The Interior Ministry’s assistant undersecretary for residency and citizenship affairs Maj Gen Sheikh Mazen Al-Jarrah said that expatriates’ residency validity would be limited to their passports’ validity. He clarified that those holding passports valid for a year will get one-year residency visa and those holding passports valid for two will get a two-year residency. He also added that the residency periods would be determined in full years, meaning that the holder of a passport valid for 18 months would only get a one-year residency and that those holding passports valid for less than 12 months would not be allowed to renew their residency until they renew their passports.

Jarrah stressed that valid iqamas on expired passports will expire too and that sponsors will not have any excuses of forgetting to renew their workers’ passports before applying to renew their residencies. “A sponsor is mandated to notice the validity of his workers’ passports and we will never paste a residency visa sticker on an expired passport or one valid for only a few months,” he underlined.