Job Discussion Forums

vanVlaanderen · Joined: 03 May 2009 Posts: 21

How long does it take Saudi consulates to process visa applications once all materials have been submitted? Also do they require your passport during this time? Or is the passport presented at the time visa has been successfully processed?

Sheikh N Bake · Joined: 26 Apr 2007 Posts: 1307 Location: Dis ting of ours

This has been discussed at length in other threads. If your employer has a block of English Instructor visa authorizations on hand at the Saudi consulates in your home country, AND the employer is smart enough to use a private visa expeditor in the home country, you can get your visa within a few days of completing your physical. Without this level of organization, it can take months sometimes.

Uhm...a visa cannot be issued without an original passport.

vanVlaanderen · Joined: 03 May 2009 Posts: 21

Well, the consulate where I am applying will do the work themselves without help. So you say it could take months? Then the minimum time would be weeks, I assume. DO THEY KEEP YOUR PASSPORT ALL THIS TIME? THEY KEEP IT FOR WEEKS OR MONTHS?

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

If you present the papers in the Saudi Embassy in the UK used to take 24 hours.

The Saudi Embassy in Colombo processed my last one on the spot.

ganesh77 · Joined: 05 Jul 2009 Posts: 37

We would really have to know which country you are applying for your visa in to answer your first question. Mine took only a day, during which time they kept my passport in order to put the visa in it. If it's going to take "weeks or months", you'd better think about applying for the visa in another country.

eclectic · Joined: 09 Nov 2006 Posts: 1122

My American friend in Taif just told me his visa was processed in 48 hours at the Saudi Attache in the US. I guess they held his passport for 48 hours. No big deal.

Sheikh N Bake · Joined: 26 Apr 2007 Posts: 1307 Location: Dis ting of ours

I know someone in the States who has been waiting three months because there is a quota of English-Instructor visas from his particular employer, and that quota had run out before the company's visa bureaucrats had stopped drinking tea and chatting with friends and taking afternoon siestas long enough to get around to renewing the quota with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Perhaps that situation is unusual...but it's a very well-established Saudi company that pays well.

tvik · Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 371 Location: here

one thing to get used to is that you get a different story from each mouth that speaks. very often you get a different story from the same mouth that speaks at different times. my visa took almost 4 months (@$2000 a month lost income), a figure that i didn't take into account when i thought about all the money to be made here.

unless you're a direct hire at a university, don't bother making too many plans. As the old saying goes: "no plan is useful in the desert" or was it: no chaos theory is sophisticated enough to predict a Saudi official
Putting up with the place is why they pay here.

for me it's 12 more days...... and then wooooosh!!!!!!!!!!