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Recorded alcohol only in Saudi Arabia

–

litres per person aged 15+

No usable source No source gives a usable figure, so there is no score.

Each source by year: litres per person aged 15+
00.250.50.751200020052010201520202024
Show the data as a table
YearWHO GISAH, recorded per capita (15+) consumption, all beverages
20000
20010
20020
20030
20040
20050
20060
20070
20080
20090
20100
20110
20120
20130
20140
20150
20160
20170
20180
20190
20200
20210
20220
20230
20240

All countriesAll of Saudi Arabia's figuresCompare

What this number counts
Counts
Recorded pure alcohol only, per person aged 15 or over, both sexes, in a year: WHO publishes no total here
Where
Saudi Arabia
When
WHO recorded 2024 (one year, not an average)

No source gives a usable figure.

Where the number comes from (1 source)
SourceFigure and yearDefinitionQualityCounts for
WHO GISAH, recorded per capita (15+) consumption, all beveragesWorld Health Organization (WHO) · Administrative recordsRetrieved 2026-11-02
02024
Recorded alcohol only: production, import, export and sales data, often through taxation, in one calendar year, divided by people aged 15 and over.

It leaves out unrecorded alcohol and is not adjusted for tourists. Sources in WHO's order: government statistics, then alcohol industry statistics, then FAOSTAT, where unrecorded alcohol may be included. WHO's file does not say which source this row uses.

Raw file: SA_0000001400.json (ALCOHOLTYPE SA_TOTAL) from xmart-api-public.who.int/GHO/FACT, WHO data last updated July 2026. Shown, not counted: WHO publishes no total for this country, and recorded sales alone are not all alcohol drunk.

4 of 5 checks
  • Yes: Method and definitions published. WHO publishes the definition, source order and alcohol strengths in its Indicator Metadata Registry.
  • Yes: Official statistics or peer-reviewed. WHO puts government statistics first, but falls back on industry statistics where it has none.
  • Yes: Full count or representative sample. Sales, trade and tax records of the whole recorded market, not a sample.
  • Yes: Raw data downloadable. The whole series is a free download from WHO's public data API.
  • No: No known break or quality problem. WHO lists zero recorded alcohol here, while its unrecorded series lists 0.08 litres.
Not counted
Who reports it, and since when

Which kinds of source measure this number, which years each one published, and where the reporting stops or has holes.

No source of these kinds: model-based estimate.

    Years each source has a figure here
    '00'05'10'15'20'24WHO recorded

    figure no figure here, inside its range no later figure recorded change

    Why the numbers differ
    • The total includes the recorded figure. WHO adds its recorded average, its unrecorded estimate and its tourist adjustment, so recorded lines are parts of the total, not independent measures of it. Only the WHO total is counted. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
    • Unrecorded alcohol. Recorded figures count what shows up in production, trade, sales and tax data. WHO adds home-made, smuggled and surrogate alcohol and cross-border shopping as an estimate. Its largest estimates in the 2024 rows are Vietnam (7.34 of 10.71 litres), Cameroon (7.08 of 12.94 litres), Georgia (6.90 of 14.39 litres). (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
    • Tourists. WHO subtracts what visitors drink and adds what residents drink abroad, so a recorded figure can be higher than the total. The largest subtractions in the 2024 rows are Estonia (-3.43 litres), British Virgin Islands (-1.92 litres), Cook Islands (-1.46 litres). (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
    • Averaging. WHO's total uses three-year averages, while its recorded line and the OECD lines give single years. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
    • Sales years. OECD reports Canada by fiscal year (April to March) and Australia by financial year (July to June); this page stores each under the year it ends in. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
    • People counted. OECD's country notes give other bases for some rows: people aged 18 and over in Denmark, 20 and over in Japan and 14 and over in the United States. Its method note for Mexico divides by people who reported drinking. Each line's unit says which. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
    • Luxembourg. OECD's figure is the average of France and Germany, calculated from WHO data, not a measurement for Luxembourg. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
    • WHO's recorded series uses government statistics first, then industry statistics, then FAOSTAT. WHO says unrecorded alcohol may be included where FAOSTAT is the source, so recorded and unrecorded do not always separate cleanly.
    • Where OECD names WHO as its source, its line is marked as a copy. Elsewhere OECD names a national source, and neither publisher says whether WHO uses the same figure, so that lineage is unresolved.
    Common mistakes
    • A litre here is a litre of pure alcohol, not of beer or wine. WHO converts beer at about 5% and grape wine at 12%, for example. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
    • The figure is an average over everyone aged 15 or over, including people who do not drink, not the amount a drinker drinks.
    • Sales are not drinking. OECD warns that most countries give sales as a proxy for consumption and advises caution. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
    • A recorded zero says only that WHO lists no recorded alcohol. By definition that series leaves out unrecorded alcohol. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
    • WHO's rows for 2023 and 2024 hold the same total in every country, and its metadata does not explain why. Do not read the flat last step as a measured trend. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
    Download, cite and report an error

    From the table How much alcohol is drunk per person in each country? Updated 2026-11-02.

    Download every value in this table (CSV)

    Cite as: RealStats, “Recorded alcohol only in Saudi Arabia”, updated 2026-11-02, with the original sources listed on the page.

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