A multiple-entry tourist visa is valid for one year from the date of issue and allows a stay of 90 days.
Updated – Sunday 11 December 22 at 09:40 PM
Jeddah: A 62-year-old Hyderabadi woman was recently stopped by officials at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport. Shocked by the unexpected turn of events, she was told she had overstayed and violated her visa and was sent back from the airport and not allowed to board a flight to Hyderabad.
She is one of many Indians who get stuck without knowing the procedures and rules of a tourist visa. The woman’s husband arranged for her a tourist visa with a travel agency in Hyderabad instead of applying for a family visit visa. Hundreds of Indians like her are arriving in Saudi Arabia every day after the kingdom recently eased tourist and visit visa procedures.
Meanwhile, some Indians are abusing easily-obtained tourist visas, including those working in the IT industry, to find work in the Kingdom, along with many skilled young people who come in search of job opportunities.
A multiple-entry tourist visa is valid for one year from the date of issue and allows a stay of 90 days. A single-entry tourist visa is valid for three months from the date of issue, allowing a stay of 30 days. The gray area for many Indians is the validity period of the visa and the period of stay. Many people do not understand it and get into trouble on the grounds of exceeding the period of stay. Indians arriving on tourist visas think that multiple entry visas are valid for one year and will stay accordingly. They left Saudi Arabia 90 days ago for neighboring countries such as Bahrain and Jordan, before re-entering and staying longer.
“This is where most tourists make mistakes,” said Muzammil Shaikh, a Telugu NRI activist in Riyadh who has handled several such cases.
Many Indians are stuck in Saudi Arabia for overstaying their visas by more than 90 days and are struggling to pay huge fines. He added that unlike family visit visas, tourist visas cannot be extended after 90 days, even if the holder leaves the kingdom and re-enters. The total length of stay must not exceed 90 days.
Saudi Arabia aims to attract 100 million tourists by 2030 as part of its Vision 2030 reform agenda to diversify the oil-dependent economy and open it up to the world.
