ABU DHABI, 2 May 2004 — Immigration authorities in the United Arab Emirates have announced that foreigners who want to change the status of their visit visa to an employment visa will have to leave the country and return only after 30 days.

At present, visitors can change their residency status after finding jobs in the emirate, either by paying a 500-dirham fee or by leaving the country and returning within a day or more.

Under the new proposals, visitors will not be issued work permits if they return on an employment visa within a month, the Gulf News quoted Brig. Hadher Khalfa Al-Muhairi, head of the Directorate of Naturalization and Residency, as saying.

The proposal by the Ministry of Interior has yet to be approved by the country’s top authorities.

Al-Muhairi said the proposal was made to ensure that any new worker entering the country fulfilled all the legal requirements for issuing an employment visa.

“A visit visa should be used just for that purpose and not for starting work. People who are given a visit visa should not abuse it by trying to work on their visit visa. They have no right to work whether paid or unpaid. If they do find work during their stay, they are to go back home for one month before they are issued a work permit,” he said.

Under the new proposal, visitors will not be able to re-enter the country within a month from leaving the UAE.

“Their names and other personal details will be stored in an electronic databank so that they can be blocked from re-entering the country within 30 days of their exit. Under the current law, people who stay on after their visit visas expire to start work are fined a small amount, then are able to obtain a work permit,” Al-Muhairi said.

The proposals would put an end to this practice.

Al-Muhairi said another proposal was to issue a combined visit-work visa for certain categories of jobs which would be valid for three months to a year. The brigadier said this would help the building industry recruit workers.

People have been abusing the lenient policy of the government by entering and re-entering the country as a tourist in order to extend their stay in the country by taking quick return flights several times in a month, the immigration official said.

“Many foreigners would come on a tourist or transit visa and as soon as it expires they would cross the border and come back on a fresh visa. Many have stayed years in the UAE on a tourist visa which is unacceptable,” Al-Muhairi said.

A proposal, he added, has been made to control this by making it compulsory for such visitors to have a gap of between one and three months after each visit.

Referring to the six month ban on re-entering the country after the cancellation of a resident or employment visa, the immigration chief said a certain number of categories have been exempted from this ban.

He said the exemption was necessary in certain categories considering the labor market requirements. “The country cannot afford to lose skilled workers who have been trained in the local environment. Losing them would cause a setback to the economy.”