ja77

Hello Ladies and Gents,

Posting on my friends's behalf.

This friend of mine is from India, a Mechanical Engineer, and has a job offer from a company in KSA. The company initially applied for a Residence Visa for him and asked him to wait for a while. Now they are telling him that because of some reason they are not able to get it issued and at the same time, they have sent him a Visit Visa number copy asking to apply for a Visit Visa to come to KSA and join the company. They say once he is in, they will apply for a change from Visit Visa status to Residence Permit status.

Questions;

1. Is this way of joining the companies on Visit Visas usually followed by the companies in KSA?
2. Is this possible to change the Visit Visa to Residence Permit status once he is in KSA?
3. If the answer to #2 is YES, how long this usually takes for the status to be changed?

Thanks and Regards ...

eylesda

As far as I am aware he will have to return to his home country when his visit visa expires and come back on a work / residency visa.

Visas are much easier to ontain of late, we recently applied for 15 thinking we'd get maybe 3 or 4 but got the entier batch! Read into this what you will.

P.M. me with the name of the company and where he will be working.

ja77

Hi eylesda,

Thanks for the reply. I think he said it's a company called Tamas or something. Don't know what are the correct spellings and what is the complete name of the company. It's in Al-Khobar.

norsk

That's correct. Your friend will have to leave Saudi to apply for the residence/work visa, but he doesn't need to go to his country of citizenship and do it from there anymore apparently.

The company can specify any pickup point for the Visa and that is where he'll have to go to complete the medical and submit the application. Most people want to go to their home though, especially since the employer will pay for you to travel there and they have to pay you while you are there. Effectively it's like a 2 week fully paid for holiday...