Iqama renewal and transfer in Saudi Arabia: who applies, who pays, what you check
Iqama and work-permit fees, and their renewal, sit with the employer. Renewal runs through Absher and Qiwa. A transfer does not start with your resignation before the new contract exists.
The iqama is not a card you buy from an office. Article 40 puts the iqama fee, the work-permit fee, their renewal, and the fines for delay the employer causes, on the employer rather than on you. Someone who asks you to transfer the “renewal fee” and promises to pay you back is running into that article. Recruitment fees themselves are in the guide to who pays.
Renewal: start from the date on the card, not from what admin said
The date that matters is the expiry printed on the iqama and shown in your Absher account, not the day an HR clerk promised. Open Absher before that date gets close. If the request is stuck, the reason is usually one of three: the contract on Qiwa is not up to date, the health insurance is not active, or the establishment cannot issue the service because of its Nitaqat position. Do not pay a broker to “find out why”. The reason appears to the employer in the system. Ask for it in writing.
The ministry work permit is a condition of issuing or renewing the iqama. The establishment issues it through Qiwa. You check that the profession on the iqama is still the work you do. Article 38 forbids employing you outside your profession before it is changed through the proper route. Renewing a card that names a profession unlike your job locks the problem in for another year.
Delay is not an office detail. The fine sits, in principle, with whoever caused the delay when that is the employer. You are the person stopped on the road or refused travel. Record that you asked for renewal before expiry: a message with the expiry date and a plain request. The first week after arrival, and how Absher then Qiwa works, is in the Qiwa and iqama guide.
Transfer: do not resign before you can see the new contract
Moving to another employer is done through Qiwa. The new employer raises the request, and Article 40 puts the transfer fees on them, not on you. The order that protects someone who cannot afford a gap: do not hand in a resignation and do not leave the housing until a new contract appears in your account that you can accept or reject. Resigning and then waiting “until they finish the transfer” is how people end up inside an absence window with no contract.
The current employer’s consent is not required in every case. There are cases — some of them tied to the contract having ended, to unpaid wages, or to a failure to renew — where the system allows a transfer on conditions that change and that you read inside the service itself. Do not treat a sentence on a page as tomorrow’s permission. Open the transfer service on Qiwa and see what your status allows, or ask the ministry on 19911. If the dispute is an absence report, its path is in the absence guide.
Before you accept the new establishment’s contract, match the wage, the profession, the term and the housing to what was promised. Accepting on Qiwa is acceptance. The checklist is in the Qiwa contract guide.
The names of the buttons on Absher and Qiwa change. Article 40 does not change with the screen. Read it in the Labour Law, then look at what your account shows, before you transfer a fee to anyone.
What usually stops the request, without you paying someone to lift it
Health insurance that is not in force stops a renewal before the request ever reaches Jawazat. Ask for the insurer’s name, the policy number and the end date, and match them to your account rather than to what is said. The medical, if the service asks for one for this profession or this renewal, is done at a centre the authority accepts, not at any clinic. Do not buy a “fit” report.
Changing the profession on the iqama has a fee, and Article 40 puts it on the employer along with the iqama fees. A new profession written to match the work you actually do is in your interest at transfer. A new profession written to get around a job reserved for Saudis is a problem for you and for the establishment. Do not sign a change whose title you do not understand.
Dependants on your iqama are renewed with the family’s paperwork. They do not always move automatically with your card. Before you travel, ask whether a spouse’s or a child’s iqama ends on a different date. Your own valid exit does not repair an expired iqama for a dependant who stayed in the Kingdom.
Sources
Rules and fees change and differ by country and employer. Always check with the official authorities before paying or signing anything.