Saudi Arabia Visa Services is a professional London based visa agency that specialises in the issuance of:
- Saudi Arabia business visa
- Saudi Arabia visitor visa
- Saudi Arabia work visa
The most important part of your Saudi Visa application is the government invite. This is typically an automated printed Arabic letter provided from Saudi.
This Saudi invite is mandatory for the Saudi visa application process. We require this Saudi invite to create an “e-number” for your Saudi visa application, and make the necessary payment to the Saudi embassy before the application is submitted for processing.
How to obtain a Saudi invite?
You must request the Saudi company you are visiting to visit their local Ministry of Foreign Affairs or Saudi Chamber of Commerce and obtain this. They are then issued this invite which is emailed to you. The government invite is then faxed from the government agency in Saudi to the Saudi embassy in London. When your application is submitted to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in London, the documents are paired up and the Saudi visa issued accordingly.
For more information on how to obtain the Saudi visa invite please contact us.
On further details regarding how a company can obtain an invite from the Saudi chamber of commerce, please click here.
On the 13th February 2020, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia integrated their previous 3 main visa types of:
- Commercial Visit Visa
- Working Visit Visa
- Businessman Visit Visa
Into one category now known as the Business Visit Visa.
What does this mean exactly?
Profession Category:
1. Job Category 1: Businessman/Investors
The embassy has stated that the Businessmen/women and investors can apply using the same mechanisms via the embassy using our services as per the usual process. This means that once you have an invitation from the counterpart in Saudi Arabia, we will then translate this and ensure it is correct in order to proceed with the normal application. Please email all invitations to help@saudiarabiavisa.co.uk
2. Job Category 2: Owners of companies, organisations, Members of Boards, Directors, Employees and their representatives.
This category covers most other professions, and your profession should be given to your counterpart in Saudi Arabia to obtain you their invitation for the visa application. Typically these cover nearly all office based roles of positions, such as consultants, advisors, managers, accountants, people in sales roles, and so forth. Therefore in most cases we would advise putting your department and your role; eg sales manager; accounts director; and so forth. You can contact us at help@saudiarabiavisa.co.uk should you require further guidance.
If the applicant is an engineering worker, in order to ensure there is no conflict with the rules stated as per the point belows, it is advised that Business Meetings or office based activities are mainly put as the core purpose of visit when the invitation is obtained by your Saudi Arabian inviters.
3. Job Category 3: Manual workersand Artisan/Craftsmans
During the issuance of the rule changes, the Saudi embassy have stated their wish to hire domestic workers for various positions not requiring foreign specialist skills, and have stated work visas will not be issued for Manual workers and craftsman/artisans. The most common job categories for artisan/craftsman might include:
Welders, Electricians, Fitters, Turners, Millwrights, Sheetmetal Workers, Boilermakers, Mechatronics, Mechanics, Toolmakers, Patternmakers, Bricklayers, Plumbers, Carpenters, Joiners, Shutterhands, Steel fixers, Glaziers, Plasterers, Tilers, Sound technicians and Instrumentation and electronics technicians.
In the event that you are any of the above in category 3, then please see the Important Points section as below.
Important Points:
Details on your invitation: Please note that as a Saudi Visa agency, our main role is to advise on the documentation, undertake the relevant enjaz document procession, attest any employer support letters, submit the paperwork to the embassy and collect. We will submit based on the guidelines as above. If you wish for us to proceed with submitting any documentation on the Business Visit Visa, regardless of job profession or purpose of visit, we will proceed with this, however cannot provide any assurances of visa issuance from the official embassy.
Statement on Visa: “Not Permitted To Work”: will be stated on all visas. This is written mainly to ensure that those professions as per Job Category 3 are adhered to, however may not be applicable to specialist technical professions. In the event you are undertaking any form of technical work in Saudi Arabia, we would advise that you speak with your Saudi Arabia counterparts before your visit to ensure that you will successfully be able to undertake your work in Saudi Arabia with the visa that has been issued and adhering to their local regulations. Please see our terms and conditions which stipulate that our role will be to undertake the visa processing on your behalf in London, however take no responsibility for your activities in Saudi Arabia or with the company you are visiting which should be address directly.
What the Invitation letter for a Saudi Arabia Business Visa contains
This part of the Saudi visa application process is critically important to the visa application. There are 3 main categories of the saudi letter of invitation that have different validity periods, expiry dates and different allowed permissions and restrictions. Below is a short information guide on getting started.
MOFA Invitation Letter
The majority of the invitations are written partially in Arabic and English. If you need an Arabic translation, we request all applicants to email us the Saudi business visa invitation to our email: help@saudiarabiavisa.co.uk where one of our team members will check the core points off the invitation to ensure the invitation is usable.
The main notable sections of the invitation are listed below:
1. Which KSA Saudi Embassy is the invitation addressed too:
If using Saudi Arabia our visa agency, the invite needs to be addressed to the Saudi embassy in London. It is common for the invitation to be made to embassies in different countries, eg Dublin, Dubai most commonly. When liaising with your Saudi sponsor, please ensure that you require the invitation to be made to the embassy in London in the event that your company has global offices. In the event it is made to another embassy (eg in the United Arab Emirates, or other European country) then this will need to be changed in order for us to submit your application.
2. Job Profession:
As described on this page, the occupation should follow the rules as per the Saudi embassy in order to ensure that a business visa can be issued. Working visit visas are no longer available, therefore the business visit visa is the only commercial visa available.
3. Sponsor ID
This is equivalent to a UK company’s house registration number, and this will be listed on the invitation which will be used for when we process the application and submit it to the Saudi Embassy in London.
4. Business Invitation Number
At the top left hand side of the invitation usually next to a barcode is the invitation number. This is a critically important number as it is used to bring up the invitation details when we complete the enjazit process where we register your application with the Saudi Arabia government, and process the enjaz before embassy submission
5. Your company information
Please note that our company will only be able to take on your Saudi Arabia visa applications if your employer support letter is a UK based company.
If your company is based abroad, then please have this part of the invitation changed to your UK company. If you are either a freelancer, or self employed we often advise you to work with a domestic company that can help with your case.
Why this is important: The employer support letter that is submitted with the rest of the Saudi Arabia visa application will contain an invitation number, job profession and sponsorship ID, which will state on it also the UK companies house number.
This letter with the UK company house registration number is then taken by our company to the Arab British Chamber of Commerce in London who will stamp it after undertaking an online database check. The ABCC will not be able to stamp a foreign company, and a legalised ESL from the ABCC is required by the Saudi embassy for visa processing.
Please note that if you are intending to apply for a Saudi Arabia Work Visa, or Saudi Arabia Family Visit visa, then the visa rules and requirements vary, please see our respective page.
For additional information or clarification about any of the parts above, please contact us where our team members will be able to assist further.
