Bringing My Spouse With Me
I am arriving in Doha on the 28th of June, along with my husband. I am the one that is to be employed. I will be working for a US-based non-profit and will be sponsored by the Supreme Educational Council of Qatar. I have been reading the posts about visas and am a bit concerned about getting him a visa. How should I go about doing this? Is it okay that he is coming before he has obtained a resident visa?
Banff refugee said: "She's the employee, but the NGO was pretty unhelpful with the visa -- she has a business visa for herself, and they said she could get a visa for me after, but that seems to be after the RP (2 months?)"
Banff, so far as I'm aware, that isn't related to you (husband) being sponsored by wife. The same would apply to a husband sponsoring his wife.
I'm not yet in Qatar -- *still* waiting for my work visa -- but I've been reading these fora for around a couple of months now and it seems that the 'trailing spouse' as the spouse of an expat worker is generally known, really trails in the case of Qatar. Some countries may be different, I don't know, but Qatar -- from my reading of questions like this over the past couple of months -- always seems to offer the work visa to the employee first, and then two-three months later when the employee has secured a residents permit, *then* the trailing spouse can get sponsored.
It is possible for the trailing spouse to come over on a visitor's/tourist visa and hop across to Dubai on a visa renewal trip every so often, but if the trailing spouse wants to be sponsored, then they must wait until their husband/wife has had their resident's permit processed.
In the case of Qatar, processing the resident's permit application can take a couple of months, so it's not possible for a husband(employee)/wife(trailing spouse) or a wife (employee)/husband (trailing spouse) to enter Qatar at the same time on long term resident's status; the trailing spouse, whether it's a husband or wife will *always* have to wait until their employed/sponsored spouse has secured their resident's permit before finalising their own status.
Hi there, did you partner need a return ticket to get the tourist visa at the airport, or did they travel with a one way ticket. We are Australian and know that she can get a tourist visa upon arrival, but are not sure of the requirements for the visa
I just got here about three weeks ago...also from Louisiana in fact.
My wife arrived here about 10 days after I did and was able to get a tourist visa at the airport. Her tourist visa is good for one month initially, and can be extended for one month after that. After that two months I will probably have just gotten my residency and will be working on hers, but she will not be able to extend her visa again. What she will have to do is fly to Bahrain (or Dubai, she just has to leave Qatar) and come back, at which point she can get another one month tourist visa. By the time the second round of visas are expired I should have her under my sponsorship.
The flights back and forth to Bahrain for visa "reset" purposes are rather common, and I think they will run about $300US.
Feel free to reply with any other questions about this process that you may have...hope this helps.
I have exactly the same situation including the same sponsor and probably the same NGO employer for my spouse. She's the employee, but the NGO was pretty unhelpful with the visa -- she has a business visa for herself, and they said she could get a visa for me after, but that seems to be after the RP (2 months?)
Did you get them to do a permit for your husband, or wait until you had an RP?
She's leaving soon, and the postings here imply I should try to not be looking for a flight anytime soon.
Thanks for your help, and I hope it worked for you.
Gordon