The kingdom of Saudi Arabia offers different types of visas. The differentiation of your visa relies upon the purpose and duration of your stay in that specific country. However, the most common visit in KSA is a Family visit visa. Many foreigners are working in KSA and most of them are living alone. However, the need of meeting their family is absolute. Due to this, the Foreign Ministry of KSA has taken the initiative to launch a policy in visit visas that is suitable for such families. Therefore, the visa directed to family visit is given by Foreign Affairs Ministry and so is referred to as MOFA (Ministry of Foreign Affair) family visit visa.
Types of family visit visa:
Every foreigner residing in another country wishes to spend more time with their family. To compensate for this need, the Foreign Ministry of KSA has provided two types of visit visas for families i.e. single entry visas and multiple entry visas. A single entry visit visa has a duration of 30 days in KSA. This visa is valid for 90 days but still can be extended to 6 months. However, multiple visit visas have a duration of 90 days in KSA. A person can stay in Saudi Arabia for 365 days but can also extend the visa for further 180 days.
Procedure to extend Visit Visa in KSA:
There are two methods to extend your family visit visa. One is through e-service and the other is by going to the Jawazat office suggested by the Saudi government administration. In both ways, you have to pay a family visit extension visa fee i.e. 100SAR before ten days of your visa expiry.
Extension of family visit visa through Absher:
The Interior Ministry of Saudi Arabia has made the extension of family visit visas very easy by providing their services online. It has launched an advanced application called Absher for this purpose. Therefore, the following are the steps to be taken when extending a family visit visa through Absher.
- The first step is to open the Absher website.
- The second step includes the selection of two options individual (for a single person) and business (for company).
- The third step is to choose the desired language.
- The next step is to log in to the Absher account.
- As you are logged in to your Absher account, now go to DASHBOARD of your account.
- After opening the dashboard, now choose the E-services option.
- The next step is to select the PASSPORT option.
- Then go to EXTEND VISA option present in the right corner of the screen.
- Now you will get the confirmation option, click on it.
- Finally, your extension of the visa is done.
Extension of family visit visa through Jawazat office:
This method is a bit difficult than the first one as it requires human mobility. If you are extending your family visit visa through Jawazat then you have to find out the nearest Jawazat office around you. This extension requires some personal information in the form of documents to be submitted at the counter of the Jawazat office. Following are the steps to be taken while extending the family visit visa through Jawazat.
- The first step is to submit an extension visit visa fee of 100 SAR through your bank contrary to your passport number.
- The second step is to submit your documents that include:
- Applicant’s passport (original/copy).
- Applicants visit visa (original/copy).
- Residency card or sponsors IQAMA (original/copy).
- Passport-sized (2-4) photos of the applicant.
- Complete fill of passport form.
- Submission of fee slip.
After providing all the documents, your visa will be extended or you will be notified of your visa extension.
Conclusion:
Hence all the information required to extend the family visit visa in KSA is mentioned above. However, the Government of KSA is efficient and responsible to solve all the problems that arose during visa extensions. Not only these two methods are offered to get the extension but other means of facilities like “Tawasul” and many others are also introduced to combat the issues related to family visit visa extension.