US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned last year in a leaked classified memo that donors in Saudi Arabia were the "most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide".
She said it was "an ongoing challenge" to persuade Saudi officials to treat such activity as a strategic priority.
The groups funded include al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, she added.
The memo, released by Wikileaks, also criticised efforts to combat militants by the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait.
Mrs Clinton urged diplomats to redouble efforts to stop funds reaching militants "threatening stability in Pakistan and Afghanistan and targeting Coalition soldiers".
"While the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) takes seriously the threat of terrorism within Saudi Arabia, it has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority," she wrote.
The Saudi government had begun to make important progress, but "donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide", she added.
Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba "probably raised millions of dollars" annually from Saudi sources, often during the Hajj - and the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, she alleged.
Mrs Clinton said reforms to criminalise terrorist financing and restrict the overseas flow of funds from Saudi-based charities had been effective, but that they did not cover equally suspect "multilateral organisations".
Another cable alleges that the Pakistani charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which has been accused of being a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, used a Saudi-based front company to fund its activities in 2005.
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“Start Quote
The lack of effective border controls on cash is no doubt exploited by Taliban couriers and Afghan drug lords”
End Quote Leaked US diplomatic cable
The US embassy in Riyadh said in February that the Saudi authorities remained "almost completely dependent on the CIA" for information.
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