RoversFan

Hello everyone,


I am a recent engineering graduate and luckily managed to get accepted for a pretty good position at a government department in Abu Dhabi.

However, I am in a pretty frustrating fix and I would greatly appreciate some advice from any member here

Basically, my visit visa is almost about to expire and HR is saying it may take some time to get the contract papers and transfer my visa. They may be ready very soon as well, thye simply won’t give a time frame

So I have 2 options,
1) Leave the country and return on a new visit visa which has a risk that many ppl are saying one cannot enter thru a new visit visa for 1 month (some r saying 3 months) once my visit visa expires. My position may be at risk if that’s the case. I guess even the newspapers carried some news to this effect some time ago.

2) I can overstay till I get my employment visa and then pay the fines. This has the risk in that I am placing myself on the wrong legally and some of my friends tell me overstaying even for a few days can lead to bigger problems like detention or a refusal to process employment visa, I don’t even want to think about those .

So is there anyone here who has faced a similar situation or knows what exactly the rules are regarding consecutive visit visas and overstaying??

I would really appreciate any advice/recommendations/input from anyone out there,

Thanks, and cheers.

Bob

A local immigration solicitor?
Probably best bet for advice...

Jeeper

i know people that have done the so called 'visa run' where they go to (doha i think it was) and return next day for new 3 month visa with no problems...although i'm not sure on exact rules that seems to work fine.

novita77

Post ur question on www.expatwoman.com, to the middle east section. Ladies there will help you. But make sure u don't mentioning wether u r male or female.

And I do heard some ppl doing a visa run ... Doha ppl doing a visa run out to Bahrain, Dubai pp doing visa run out to Doha...

RoversFan

Thanks for all ur advice, i'll probably keep my fingers crossed, fly out and come on a new visa

Autonomy

I'm in virtually the same situation... as far as I have worked out you'll be fine with doing a visa run, you'll get a fresh 60 day visit visa stamp.

If not I'm in sh*t as my wife will still be in dubai!

As far as I know it is fine.

kristy

At least us Brits can just get a passport stamp, no waiting around for visas. I heard of a guy that did a visa run to Kish last month, due to fly straight out again an hour later after picking up his visa. Unfortunately a certain event happened, followed straight away by Eid, and the guy was stuck there for 2 weeks!

There was no hotel rooms available and all he had were the clothes he was wearing, his passport and his wallet! By the time he got back to Dubai he had a full beard, was in need of a good shower and had lost a few kgs!

So if anyone fancies a crash diet......

But these visa runs, I don't think there's any problem with consecutive ones, although I did hear a rumour they were thinking of changing that. Trouble is, they can change these rules at the drop of a hat really.

novita77

Hi Kristy,

What is in 'kish' it self? Is that just an island? Tourist resort?