US Troops in Saudi Arabia: How Many, and Where?

The exact figure today is not public: the Pentagon has not released a count for the kingdom since the war began. The last public numbers come from the president’s twice-yearly War Powers reports to Congress: about 2,733 US troops in the kingdom in June 2022, about 2,657 in June 2023, about 2,088 in December 2023 and 2,321 in 2024.

When the war started, US figures put the force at about 2,700, mostly air and missile defense crews and people who keep American aircraft flying. Officials and outside estimates gave a range of 2,000 to 3,000 for Prince Sultan Air Base alone. Across the whole region, some 40,000 to 50,000 US troops were deployed before the war, spread over bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Iraq and Jordan as well as Saudi Arabia.

Prince Sultan Air Base is a Royal Saudi Air Force base in the desert near Al-Kharj, southeast of Riyadh, and the main place where American forces live and work in the kingdom. The US Air Force runs its operations there through the 378th Air Expeditionary Wing, activated at the base on December 17, 2019.

The Americans there do two main jobs. US Army units operate Patriot and THAAD air and missile defense batteries. Air Force units fly and service fighters, tankers and surveillance aircraft; F-16s, F-15s, F-35s, KC-135 tankers and E-3 Sentry radar planes have all flown from its runways since 2019.

US troops first came in large numbers in August 1990, after Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the kingdom became the main staging ground for the 1991 Gulf War. Several thousand stayed through the 1990s to police the no-fly zone over southern Iraq. After a truck bomb at the Khobar Towers housing complex in Dhahran killed 19 US airmen on June 25, 1996, the Air Force moved its operations to the more remote Prince Sultan Air Base.

Washington moved its air operations center to Al Udeid in Qatar in April 2003, and handed the last parts of the base back to Saudi control on August 26, 2003. The troops returned in 2019. Saudi Arabia confirmed in July 2019 that it would host US forces again, and after the September 14, 2019 drone and missile attack on the Abqaiq and Khurais oil plants, the Pentagon sent more, bringing the total to about 3,000. By early 2020 about 2,500 were at Prince Sultan. Our explainer Al Udeid Air Base: What It Is and Why Iran Targets It covers the base that took over in 2003.

Yes, more than once. An Iranian attack on March 1, 2026 seriously wounded Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, 26, of the Army’s 1st Space Battalion; he died on March 8, the seventh US service member killed in action in the war, the Pentagon said.

On March 27 an Iranian missile and drone barrage hit the base again. US officials said at least 10 service members were injured, and other counts reached 15. An E-3 Sentry radar plane was destroyed and several KC-135 tankers were damaged, two of which are still being rebuilt in US depots, as we reported in At Least Two KC-135 Tankers Damaged in the Iran War Are Still Being Rebuilt. Saudi Arabia lost one of its two RE-3 surveillance jets on the same base, a loss we covered in Saudi Arabia Lost a Spy Plane to Iran.

No withdrawal of troops has been announced. The October 21 order covered the embassy in Riyadh and the State Department’s other staff, not the military, and the State Department said it applied to Saudi Arabia alone. As of early October, Washington had refused Saudi requests for US airstrikes on the Houthis and was supplying advisers, intelligence and targeting data instead.

The longer question is whether the bases survive the war. Silent Dossier’s assessment, set out in A US Defeat in the Gulf Hands Hormuz to Iran, is that Saudi Arabia will not reopen bases on its soil that served the Americans and were struck. Iran has also named a reduction of US forces in the region among its conditions for ending the war.

About 2,700 US service members were in Saudi Arabia when the war began on February 28, 2026. The White House reported 2,321 in 2024 and about 2,088 in December 2023. Prince Sultan Air Base near Al-Kharj is the main US site in the kingdom. The 378th Air Expeditionary Wing has run US air operations there since December 17, 2019. US forces left the base in 2003 and returned in 2019. One US soldier died of wounds from a March 1, 2026 attack there, and at least 10 were injured on March 27. On October 21, 2026 the State Department ordered non-emergency diplomats, not troops, out of the kingdom.