The Ministry of Interior’s Absher platform has introduced a new service that allows individuals to report cases of absconding for those who arrived in Saudi Arabia on a visitor visa. The platform has outlined five conditions for submitting such a report, including that the absentee’s visa must be classified as a personal or family visit visa, and the report must be made within 7 days of the visa’s expiry. It is not possible to submit the report after 14 days and the visa must be expired. Additionally, the report can only be submitted once for each visitor and cannot be cancelled after submission.
Individuals can extend the visitor visa if there are 7 days or less remaining, or within 3 days after expiry, with the visa holder present in Saudi Arabia and payment of extension fees. The visa holder’s passport must also be valid, with both the applicant and holder alive and no unpaid traffic violations. Furthermore, the medical insurance coverage must be extended for the required period, whether for a single or multiple entry visa.
The Absher platform also allows reporting of runaway domestic workers, with the condition that the worker’s residency permit is valid and the report is made only once for each worker. If a domestic worker runs away before their residency permit is issued, the incident must be reported to the Expatriates Affairs Department. It is important to note that reports about runaway workers cannot be cancelled through the Absher system and must be done through the Expatriates Affairs Department within 15 days of the report submission.
If a report about a runaway worker is not cancelled within 15 days and becomes permanent, the worker’s file will be transferred to a monitoring list and they will be deported and prevented from re-entering the Kingdom. This is applicable if no final exit visa has been issued for the worker. These new services provided by the Absher platform aim to streamline the reporting process for cases of absconding individuals, both visitors and domestic workers, and ensure efficient handling of such situations.
