Saudi Arabia is one of the most popular work destinations for people from Pakistan with millions of Pakistanis working in various fields in Saudi Arabia since many decades. This includes not only typical labor and technician jobs but also a number of professional white collar jobs like doctors, engineers, teachers and many other professions.
For typical low level labor jobs, almost all steps related to visa processing are normally handled by the agents with less involvement of the employee but for many white collar professional jobs, It is important for the candidate to know all the required steps and personally get involved in those steps to get all visa processing done and to get work visa (employment visa) stamped on the passport.
In this post, we will share all the required steps for Saudi Arabia Work Visa Stamping in Pakistan for a professional job offer from Saudi Arabia. All information in this article is based on personal experience of work visa stamping.
Work Visa for Saudi Arabia Step 1: Get A Formal Job Offer (Offer Letter) from Your Employer in Saudi Arabia
For a job, once you have successfully completed all the interview process including any technical and HR level interviews, your employer will start negotiating a job offer with you. Keep all the factors including your total experience, market salary statistics, company profile, potential future growth, cost of living in Saudi Arabia, your family circumstances etc. in your mind while negotiating your job offer.
Once you and your employer have reached to an agreed level for your basic salary, other allowances and any additional perks and benefits (as per labour law of Saudi Arabia), you will receive a formal job offer (offer letter) from your employer.
After receiving offer letter, you will be required to formally respond to the employer about your acceptance of job offer. Once offer is formally accepted from your side, employer will proceed with subsequent steps required to get your visa processing started.
Work Visa for Saudi Arabia Step 2: Get Your Degree Attested from HEC & Foreign Office of Pakistan
It is mandatory that your degree is attested from Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and Foreign office of Pakistan in order to be considered for employment visa of Saudi Arabia.
For HEC Attestation you can visit HEC office and provide them your matric, F.Sc certificates along with your degree and they will attest your degree.
After getting your degree attested from HEC, you also need to get it attested from Foreign Office (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Foreign Office will attest your degree only if it is already attested by HEC.
Attestation from HEC and MOFA should be fairly easy and you shouldn’t get any hassles unless you have any issues in your name in any of your certificates or degrees.
Work Visa for Saudi Arabia Step 3: Get A Letter of Bonafide Student from Your University
In the next step, you are required to get a formal certificate from the university from where you received your degree declaring you as a bonafide student who completed degree course as a regular student.
This bonafide certificate should clearly state details about your enrolment in university’s degree program and should explicitly mention degree duration and degree program name.
This bonafide letter should also be attested from Foreign Office and you can get it attested along with your degree.
Work Visa for Saudi Arabia Step 4: Get Formal Agreement Letter, Job Offer, Letter Addressed to Saudi Culture Office & Letter Addressed to Saudi Embassy in Pakistan
Your degree or any documents attested from HEC and Foreign Office are still not acceptable by Embassy of Saudi Arabia for stamping Employment Visa unless they are also attested from Saudi Culture Office in Pakistan.
To get your degree attested from Culture Office of Saudi Arabia in Pakistan, you need to get a few important letters from your employer. These letters should be in company’s official letter pad and should be sent to you by the employer after getting them attested/stamped by Chamber of Commerce.
It is important to mention here that your employer will send these documents through courier service to an authorized agent only and for that either your employer will himself choose an agent or they will ask you to share with them credentials of any authorized agent in your area who can perform required steps on your behalf as authorized agent.
Your employer will also require a copy of your passport as they will mention your name as per passport and also your passport number in the agreement and other letters as required.
Once you share with them details of the authorized agent, they will send following documents to the agent through courier services:
- Job Agreement with all details about offered job.
- A Letter addressed to Saudi Culture Office in your country requesting them to perform degree attestation/verification.
- A Letter addressed to Saudi Embassy/Consulate for the same purpose.
Once your agent receives all these formal documents, carefully check to ensure that name in Arabic & English on all letters should be correct and exactly as per your passport. Any mismatches in the names or any incorrect information in any of the letters or documents may result in rejection from Culture office.
