Blogging from Saudi Arabia

You need to have an Exit Visa to leave the Kingdom – that’s where the fun ends. This exit visa needs to be signed by the sponsor who invited you to the Kingdom. Though there are some exceptions like Business, Tourism or Hajj visa doesn’t require exit permits.  You can not get exit visa without signatures of your employer.  

Lets start the beginning!

Hold! Before we start the fun – before you start thinking about getting in Saudi Kingdom, let’s read a saying by King Abdul Aziz bin Saud

“My Kingdom will survive only insofar as it remains a country difficult to access, where the foreigner will have no other aim, with his task fullfilled, but to get out.”

No wonder why Saudi Arabia (will always be reffered as Saudia) has one of the most restrictive travel policies in the world and you need to have visas in advance in order to enter the Kingdom. Only exception being the nationals of Gulf Cooperation Council. Citizens of Israel are not allowed to enter the Kingdom, Period. Saudis prefer not to grant visa to unaccompanied women, but work-permits (work-visas/aqamas) are common in some fields like nursing, teaching, maids etc.

Usually once you get an employment offer from Saudia, most of the difficult tasks are handeled by your employer and usually they take most of the pain for you. Normally, the Saudis have agents in all part of the world – these agents are paid by the Saudi Employer for facilitating you. For me, this has been the easiest task to get a work-visa of Saudia. Trust me, for me getting a visa of Singapore was much more difficult, much more time & pain staking than getting a work-visa of Saudi Arabia. My agent did a wonderful job. Though I have been a bit lazy on my side, but there was no lack of commitment on agent’s part.

Medical Examination 

You need to have a medical examination by the appointed medical centres of Saudi Embassy in your country/city. For residents of Karachi, Saudi Embassy in Karachi have such medical centre “Taj Medical Centre” on Khayban e Shahbaz, D.H.A. Karachi. It would take roughly around 2 hours to get all the process done. This will include blood tests, urine test, x-rays & physical examination like eye-sight, chest & could be something related to private parts. If you are woman who have conceived before the medical test, make sure that you inform them about your pregnancy so that you could avoid the x-ray test which could turn fetal for your baby in progress. Make sure that before going to the medical centre, you take a lots of liquids so that you don’t have issues while they give you plastic bottle for taking sample of urine, this is what happened with me, I had to take atleast 4-5 glasses of water to get the sample out ;-). There are 2 types of reports, ordinary & urgent. In case of Ordinary/normal you’ll get the report on next working day and in case of urgent, you’ll get report sameday. Yes, charges are little different. But not very different. I opted for the urgent one. Before going to Medical Centre, consult with your agent, he’ll take time for you from medical centre + he’ll give you a form stamped by the agent that you’ll present to medical centre. Make sure that you have atleast 4 passport size photographs with white/off-white background, your passport & your national ID card before you go to Medical Centre.

Yes, once you get a call from your agent, make sure that you have all the necessary documents, a valid passport (valid atleast for next 6 months), CNIC (for Pakistanis), Educational Degrees, work experience certificates (though not required) and your agent would give you the sizes of photographs that you need to provide him with other documents.

Enough for getting started. Wait for the next episode.