Friday, October 16, 2015
VALUABLE EXPERIENCE OF PERMANENT FAMILY VISA ISTEQDAM
Mr. Fouad Anwar shared his valuable experience of permanent family visa in Saudi Arabia with our blog, He want to share this experience with those all expatriates who are applying for permanent family visa through Istiqdam. It will be glad if it is useful for some one. You can read his message below.
Dear Brothers and fellow expatriates, I wish to share some key points about my experience in this regards.
1. I am a resident of Jeddah but my Iqama is issued from Riyadh.
2. I tried to apply online but got the same message as many others have been getting. I think the procedure is closed now. Before my marriage, i used to get the message to pay SR.2000 for visa fees to proceed with the application. But after marriage, the message changed and i had to approach isteqdam.
3. I applied through Jeddah isteqdam. For this I needed to have the form and company letter attested from the CoC in Jeddah and also along with them you need to have the C.R (sijil tijaariyah) of your company that you have a branch in jeddah.
4. The company letter should mention the profession exactly as mentioned in your iqama.
5. My degree and marriage certificate were already attested by the Saudi Embassy and Saudi Culture but needed MOFA attestation. Jeddah MOFA did not attest it as my iqama was from Riyadh so I had to go to Riyadh MOFA to attest them. This means MOFA can only be done from the city mentioned in your iqama.
6. Though my appointment was after 2 days, i did not want to wait for that long as my documents were all ready. So, i kept trying to get an early appointment, kept refreshing and luckily found it for the very next day. (quite unbelievable)
7. Finally, i reached isteqdam at around 9.30 am even though my appointment was at 11 am. It doesnt really matter at what time your appointment is. If you are lucky, you may get a token very early. Different people have different opinions in this matter.
8. The only fault he found out was that my degree was translated from a translating company whose license had expired so he refused it. He just asked me to get a new translation from some other translating company. I immediately rushed to the office opposite the isteqdam gate and got it done in half an hour. Went back to the same person on the counter. He checked it and accepted. After sometime my name was called and i collected the yellow slip.
9. In case of any kind of emergency, you may approach the office exactly opposite the isteqdam or the stationary beside it. They have all the things you need.
10. You should carry the originals of all the documents you are submitting. You should submit only the copies (Passport, Iqama, Marriage, Degree etc.) Only the form and the company letter should be original.
I have the yellow slip with me now and i scanned and mailed it to my agent in India. He says that it takes sometime for the MOFA number to appear online. So, I need to wait for a few more days.
