Vincent888

I am a Chinese British working in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia. I am thinking to buy a one/two bed room flat in Bahrain to live and commute to Al Khobar for work. I wonder if friends here have any advice or suggestion in terms of location in Bahrain and where to find relevant information. Thanks you in advance.

Vincent

iggle

Are you Chinese or British? You can't be both.

Vincent888

I am a Chinese, lived in Britain for 18 years and have a British Passport.

nottmbantam

I think a few people chose this option, to commute on a daily basis. There used to be a VIP Causeway pass type thing, not sure if its still available. It can make the commute a far quicker and exciting prospect.

Why are you buying a property - wouldn't it be more prudent to rent? Are you even allowed to buy a property?

Marvellous Marve

They are building a specific second bridge for that purpose (because the causeway is too congested) Made the trip over last weekend and it looks about 2 years away from ready. It is not uncommon but depends on the times of day you are travelling. My understanding is that you can buy a place in Bahrain as a expat.

KJinDoha

Actually you can be Chinese British. In fact similar terms appear on official forms as a demographic. But you can not be both a Chinese and British citizen, if that is what you meant.

nonthaburi

Does China not allow dual citizenship then?

iggle

Yeah this is what i meant, i thought you couldn't have dual nationality with a Chinese Passport

Wahoo

Hello

I am a British expat working and living in Bahrain

I can tell you that as an Expat and non-Bahraini national, you are allowed to own buy and own a property only within certain zones such as Juffair, Durrat, Reef Island and Amwaj.

From Juffair, once you get on the highway, the causeway is 20mins away (on a good day).
Durrat is farther away and more expensive.
Amwaj is cheaper but also farther.
Reef is closer, but more expensive.

You need to have a Bahraini visa though if you want to make the entry from KSA every day for commuting purposes. Even though a British citizen gets 3 month visitor entry, its not multiple entry type.

As a property owner you can apply for a "self sponsorship" visa where you show the title deeds to your Bahrain property and also 15,000 BHD in a savings account (it must be frozen though)

We actually have a property in Juffair on the market for 70k BHD (fully furnished) if you're interested please contact me. can even guide you on the visa process as we did it before.

Thanks.
Andy