Qatar Family Visa

 

When I came to Qatar for the first time I was able to buy a tourist visa at the Doha airport at immigrations. Each one is good for 30 days and then you can pay to renew it for another 30 days and after that you have to leave the country and come back and buy another visa. I believe that you can do this as many times as you need to, but I'm not sure.
However we decided to go ahead and get a family visa for me.
There are two medical appointments that you must have before you can get a family visa. The first medical appointment is to verify your blood type (they take a blood sample from your finger) and have your picture taken. Once the results come back your next appointment is scheduled.

For this appointment you go to the Ministry of Health. You go into the building and take a number and then you go into the waiting room and wait until your number is called. Once your number is called you go up to the counter and show your passport and pay for what you are having done and they print you a slip to take to the next phase of your appointment. You then wait in line to have another blood sample taken (this time it's a bit more) to test for HIV. After that you wait in line to have your chest x-ray done (this is to make sure that you don't have TB).  This whole process took me about 3 hours because of waiting in the lines. I have been hold that at times it can take up to 4 hours so I guess that I was lucky! A bit of advice: go in the morning (it's not as busy) and make sure you have an appointment.

All of the results come back in a few days and then you are issued a family visa, which is good for 6 months. If you then apply for a resident permit at a later time you have to go through this process as well. Family visas do not allow you to work and they don't give you medical either. Once you have the resident permit you can buy your health card (this is good for one year) and you can work. The easiest way is to have a sponsor before you come to Qatar to take care of all of this.

One thing we didn't know until I got here is that my husband has to show 6 months of local bank statements with a certain amount in them in order for me to be sponsored to work here (and get a resident permit). Once the 6 months have passed we can then apply for my resident permit. The resident permits are good for one year.

I wanted to explain this process because it's kind of complicated.  Hopefully this helps anyone else coming here to Qatar to live.  Plus it's very different then the US so it's kind of interesting for friends and family to read about! Hope it wasn't too boring though!


Here is a website that explains some more of the documents you need and other details.

http://qatar.angloinfo.com/moving/residency/family-residence-visa/