DAMMAM, 26 June — The Director General of the Passport Office in the Eastern Province, Fahd Al-Humaidi, confirmed yesterday that expatriates can now travel anywhere within the Kingdom with only a valid iqama. “They don’t need any paper except a valid iqama to travel within the Kingdom,” Al-Humaidi told Arab News when asked about reports that expatriates still needed a paper from the sponsor attested by the chamber of commerce and industry to travel to other Saudi regions.
The new rule replaces the old system in which an expatriate was required to carry a travel letter from his employer that had been certified by the Passport Department. Under the new system an expatriate may move freely within the Kingdom as long as he or she has a valid iqama. The government announced last year that it would soon alter the rules pertaining to travel by expatriates within the Kingdom as well as the sponsorship rules. Under the proposed changes in sponsorship rules, expatriates will be allowed to keep their passports instead of handing them over to their sponsors.
On Sunday, Brig. Tarek Harazi, assistant director of the passport office in Jeddah, told Arab News that the new rule had come into effect last week. “This eases the burden on the expatriates as well as the passport department,” he added. The passport office in Jeddah alone used to handle more than 1,000 travel papers a day.
