Qatar is a more fully documented banking market than Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, and two of these three banks publish dated fee schedules. But the specific number most people arrive looking for — the salary you need to open a salary account — is published by exactly one of them.
Commercial Bank publishes the threshold in plain words
Commercial Bank’s current account page states it directly: “You will need to transfer in a minimum monthly salary of QAR 4,000.”
The eligibility criteria are set out alongside it, and they name expatriates specifically:
- Hold, or be applying for, a valid Residence Permit
- Salary transfer documentation from the employer
- Proof of residential address
- Identification: QID, and for expats, passport and QID
No minimum account balance is specified, and the bank states that it charges no fee to open the account. No interest rate is published on that page.
Commercial Bank’s personal banking tariff is the one dated document of the three, last updated 16 December 2025. From it and the bank’s tariff page: call accounts require a QAR 20,000 daily balance and time deposits a QAR 20,000 initial deposit; dormant accounts with balances under QAR 500 attract QAR 10 a month; closing an account opened less than a year ago costs QAR 50; a duplicate statement is QAR 10 per month requested, rising to QAR 20 beyond five years; an authenticated statement is QAR 10; an account balance letter is QAR 25; and a salary e-advice is QAR 10 monthly. Premium and private banking customers receive complimentary versions of most of those.
The short domain cbq.qa sits behind a firewall that returns “The requested URL was rejected” to automated access, which is the same wall that defeated us on a regulator’s register earlier in this project. cbq.com.qa serves normally. If a Commercial Bank link fails for you, try the longer domain before assuming the page has moved.
Doha Bank: the QAR 10,000 figure is not on Doha Bank’s pages
We checked the live salary account page. What it publishes is a reward structure, not an eligibility threshold.
| Monthly salary | Reward points |
|---|---|
| QAR 15,000 to 29,999 | 5,000 |
| QAR 30,000 to 69,999 | 10,000 |
| QAR 70,000 and above | 20,000 |
The stated eligibility requirement is that “the customer must be a resident of Qatar and hold a valid Qatari ID.” That is the whole of it. No minimum salary figure appears, and the lowest salary number anywhere on the page is the QAR 15,000 that opens the bottom reward tier — which is a rewards band, not a condition of entry.
We want to be careful about what this does and does not establish. It does not establish that Doha Bank has no internal salary requirement; banks commonly apply criteria they do not publish. It establishes that the QAR 10,000 figure circulating on comparison sites is not sourced to Doha Bank, and that anyone repeating it — including us, if we had not checked — is passing on a number with no publisher standing behind it.
The page also carries card-linked terms that are worth reading as a separate matter from the account: a Visa Infinite on the deposit route requires a minimum deposit of QAR 250,000 with at least QAR 100,000 blocked in the Al Dana account, and a Visa Signature QAR 100,000 with QAR 30,000 blocked. Annual fees are QAR 800 and QAR 400 respectively, each waived at a stated annual spend.
QNB publishes balances, not salary conditions
QNB’s retail tariff of charges is comprehensive on what the account costs and silent on who can open one. It sets minimum monthly average balances of QR 5,000 on Savings Plus and QR 10,000 on the Call account, and a minimum opening balance of QR 20,000 on a fixed deposit.
On running costs: dormant accounts with balances under QR 500 attract QR 10 a month; closing an account is free after a year and QR 50 before that; regular statements are free while certified ones are QR 10, rising to QR 20 beyond five years; debit card issuance is free and replacement is QR 50; ATM withdrawals on the QNB and NAPS networks are free while international withdrawals are QR 15 per transaction; a local transfer to another Qatari bank starts at QR 4; and an international transfer is QR 15.
No salary transfer condition appears anywhere in the tariff, and the document carries no effective date. As in Kuwait, that second point matters: it is a detailed schedule you cannot age.
The three, side by side
| Commercial Bank | QNB | Doha Bank | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum salary published | QAR 4,000 | Not published | Not published |
| Minimum balance | None on the current account | QR 5,000 to QR 20,000 by product | Not published for the account |
| Expats named in eligibility | Yes, with QID and passport | Not on the tariff | Qatar resident with valid QID |
| Tariff document date | 16 December 2025 | No date printed | Campaign page, currently live |
| Account closure under 1 year | QAR 50 | QR 50 | Not published |
| International transfer | QAR 15 | QR 15 | Not published |
The two banks that publish full tariffs land in almost exactly the same place on the fees that matter to an ordinary account holder: QAR 50 to close early, QAR 15 to send money abroad, QAR 10 for a dormant account under QAR 500. On running costs, this is not a market with much daylight between the large banks.
