RIYADH – The government of Saudi Arabia has introduced a new temporary work visa which allows companies to issue short-term visas for up to three months.
The visa is extendable for an additional three months and visa holder can work without permit and residency under this category of visa.
The difference between this visa type and others is that the request for this visa must be submitted by the business owner or a commissioner on Qiwa business which is an electronic platform giving access to the Ministry of Human Resources’ different services in the labour sector.
As far as the regulations for the temporary work visa service are required, it is essential that the enterprise must be active and have a valid commercial registration except for the activities that do not require commercial registration.
Besides, the enterprises under the same unified number must not have any expired work permit and have sufficient credit in the national unified number of the enterprise on the Absher account.
Another benefit of this visa is that the temporary work visa is issued immediately through Qiwa and does not require any documents; the visa is electronic and is valid within one year.
To apply for a temporary work visa online, the applicant must log in to the enterprise’s account on Qiwa platform and select the temporary work visa service from e-services. Afterwards, required fields must be completed and then request must be submitted.
Another condition for issuance of this visa is that the company must have a Nitaqat level of at least medium green. Nitaqat is a program that classifies companies based on their Saudization rates.
It merits mentioning that the new visa is available for people of multiple professions, including laborers, engineers, financial specialists, and IT consultants.
