Rishta in Saudi Arabia

How to read a Saudi profile properly

Nobody settles in Saudi Arabia, and that changes everything

Every other country on this site offers a road that ends in permanent residence and then a passport. The Gulf does not, and a family in Pakistan weighing a proposal from Riyadh or Jeddah needs to understand that before it understands anything else.

Residence in the Kingdom is an iqama: a residence permit, sponsored by an employer, renewed yearly, and valid only while the job lasts. There is no permanent residence in the ordinary sense and no realistic path to citizenship, whatever the length of service. A child born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents is Pakistani, not Saudi, however many years the family has been there. A premium residency does exist for those who can pay a very large fee, and it is not the route most families are on. The employment rules have been reformed in recent years and a worker can now change job, travel and leave far more freely than a decade ago, but the underlying position has not changed: the residence follows the job.

So when a biodata says settled in Saudi Arabia, read it as employed in Saudi Arabia, and ask accordingly. Who is the employer, and is it government, a hospital group, a large company like the oil and petrochemical firms, or a small private business. Is the contract open-ended or fixed-term. How long has he been with them. What is written in the profession field on the iqama, which matters more than the job title for everything that follows. When does the iqama expire. And the question nobody enjoys asking: what is the plan if the job ends, because when it does the family generally has a short period to leave the country.

One practical point that catches Pakistani families every time. Our site has a residency field offering citizen, permanent resident, work visa and student visa, and in the Gulf the honest answer is almost always work visa. That is not a lesser answer and it should not be dressed up as anything else. Half the Pakistani households you admire in Jeddah are on a work visa, and have been for twenty years.

Can he actually bring a wife? The family visa decides

This is the single most important question on a Saudi proposal and the one most often left until after the nikah. A man working in the Kingdom cannot simply bring his wife to live with him. He must qualify to sponsor her on a family residence visa, and whether he qualifies depends on things he may not control.

Broadly, the requirements are a minimum monthly salary, a profession recorded on the iqama that falls within an eligible category, an employer willing to process it, and suitable accommodation. The salary figure and the list of eligible professions are set by the authorities and have changed more than once, so nobody should rely on what a cousin managed five years ago; check the current position through the employer or the official channels before anything is agreed. A monthly government fee for each dependant has applied in recent years as well, which for a wife and two children is a real line in a household budget.

The consequence is blunt. A professional on a good salary — a doctor, an engineer, a manager — will usually be able to bring his wife. A driver, a technician, a shop worker or a labourer often cannot, however hard he works and however honest he is. That is a fact about the Saudi system and not a judgement on the man, and a bride’s family should establish it kindly and early rather than discover it when the paperwork is attempted.

The questions, then. Does your profession category permit a family visa. What is the salary on the contract, as opposed to with overtime. Has your employer processed family visas for others in your grade. Roughly what will it cost in fees each year. And if the answer is that she cannot come, say so before the nikah, because the next section is then the whole of the marriage.

When she stays in Pakistan: the marriage conducted across a border

A very large number of Pakistani marriages involving the Gulf are lived apart. He works in Riyadh or Dammam, she lives in Pakistan, usually with his parents, and they see each other on annual leave. This is ordinary and it is not a failure. It is also the arrangement that produces the most unhappiness we hear about, almost always because nobody agreed the terms in advance.

If this is the likely shape of the marriage, settle these before the wedding, out loud, with both families present. How many times a year will he come, and for how long — one month a year is common and it is not much. Will she travel to him on a visit visa, how often, and who pays. Where exactly will she live, and is that her decision or his family’s. What is her position in that household: does she have her own room, her own kitchen arrangement, her own money, and who does she answer to day to day. How much money comes to her directly each month, as opposed to being handed to his parents on her behalf. Does she have her own bank account and her own phone. Will she be permitted to work or study if she wishes. And what is the plan — a date, not a feeling — for when they will live together, whether that means a family visa, a move back, or neither.

