Saudi Arabia shrinks The Line again as Neom shifts money to World Cup stadiums

Saudi Arabia has cut the budget of The Line, the 170km linear city that was the centrepiece of its Neom development, by about a third and reduced the section to be built by 2030 to a single 2.4km module, according to a revised plan circulated to contractors this week and confirmed by two companies working on the project.

The plan, which the companies said had been presented at a meeting in Riyadh on 5 October, releases about 7,000 of the 60,000 construction workers on the site in the Tabuk region and defers the second and third modules, originally due by 2035, to a date described only as “subject to review”. Spending on Neom's other projects, including the Sindalah island resort and the Trojena mountain development that is due to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games, is also to be slowed.

The money is going elsewhere. The kingdom has committed to building or renovating 15 stadiums for the 2034 World Cup, at a cost estimated at $25bn, and to the expansion of Riyadh's airport and metro ahead of the 2030 World Expo. Those projects have fixed dates; The Line does not.

The Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund that owns Neom, did not respond to a request for comment. In its most recent annual report it described The Line as “proceeding in phases aligned with demand”.

“Neom was conceived when oil was $100 and the fund was expected to be self-funding. Oil has spent most of this year under $70 and the fund is now borrowing to meet commitments it cannot defer,” said Karim Nasser, an economist at a Riyadh consultancy who advises Gulf investors. “The Line was always the project that could be stretched without anyone noticing, because nobody was ever going to live in it by a particular date. The World Cup has a date.”

The original design, unveiled in 2021, envisaged a city of nine million people in two parallel mirrored walls 500 metres high, running from the Red Sea coast inland across the desert. By 2024 the first phase had been reduced to 2.4km and a population target of 300,000; the revised plan cuts that to a single module of around 1.5km with an initial capacity of 80,000. Foundations for about 7km have been excavated and will, the plan says, be “preserved”.

Contractors have been told that outstanding invoices, which several said had been paid late since the spring, would be settled by the end of the year. One European engineering firm said it would reduce its presence in the kingdom from 400 staff to 120.

Neom's other projects have not been cancelled. Sindalah, the luxury island, opened to its first guests in 2024 and the first of the Trojena ski runs is due to be tested this winter. But the ambition that drew the world's attention has, for now, been placed in storage alongside the foundations.