Job Discussion Forums

Evan2009 · Joined: 26 Dec 2008 Posts: 41

Do you need an exit visa to leave Saudi Arabia? Do employers keep passports? What's the system there?

freesoul · Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 5:28 pm Post subject:

Yes and yes! The only system is a "no system" system.

trapezius · Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 5:32 pm Post subject:

Yes, you need an exit visa to leave the country. (actually an "exit re-entry" visa, which allows you to exit the country and re-enter within a specified time period)

Yes, employers keep passports. You keep the 'Iqama' (residence card). When you travel, you take the passport and leave the 'Iqama' with the employer.

There ARE some employers who let you keep the passport, but you still need an exit visa to leave, and only your employer can get you the visa.

If your employer brings you on a business visa and you work on that visa (which is technically illegal, but thousands do it), you keep the passport with yourself, and can travel any time without the need for an exit visa.

Mia Xanthi · Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:01 pm Post subject:

At my place of employment, we are allowed to keep our passports. Our employer arranges for either a single or a multiple exit-re-entry visa. They pay for the single, we pay for the multiple.

Sounds good, huh? There are a couple of catches here. First, it sometimes takes as long as one or two months to get the visas renewed. People have not been able to leave during family emergencies for this reason.

The second catch is that the employer can, at any time and for any reason, cancel the exit visa. If they don't want you to leave the country, all it takes is one phone call. This has happened to colleagues who wanted to leave before their contracts were up. They then had to stay until they paid for their freedom, which usually amounts to a couple of months salary.

This is why people here sometimes feel less like faculty than indentured servants. Sad

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

Your HR department is notoriously inefficient. Here we are advised to allow two weeks for a multi-visa but in practice it only ever takes three or four days.

When I was at Riyadh on a couple of occasions personnel gave me my passport to take down to the passport office to get the exit-re-entry visa. The average time between handing the form and passport in and getting the passport back with the visa stamp was around twenty minutes.