Living in any other than your native country demands a residential permit from you; in Saudi Arabia, you may call it Iqama. It’s a legal permit issued by KSA Govt. to the expatriates. Besides, other native people hold a national ID for getting hired as employees, scholarships, etc. Here, mostly comes a question by the expatriates: what should we have to do if we lost our Iqama or it has been stolen? So, we took a simple step-by-step guide of this problem, followed it, and got the right solution.
1- Inform the competent Authority:
Firstly, you have to inform the competent Authority means your Iqama Sponsor. The sponsor will help you get a new one as it holds your verification information. Sponsors will make it easier by mostly recovering or replacing the Iqama process by themselves. Besides, some sponsor’s even let their customer pay the penalty fee.
2- Report to Police:
The second way is to report to the police nearby you. The report holds information about your losing Iqama, such as place.
Note: MIO states that there will be no fee or charges if you report within twenty-four hours.
3- Applicable Fee on New Iqama:
In case of not finding it even on reporting to police and doing all other possible solutions. You have to pay a fee that you may call a penalty, and it is heavy. However, different charges are applied based on the following criteria.
- If you lost Iqama for the first time in your history, you would charge 1,000 SR.
- If you lost Iqama for the second time, the fee charged would be 2,000 SR.
- If you lost Iqama for the third time, the fee charged would be 3,000 SR.
So it increases 1000 Saudi Riyals every time you get a new Iqama.
4- Documents needed to submit:
First, you have to complete your document section and then submit it to the Iqama loss unit to get the new one. After checking and verifying all your documents, they’ll issue a new Iqama.
- Fee slip that you deposited for replacing Iqama
- Police report if you go for it
- Iqama copy of your family head
- Expat’s original copy of passport
- Passport copy of your and your family head
- Correctly fill the admission form
- Attach two pictures of your to this admission form
Do it via ABSHER ACCOUNT:
You may do all this by yourself via ABSHER ACCOUNT online.
- Firstly, log in to your current ABHSER account and report that you had lost Iqama.
- My Services option will be seen in the bar; press the Services tab below it.
- Next, press Tawasul
- After this, a new bar opens, where you have to choose the New Request option.
- A new screen appears; here, set your preferences first, included page language, sector, and service.
- Then click on Request Description, where you have to write how you lost the Iqama.
- Attach the generated pdf to it.
Lastly, after completing these processes, you’ll get a message of the request being processed. Wait for a while after successfully requesting submission move to the ABSHER account.
- Login the account
- Press the General Services button
- Here click on the Passports option
- Then select the Tawasul option
- Click on Inquiry for Requests
After your request has been accepted, you’ll need a print form of your Iqama. For this, you move to the Jawazat office and show your documents and completion process.
After documents verification, the Jawazat will print the new Iqama.
Note: Will demand no additional charges on printing your New Iqama.
Summary
Your legal permit or Iqama should be with you anywhere while moving in the KSA as it confirms your legality. However, unluckily, due to some reasons, you may lose your Iqama; then how to replace it or recover it becomes necessary for living everyday residential life. So, we took a simple procedure by applying this; you may get the new one instantly. Furthermore, if you can report it within 24 hours of losing, you will not be charged for getting a new one. Otherwise, a fee must be applicable depending on your losing time.