What's the cheapest month for Umrah?

A five-night Umrah trip during Ramadan in February 2027 costs more than three times what the same trip costs in September 2026. Same hotel, same room, same Makkah. The only thing that changes between those two bookings is the calendar.

We track nightly hotel prices across the year for the same panel of 29 hotels in Makkah. Our latest capture ran on 6 September 2026, pulled from Booking.com five-night stays for two adults, and every hotel was re-priced in a single pass. The pattern is consistent enough to plan around: if you have flexibility on when you travel, picking the right month can fund the entire rest of your trip.

September is the cheapest month, and by a wide margin

Why September sits so low

September is the tail of the post-Hajj seasonal low. The pilgrims who came for Hajj have long gone home, summer holidays have ended, school terms have restarted, and family travel has thinned right out.

It is also still genuinely hot, with average highs around 40°C, though this is the point where the worst of the heat first properly breaks. That lingering heat is what keeps the discount alive: most international pilgrims will not book Umrah for September if they have any flexibility, and that reluctance is exactly what holds rates down.

At £133 a night across the panel, September is the best value Umrah month on our current data, and nothing else in the window comes close.

October and November: the compromise months

From September the climb is steady rather than sudden. October averages £186 a night and November £210, before prices step up hard for the winter run.

October is the pick of the two. Highs drop under 40°C for the first time in months, the city is still comfortable to move around, and you are paying well short of winter money. If September's heat is more than you want to take on, October is the genuine middle ground of the year.

Peak prices: December and January

December and January are the winter peak outside Ramadan. December averages £265 a night and January £252, close enough that the two are effectively one long expensive stretch rather than two distinct months.

Demand is driven by a few overlapping factors:

• Winter escape demand: pilgrims from cold-climate countries time Umrah for the cooler months.
• School holidays: the December break overlaps with Christmas and New Year travel windows in Western markets.
• Comfortable weather: December and January are the coolest months in Makkah, averaging around 30°C high, 19°C low.

Hotels know all of this. Budget hotels reach prices that look like five-star prices the rest of the year. Jumeirah Jabal Omar goes from £143 a night in September to £297 in December, more than double, for the same bed.

Ramadan is not a bargain, and this year it is selling out

Ramadan 1448 runs from 8 February to 8 March 2027 on the Umm al-Qura projection, and moon sighting could shift the dates by a day either way. Our capture window of 8 to 13 February is the opening week.

February averages £429 a night, up 223% on September, and it is comfortably the most expensive month we have ever tracked. The more telling number is availability. Eleven of the twenty-nine hotels on our panel had nothing bookable at all when we captured, among them three of the four cheapest hotels we track. The budget end of Makkah is already gone for the first week of Ramadan, which means the £429 average is drawn from what is left rather than from the whole market.

March tells the opposite story to last edition. Eid al-Fitr is expected around 9 March 2027, and our 15 to 20 March window falls just after it. At £194 a night, March now lands well below December rather than above it, so the post-Eid window has turned back into one of the better times to go. Seven hotels were still showing nothing bookable for that week, so treat the figure as an early read.

How to actually use this

A few practical takes from the pricing pattern:

• If you can handle the heat, book September. The savings are enormous and the city is calm. Hotels discount aggressively.
• If you want a compromise, book October. Sub-40 degree heat and well short of winter prices.
• March is back on the table. Once Eid passes, rates fall a long way below the winter peak, which makes late March a genuine alternative to autumn.
• Avoid December, January and February if you can. December and January are the winter peak and February is Ramadan itself, by far the most expensive month. All three are the busiest visitor stretches of the year: Mataf gets packed, wait times at Makkah's food halls get even longer, and the value-for-money equation works against you on every line item.
• Don't treat Ramadan as a deal. February 2027 is the most expensive month we have ever tracked and the cheap rooms have already sold. Go for the reward, not the price.

Worked example: same room, three different months

A representative 5-night Umrah trip at the DoubleTree by Hilton Jabal Omar Makkah, same room category, same flights:

• September booking: £92 a night, about £460 for five nights hotel total, plus ~£120 food and ~£100 transport = ~£680.
• December booking: £200 a night, about £1,000 for five nights hotel total, plus ~£120 food and ~£100 transport = ~£1,220.
• February booking, during Ramadan: £320 a night, about £1,600 for five nights hotel total, plus ~£120 food and ~£100 transport = ~£1,820.

The hotel line is doing all the work. Food and transport are essentially flat year round. Between September and December the gap is roughly £540, the cost of shifting from late summer to winter. Book the same room during Ramadan in February and the hotel line alone more than triples the September price.

If you want a fuller breakdown of how a 5-night trip splits across hotels, food, transport, and extras at both ends of the spectrum, see our Budget vs Luxury 5-night Umrah breakdown.