Work Visa for Saudi Arabia Step 5: Get Your Degree Attested from Saudi Culture Office in Pakistan
With all the required documents and letters received from your employer, your agent will create your file along with copy of your passport, national identity card, degree, bonafide student letter etc. and your documents will be submitted by the agent in Saudi Culture office.
Saudi Culture office will take some time (from 2 weeks to 1 month depending on circumstances) for completing the process of verification/attestation of your degree.
Your agent will inform you once your degree has been attested/verified from Saudi Culture office.
Work Visa for Saudi Arabia Step 6: Get Your Degree Attested from Saudi Embassy/Consulate in Pakistan
Degree once verified from Saudi Culture Office also needs to be attested from Saudi Embassy or Consulate in Pakistan. For this purpose, your employer should have sent a separate letter addressed to Saudi Embassy/Consulate duly attested from Chamber of Commerce.
For degree attestation from Embassy, your agent will take care of this and he will submit your degree along with any other required documents in Embassy and get it attested from there.
Work Visa for Saudi Arabia Step 7: Get Your Medical Fitness Certificate by Having Medical Test in Approved Medical Centre
You need to be medically fit as per requirement of Saudi Arabian embassy and shouldn’t have any diseases which may affect well being of others or any diseases which may affect your work performance. For this purpose, there is a standard medical examination carried out in authorized medical centres for any candidate wishing to go to work in Saudi Arabia.
For medical fitness test, your agent will get an appointment on your behalf and you will be allocated a specific medical centre for your medical test with a proper schedule.
You need to go to medical centre for your medical test as per schedule and there you will be tested as per their standards including your blood test, Chest X-Ray, Eye Test, general physical examination etc.
Medical test results usually take between 2 to 4 days (depending on medical centre). Your medical result will be uploaded online to make it available for embassy.
Work Visa for Saudi Arabia Step 8: Visit Etimad Center for Biometric Enrollment
After getting declared FIT in your medical test result, you need to visit Etimad Center for biometric enrollment of your fingerprints. Your biometric enrollment through Etimad center and online uploading of your medical result is a mandatory requirement for getting your work visa stamped from Saudi Arabian embassy in Pakistan.
Work Visa for Saudi Arabia Step 9: Submit All Your Documents in Saudi Embassy or Consulate for Work Visa Stamping on Your Passport
Once all previous steps have been completed, now your agent will submit your visa application in Saudi Embassy/Consulate in order to get your visa stamped on your passport.
For getting visa stamped on your passport, your agent will submit following documents in the embassy:
- Your Original Passport (Along with All previous passports)
- Original Medical Report
- Original biometric slip
- Attested degree
- Your Passport Size Photographs
With all this submitted in Embassy, you should receive your passport stamped with Visa in a few days. Depending on circumstances, visa stamping duration from embassy may vary. For my case, It was stamped in just two days.
Work Visa for Saudi Arabia Step 10: Visit Protectorate Office to Get Protector Stamp on Your Passport
For any work visa issued in Pakistan, it is mandatory to get protector stamping on your passport and only then you can proceed from Immigration from Pakistan. For protector stamping, you need to visit Protectorate office. For this purpose, some agents do it themselves on your behalf and provide you stamped passport after getting protector done. However, some agents ask you to do it yourself for which you need to visit protector office yourself and get it done. It is done in the same day when you submit it.
For exact requirement of documents for getting visa protector, you can consult with your agent and make sure that you reach protector office early morning with a file containing all your documents. You will also observe a large number of protector agents outside protectorate office who offer their services to get your protector done. If you don’t want to go through all the hassle yourself, you can avail their services but if you are condiment enough about all your documents and can spare time yourself, it is better to do it yourself rather than paying some extra bucks to those agents.
With protector done, you are now good to go and you can either book your flight yourself or ask your employer to book a flight for you and can fly towards Saudi Arabia and start a new journey of your professional life there.
You may refer to another article to know about how to get a Job in Saudi Arabia.