Two further things. When children arrive, decide in advance where they will be born and schooled, because the answer sets the next fifteen years. And keep the contact real: a fixed daily call at a fixed time, which from Saudi Arabia is easy, and not a message exchange that quietly thins out. Our United Arab Emirates page covers much of the same ground for the other large Gulf community.

No tax, no pension, and nobody retires here

Saudi Arabia pays no personal income tax, which is the reason a great many Pakistani families are there and the reason a Saudi salary stretches further than a British one. A family reading a figure from Riyadh should read it as close to take-home, which it very nearly is. But the other half of that bargain is rarely said in a rishta conversation, and it should be.

There is no state pension for an expatriate. What there is instead is an end-of-service gratuity, a statutory lump sum calculated from length of service and final salary, paid when the employment ends. It is real money and it is often the single largest asset a returning family has. It is also all there is. Nothing accumulates towards a retirement income, there is no national insurance record being built anywhere, and the years in the Kingdom count towards nothing in Pakistan either.

Which leads to the fact that shapes every Gulf household and that young couples plan around far too late: the working life there has an end date, and the family comes home. Sometime in a man’s fifties or early sixties the contract is not renewed, the iqama lapses, and the household returns to Pakistan permanently. Everything the family will live on afterwards has to have been built during the Saudi years. So ask, without embarrassment, what is being built: is there a house in Pakistan, is it registered in his own name, is there land, a business, a savings or investment plan. Our Sydney page sets out at length how overseas Pakistanis lose money buying property back home, and every word of it applies here with more force, because for a Gulf family that property is not an investment — it is the retirement.

Two costs to put in the same conversation. Children must attend private school; the Pakistan International Schools in Riyadh, Jeddah and the Eastern Province are the usual choice and are far cheaper than the Western international schools, but there are fees every year. And healthcare runs on employer-provided insurance, so what the policy covers, and whether it covers the wife and children at all, is worth reading before a pregnancy rather than during one.

Five cities, one Gulf, and the shortest flights home in the diaspora

Start with the Kingdom as one market, because people move within it for work far more than they move between countries. Riyadh and Jeddah hold the two largest Pakistani communities and are a two-hour flight or a long day’s drive apart. Dammam, with Khobar and Dhahran beside it and Jubail up the coast, is the Eastern Province oil belt and has a substantial community of its own. Makkah and Madinah hold long-settled families, many connected to the Haj and Umrah trades, and Makkah is an hour from Jeddah. Beyond the five, there are Pakistani households in Taif, Yanbu, Tabuk, Abha, Hail and Buraidah, and almost nobody searches them.

Then treat the Gulf as a single region, which it genuinely is for this community. The United Arab Emirates is a two-hour flight from Riyadh and holds the other great Pakistani expatriate population; Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman are all within two hours, and Bahrain is a causeway drive from Khobar. A match between Riyadh and Dubai is no harder to arrange than one between two Saudi cities, and the two households understand each other, because the iqama, the family visa and the end date are the same story in every one of these countries.

And the real advantage of searching from here. Saudi Arabia is closer to Pakistan than anywhere else our overseas members live: direct flights from Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam to Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Multan and Sialkot, three to four hours in the air, several a day, at fares that make a family visit possible rather than exceptional. The Kingdom runs two hours behind Pakistan, so the evening call home lands at a civilised hour every day of the year. A meeting between two families — one here, one in Pakistan — can be arranged for a long weekend, which is not true from London, Toronto or Sydney. Use that. Set your own country to Saudi Arabia and the partner preference to Pakistan, and meet in person early, because you can.

One piece of paperwork, since it is missed often. A nikah performed in the Kingdom between two Pakistani nationals should be registered with the Pakistani Embassy in Riyadh or the Consulate General in Jeddah, and the marriage registered with NADRA, so that the nikah nama is recognised for passports, family visas and anything else that follows. Do it at the time rather than years later.