Distributive social contracts in the Gulf monarchies have been key factors in maintaining their vaunted political stability. But these rentier social contracts are based on an unsustainable practice: Encouraging domestic demand for chief export commodities. This paper argues that a variable that once explained the longevity of these monarchies – the in-kind distribution of energy – now threatens their survival. This variable, which has been aggregated within the rentier literature among the broader distribution of resource rents, carries different properties and more damaging implications for political structures, and warrants separate treatment. If this special group of rent-distributing states is unable to arrest growth in domestic demand for export commodities (and unable to diversify into replacement sources of rents or energy) exports will suffer. This paper argues that theories of politics of rentier states should acknowledge this contradiction and concede the possibility of its reform, through the social contract. The research shows that reforms which would reduce citizen welfare benefits are underway. The paper offers results predicting that further reforms are likely in some – but not all – Gulf monarchies. These reforms, which run contrary to existing theory, are possible because the alternative is worse. If the Gulf monarchies are unable to arrest growth in domestic demand for export commodities, the subsequent drop in exports and rent receipts will force changes in the character of governance, if not in the regimes themselves.