Confusion over Saudi Tourist visa rules: Many Indians land in trouble

The multiple-entry tourist visa is valid for one year from the date of issuance, and the permissible period of stay is 90 days.

Jeddah: A 62-year-old Hyderabadi woman was recently stopped by officials at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. Shocked over the unexpected development, she was told that she had overstayed and violated visa rules and was sent back from the airport without being allowed to board a Hyderabad-bound flight.

She was one of scores of such Indians who landed in trouble without knowing procedures and rules of tourist visas. The woman’s husband had arranged a tourist visa for her from a traveling agent in Hyderabad instead of applying for a family visit visa. Like her, every day there are some hundreds of Indians reaching Saudi Arabia after the kingdom recently eased its tourist and visiting visa process.

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At the same time, some Indians are misusing the easily available tourist visas include those working in the IT sector, to land jobs in the Kingdom apart many skilled youth coming scouting for job opportunities.

The multiple-entry tourist visa is valid for one year from the date of issuance, and the permissible period of stay is 90 days. A single-entry tourist visa is valid for three months from the date of issuance, and the permissible period of stay is 30 days. The grey area for many Indians is the validity of visa and period of stay, which many fail to understand and land in trouble by exceeding the period of stay. Indians arriving on tourist visas were under the notion that the visa validity would be for one year for multiple entry and are staying accordingly. They leave Saudi Arabia before 90 days to neigbouring countries such as Bahrain and Jordan and enter again to stay for a further period.

“This is where most of these visitors commit a blunder,” said Muzammil Shaikh, a Telugu NRI activist in Riyadh, who handles several such cases.

Many Indians were stranded in Saudi Arabia for overstaying beyond 90 days and were struggling to pay hefty fines. Unlike family visit visas, tourist visas are not extendable after 90 days even if the holder leaves the Kingdom and enters again, he added. The total period of stay should not exceed 90 days.

Saudi Arabia has hit headlines with its goal of attracting 100 million visitors by 2030 as part of the Vision 2030 reform agenda intended to diversify the oil-dependent economy and open up to the world.