interbank rate, occasionally widening to 6–8% during dollar-shortage episodes (the 2022–2023 crisis being the most severe in recent memory). The SBP intermittently enforces a narrowing of this premium when it threatens remittance flows.

Hawala rate. The unregulated parallel market. Hawala operators don't publish their rate — it's quoted to you in person or over WhatsApp at the moment of the transaction. In normal conditions hawala sits between the interbank and open-market rates. In dollar-crisis conditions hawala diverges sharply upward, and the gap between hawala and the official rate becomes a real-time indicator of pressure on the rupee.

Bank counter rate. What a Pakistani retail bank pays for an inward SAR remittance, or charges for outward SAR purchase. Banks layer their own spread on top of the interbank rate, typically 1.5–2.5%. This is usually the worst rate of the four for retail amounts, but it is the most convenient and the most documented for tax and FBR purposes.

Most people landing on a PKR-SAR rate page aren't traders — they're senders, receivers, or travellers trying to figure out which channel to use today. Here is the honest decision tree we'd give a family member asking the same question.

Sending SAR from Saudi Arabia to PKR in Pakistan? This is the dominant corridor by volume, driven by Pakistani workers in the Kingdom. Today, the best rates typically come from licensed remittance services with a Saudi license: Tahweel Al Rajhi, AlAhli Bank (NCB) remittance, Enjaz, and TASCEEL. These operate at or near the interbank rate for the corridor and charge a small fixed fee (SAR 15–30 per transfer). Western Union and MoneyGram are convenient but typically 1–2% more expensive on the rate. Wise and Remitly are competitive for smaller transfers but require recipient bank accounts in Pakistan, which not every receiver has.

Buying SAR cash in Pakistan for travel? Use a licensed exchange company, not a Saraffa shop, unless you specifically know and trust the Saraffa. Licensed companies are required to issue receipts (important if you're carrying the cash through customs), and the open-market rate is usually within 1% of what a Saraffa would offer anyway. Avoid the airport — both Jinnah and Allama Iqbal airport exchanges quote rates 2–4% worse than the in-city open market.

Receiving SAR inward in Pakistan via remittance? The cleanest path is to receive directly into a Pakistani PKR bank account through a Saudi-licensed remittance company. The receiver gets PKR at the interbank rate, the SBP gets the inward-remittance credit, and the transaction is fully documented. Avoid hawala for ongoing receipts — the rate may occasionally be slightly better, but you sacrifice documentation that becomes important for property purchases, FBR queries, and inheritance matters.

When a remittance app, bank, or exchange company shows you a rate today, compare it to the mid-market rate at the top of this page using this simple check.

Divide their rate into the mid-market rate. The result is the spread they're charging you — typically expressed as a percentage. A 1.5% spread on a PKR 100,000 conversion is PKR 1,500. A 3% spread is PKR 3,000. If you can find a channel with a 1% spread for the same amount, you save PKR 2,000 on the same transaction without doing anything else differently.

What's a reasonable spread? For the PKR-SAR corridor specifically, anything under 1.5% is excellent, 1.5–2.5% is normal, 2.5–4% is on the high side, and above 4% means you should walk away and use a different channel. Fixed fees matter too: a remittance with a 0.5% spread plus SAR 30 fee can be more expensive than a 1.5% spread with zero fee for small amounts, but much cheaper for large amounts. Always compute the all-in total in PKR received before deciding.