This paper examines the domestic political consequences of changes to the extensive welfare systems in place across the states of the GCC. Since the decline of oil prices in 2014, GCC states have shown a willingness to proactively push through some deliberate, carefully-crafted changes to their extensive welfare systems. As a result, slowly but surely the rentier social contract in the GCC is being re-written by the state. The paper relies on extensive empirical examination of policy adjustments instituted in most GCC states since 2014. These changes, the paper argues, are unlikely to endanger the state’s security and to make it vulnerable to domestic opposition. Two factors account for this: 1) the changes being made are incremental and are part of a deliberate state strategy to prepare the population for continued declines in oil and gas prices; 2) the changes maintain the rentier state’s robust welfare system. Some of these changes are to the labor sponsorship system (and its attendant economic consequences for nationals); encouragement of citizens to work harder and to tighten their belts if necessary; the introduction of compulsory military service; and layoffs of nationals at state-owned enterprises and parastatals. These measured recalibrations of the social contract, along with the states’ continued monopoly over coercive institutions, are likely to result in minimal or no political disruptions. The fact that the state is deliberately changing the social contract, and doing so only around the margins, is likely to enhance rather than endanger its long-term security.