Jeddah: Getting A Child's Iqama (Residence Permit)

In my last post, I wrote about the difficulties we faced in getting our child's birth certificate. After this we proceeded to get his iqama or residence permit. To get a child's iqama, we were asked to provide the following:

• A copy of the parents' iqama (father and mother)
• A copy of the father's passport
• A copy of the child's birth certificate
• A copy of child's passport
• Two passport size photographs of the child 

We applied for his passport when we got his birth certificate. Little did we know that this was going to take a long time too. We finally got his passport after 6 months. By this time our son was over a year old. 

Next, my husband had to go the immigration office located at shariah sitteen, to start the iqama process. He was asked to fill a form outside main office, which he later took inside to the officer. After running a check, he was surprised when the officer told him he had a penalty to pay. One thousand Saudi riyals! Yes, this is the charge you pay for applying late for your child's iqama. He said our son was over a year old, so we had to pay the fine if we wanted to get his iqama done. 

My husband had no choice but to pay. Fortunately, payment was easy via an ATM machine located nearby. After paying this fine, he was able to proceed and he finally got the iqama a few hours later.

Needless to say that there is so much wrong information out there surrounding the process of getting your child's birth certificate or his/her iqama. We didn't have any idea and just discovered things in the process. After this first experience, we learnt a few things:

• Choose the clinic or hospital in which you intend to have your baby wisely. Besides getting a good obstetrician, a health institution that has experience in issuing documents that are required by the government office for the issuance of a birth certificate would save you a great deal of headache. We learnt this the hard way.
• Start the process early enough. Do not wait until your child is a few months old before starting, thinking that you have enough time.
• Find out what it takes to get a child's passport from your consulate or embassy. This would help you to know if you can get the passport in time to apply for your child's iqama without having to pay a penalty.

The process is tiring and could be long. So, men be patient.