List of Professions Eligible for Family Visa in Saudi Arabia & How to Change Your Iqama Profession to Apply One

So you want to sponsor a KSA family visit visa for your spouse or someone else in your family. What many people don’t take into account is that, not all professions are eligible to sponsor a family visa.

There are only a handful of professions eligible for family visa in Saudi Arabia.

• Apply for Family Visit Visa from Saudi Arabia

Also, while selecting the profession you need to be careful as some of the professions are reserved only for Saudis, and not expats. You need to ensure that your Iqama is not one of them. 

How Can I Check My Profession in Iqama?

The meaning of “Mehna” is job category or profession. Iqama is the best way to know what one’s Mehna is. So in Saudi Arabia, if someone asks for your Mehna, it means they are asking about the profession on your Iqama.

Legally, you can’t work in a profession which is not listed on your Iqama.

You can find your Iqama profession written next to the “Mehna” category as shown below.

What are the Professions Eligible for Family Visa in Saudi Arabia

Here is the complete list of professions allowed to sponsor a Family Visa in KSA. Any profession which is not part of this list is not eligible to apply for a family visa in Saudi Arabia.

If your profession is not one of the listed professions below, you would have to change your Iqama profession.

I have further divided the professions eligible for family visa in Saudi Arabia into three sections.

Manager/Director/Consulting

Specialist

Technicians

Other Eligible Professions

Change Saudia Arabia Iqama Profession

If your current profession on Saudi Iqama is different from your actual profession, you can change it to apply for a Saudi family visit visa or for any other reason.

Here are the requirements for Iqama profession change.

1. Registration with the Relevant Professional Body

Depending on your profession you would need to be registered with one or more professional bodies in Saudi Arabia.

• The 136 technician professions and engineers need to register with Saudi Council of Engineers.
• All health practitioners need to register with Mumaris Plus.
• All accountants, auditors and people working finance job need to register with SOCPA

It often happens that you would be able to register temporarily with one of teh professional bodies but you won’t be able to renew your registration with the professional body if your educational qualification doesn’t match your current profession.

For example, if you are an accountant, but you did a Bachelors in Arts and a Masters in Political Science, in that case things are gonna get tricky.

You can reach out to them through their helpline or help center email in these cases to get more details.

2. Get Your Degree Attested to Match with Iqama Profession

You need to get the degree attested from the Saudi embassy of the country that issued your degree in the first place. So for example, if you got your degree in the Philippines, that means the Saudi embassy of the Philippines can attest your degree.

If your degree is from a university or institute in Saudi Arabia, in that case you don’t need to attest it.

3. Be in Saudi Arabia

You can change your profession on Iqama only when you are inside Saudi Arabia.

4. Pay the Fees to Change Iqama Profession

The fees to change Iqama profession is 1000 SR. You can make the payment in any of the banks is Saudi Arabia using Internet banking for this.

5. Contact the GRO of the Company

Once you have made the payment, your employer needs to contact the Government Relations Officer of your company to start the process.

Usually the HR of your company would take care of this.

6. Check the Status of Change in Profession

After applying to change your Iqama profession, you can check your profession on

• In Absher Account
  
  Log into your Absher account and check the change of your profession, by visiting the “Dashboard” and then checking the left side of the screen to check your details.
  
• NCB Internent Banking
  
  If you have a bank account with Al Ahli bank, you can also check your Iqama Mehna using the NCB internet banking services.

7. Get a New Iqama

Visit any Jawazat office to get the new Iqama that should have your new profession. The whole process to change the profession can take 20 or more business days.

You can keep on using the old Iqama until you get the new one.

Changing Iqama Profession: F.A.Q.S

Can You Change Iqama Profession without Certificate?

There are certain profession changes that don’t need an attested degree.

1. Changing Non-technical professions

If you are changing your profession from one non-technical profession to another, for example laborer to cleaner, you don’t need attested certificates.

2. Changing from a Technical to Labor Profession

A Saudi resident with Iqama profession as an accountant can be registered with any degree with SOCPA and then transfer it to Labor. The same goes for a computer technician.

Can Domestic Workers Change Saudi Iqama Profession?

If your Iqama profession is a domestic worker such as Housemaid, Driver etc., you can’t change it into a business profession. You can only transfer it to some other domestic profession.

Reasons Your Iqama Profession Change was Denied

In reality, there are many reasons your application for an Iqama profession change might be rejected. Here are the most common ones.

1. The Iqama has expired.
   
   In this case, you would need to renew the iqama as soon as possible.
   
2. The Iqama profession is reserved for Saudis.
3. Your company is in Red Nitaqat category.
4. Your membership with SOCPA, SCE or Mumaris has expired.
5. You need to be registered with two professional bodies in Saudi Arabia, but you are registered with only one.
   
   For example, if you are a computer programmer registered with SOCPA, but not with SCE, in that case you would need to get a temporary membership of SCE first to change the Iqama profession.
   
    Let’s say you want to change your profession to an Accountant, then SOCPA membership is required