How much money should I take for Umrah?

The short answer. A different question from what the package costs. Your spending money goes on gifts first, by a wide margin, then food if your package does not include it, taxis, phone and data, and small pharmacy items. Decide the gift budget at home with a written list, split the money between people, and do not change it at the airport.

Nobody can give you one honest number for this, because it depends almost entirely on how many people you are bringing something back for. That is a decision you make at home, not a cost the journey imposes on you.

Here is what the money actually goes on.

In the order it is actually spent

1. Gifts. Dates, caps, prayer mats, tasbih, abayas, perfume, zamzam. For most Pakistani families this is larger than everything else on this list put together, and it is the only item people regularly get badly wrong.

Write the list at home: who, and roughly how much each. Families who do this spend a fraction of what families who decide in the shop spend, and nobody at home notices the difference.

2. Food, if your package does not include it. Check this before you budget, because it is the difference between a small figure and a large one over a fortnight.

3. Taxis. More than you expect, and far more with an older parent or small children.

4. Phone and data. A roaming bundle or a local SIM.

5. Pharmacy and small items. Usually the unscented soap or toothpaste somebody forgot to buy in Pakistan, now costing several times as much.

6. Ziyarat beyond what the package covers, and the Makkah to Madinah journey if it is not included.

How to carry it

Not all at the airport. The airport rate is the worst you will see on the whole trip.

Split it. Some on you, some in the hotel safe, some with somebody you trust. People get separated in crowds.

A card as a backup, with the bank told you are travelling so it is not blocked on the first use.

Small notes, because breaking a large one for a short taxi ride is a daily irritation otherwise.

Each adult carries their own. One person holding everything is one lost bag away from a bad week.

What you should not be budgeting for

Read your inclusions again before you decide the figure. If the package covers the hotel, the transfers, the Makkah to Madinah journey and the meals, your spending money is only gifts and incidentals, which is a much smaller number than most people carry.

Ours are written out per departure on the Umrah packages page. If you are not sure what a quote covers, ask for the excluded list in writing; that one request settles it.

For an older pilgrim

Budget more for taxis and keep their money small and separate. More useful than any amount: a card in their pocket with the hotel name and address in Arabic, the group leader's number and your number, because phones run out of charge.

The honest summary

Almost everybody asking this question is really asking whether something is going to catch them out. One thing will, and it is gifts. The rest is small and predictable.

So make the gift list before you fly. It is the single most useful piece of financial preparation for an Umrah, and it takes ten minutes.

The rest of the preparation, in order, is in the Umrah preparation checklist, and what actually moves the package price is in the Umrah cost guide.