Where the actual difference is
Given how close the fee schedules are, the decision is not really about cost. It comes down to three things you can check yourself.
Whether you clear the threshold you can verify. QAR 4,000 is a published, quotable number at one bank. At the other two you will be told the answer at the branch, and it may differ from what you read elsewhere.
Whether your employer already banks there. Salary accounts in Qatar run through the wage protection system, and payroll arrangements between an employer and a particular bank frequently decide this question before you get a say. Our comparison of Gulf wage protection systems covers how that rail works, including the amendment Qatar made this month.
Whether the rate matters to you at all. None of the three publishes a current account interest or profit rate on the pages we checked. If you intend to hold a meaningful balance rather than pass a salary through, that is a question for a deposit product and a separate conversation — we looked at what Qatari and Kuwaiti banks publish on that in a companion piece.
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The most useful thing on this page is the number that is not there.
A figure repeated across enough comparison sites acquires the appearance of a fact, and QAR 10,000 for Doha Bank has that appearance. It is not on Doha Bank’s pages. We are not saying it is wrong — we are saying nobody publishing it can tell you where it came from, which is a different problem and a more common one.
When a number about your own money matters, the test is not how many places repeat it. It is whether the institution that would be bound by it has put it in writing. In Qatar, on salary thresholds, one of three has.
Common questions
Commercial Bank publishes QAR 4,000 as the minimum monthly salary transfer for its current account. QNB and Doha Bank do not publish a minimum salary on the pages we checked, so for those two the answer has to come from the bank directly. A published figure at one bank does not set the market, and other banks may apply higher or lower criteria they do not disclose.
That figure does not appear on Doha Bank's own salary account page. What the page publishes is a reward points structure starting at QAR 15,000 and an eligibility requirement that the customer be a resident of Qatar holding a valid Qatari ID. This does not mean Doha Bank has no internal criteria, only that the widely quoted QAR 10,000 is not sourced to the bank.
Commercial Bank, which publishes its criteria, requires that you hold or be applying for a valid Residence Permit, provide salary transfer documentation from your employer, provide proof of a residential address, and present a QID, with expats also presenting a passport alongside the QID.
It depends on the product. QNB's retail tariff sets a minimum monthly average balance of QR 5,000 on Savings Plus and QR 10,000 on the Call account, and a minimum opening balance of QR 20,000 for a fixed deposit. Dormant accounts holding under QR 500 attract QR 10 a month.
QAR 50 at both Commercial Bank and QNB where the account has been open for less than a year. At QNB, closure after one year is free of charge. Doha Bank does not publish a closure fee on the pages we checked.
Commercial Bank. Its personal banking tariff was last updated on 16 December 2025. QNB publishes a detailed retail tariff of charges with no effective date printed on it, which means the figures cannot be aged from the document itself.
Not on the account pages we checked. None of the three publishes a current account interest or profit rate, which is unremarkable for current accounts but does mean that anyone planning to hold a substantial balance needs to look at deposit products and ask for the rate in writing, along with when it last changed.
Next steps
- If you are choosing on published criteria, note that only Commercial Bank states a salary threshold, at QAR 4,000, and that it names expatriates in its eligibility list.
- Ask your employer which bank your payroll runs through before you open anything, since salary accounts in Qatar operate through the wage protection rail.
- Treat any minimum salary figure you find on a comparison site as unverified until the bank itself publishes it or confirms it in writing.
- If you will hold a balance rather than just pass a salary through, ask for the deposit rate and the date it was last set, since none of the three publishes one.
- If a Commercial Bank link fails, try the cbq.com.qa domain rather than the shorter one.
Further reading on ExpatWealthPlus
- What Kuwaiti and Qatari banks publish about deposit rates
- What Kuwait's three banks publish
- What an expat can open in Saudi Arabia
- Wage protection across the Gulf
- What Qatar Stock Exchange brokers charge
Official sources
Every figure in this article is checked against the primary source. These are the places to verify the current position for yourself, since rates, rules and product terms change.
- Commercial Bank — Current Account →The QAR 4,000 salary transfer requirement and the eligibility criteria, quoted above
- Commercial Bank — Tariffs of Charges →The personal banking tariff, last updated 16 December 2025
- QNB — Retail Tariff of Charges →Minimum balances and running costs; no effective date is printed on the document
- Doha Bank — salary account →The reward tiers and the eligibility statement; no minimum salary figure appears