Did you know NOC is required to sell gold in Qatar?

The MOI makes it a point that gold sales require issuance of No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the police, to ensure that the transactions are carried out safely. This service is provided by Gold Sales Office at Souq Waqif and other security departments.

This was made necessary after quite a few cases of fraud gold sales were reported in the country. Here are the requirements:

For women

Bring gold for inspection
Bring gold bills
Bring ID of the gold owner

For men

Bring gold for inspection
Bring gold bills
Bring ID of the gold owner
For men’s watch, bring purchase invoice
For gold bullion, bring purchase invoice
When sending a representative of the owner of watch or bullion, the original ID card of the owner shall be produced.

MOI has also made it clear to only buy and sell gold from shops that are licensed. Also make sure that all the bills and invoices are stamped.

There are other situations where you require an NOC:

Transfer of job

Qatar is a country where the majority of people working are non-Qatari citizens. And thus even the procedures involved in their work and work-related issues are too many, including their sponsorship, accommodation, work permits, transfer etc.

Being under a specific sponsorship requires them to get everything verified and approved by their sponsors. All legal formalities too must only be done with the awareness of their sponsors or employers. One such important formality is the NOC.

NOC is a type of legal certificate or note of clearance that states that a previous employer does not have any objections of the employee finding another job or another sponsor. It is issued by any agency, organization, institute, or in certain cases, an individual.

An NOC frees the employee from any obligations towards the previous employer, and gives freedom for the employee to find a new job and a new sponsor.

So when a non-Qatari citizen employee leaves a job, while his contract is still valid, he has to get an NOC stating that his employer has no objection in him finding another job and sponsor. Because the employer is the one who holds the right to either provide the employee with NOC or even prohibit him/ her or demand to leave the country for 2 years before they could take a new sponsorship.

So if a non-Qatari citizen employee wants to transfer to another company, he/she must get himself an NOC with the previous employer’s signature on it.

Click here for the change of employee application form.

Driving License

It is compulsory to have a valid driving license in order to drive in Qatar. And it is the traffic department that issues licenses which comes in various options. There are couple of documents that the non-Qatari citizens are required to submit when applying for a driving license, and one among that is the NOC letter. The required documents include:

Filled in driving license application
NOC letter from applicants sponsor
Copy of passport
Copy of Sponsors ID
Photographs

The NOC application for a driving license is available in the Metrash2 mobile app.

Issue of Visa

NOC is also required when you are working in a company and you decide to travel. In such a case, you need to get an NOC letter from your employer stating that you work there and that it is okay for you to travel in the specified period of time and country.

Only with this NOC shall they provide you with a visa in order to travel. And these are usually done directly with the embassy itself, once you have the NOC letter from your employer in hand.

Let us know if you found this article helpful. If we missed out on anything, please leave a comment below.