Hi Zamaahm,
Tbh I'm still confused about the various types of visas available for spouse/dependents. Tourist Visa (eg: visa upon arrival), Family Visit Visa, and Family Entry Visa. I'm not sure if Family 'Entry' and 'Visit' visas are different names for the same thing.
Anyway, my understanding simply put is that you can enter any time on a Visa upon arrival whereas with the family visa you need to the QID first. In terms of covid i believe both fall into category B.
For Family visit visas, applications were accepted from 12 July but the Eid holidays followed soon after and in practice applications only started getting processed by the authorities from 26 July. Traditionally the approval process took 3 days but rumours on FB say it would now take 2 weeks. So as of now there are no known cases of anyone actually getting this visa yet.
For visas upon arrival, I am not sure if tourists are being allowed to pass the borders yet. My HR is in touch with a travel agency and they are not aware of any tourists entering Qatar yet. (How frustrating!) If this is true I have no idea how they are even stopping tourists from boarding the plane; it'll be chaos at Doha airport. These are all rumours so I really cannot validate any of this but since I am not certain I have told my wife to stay put for another 4-5 more weeks before we make any travel arrangements.
Do you already have a work permit pre-approval? If you do your company should give you a 1page pdf with your visa number on it. You will enter using that so you will not be a 'Tourist' like your family if you decide to travel together.
As for Ehteraz, if you upload all the documents correctly you should get an approval almost immediately. If you don't it most likely means there's something wrong. I didn't need to upload my hotel reservation because I had my visa number, but I understand for tourists you need to have hotel booked pre-travel. The Ehteraz is really good because it'll clearly state if you're exempt from hotel quarantine. (My biggest fear was arriving at the airport at 1am and then being locked up in an expensive hotel!)
For your flight day I recommend you print out all documents. For the vax cert I even requested a genuine hardcopy from NHS which you can get free on the .Gov.uk website. It just makes it a lot easier for the airport staff too to have paper rather than passing mobile phones around.
Fingers crossed situation would clear up soon!
Hi Zamaahm,
Tbh I'm still confused about the various types of visas available for spouse/dependents. Tourist Visa (eg: visa upon arrival), Family Visit Visa, and Family Entry Visa. I'm not sure if Family 'Entry' and 'Visit' visas are different names for the same thing.
Anyway, my understanding simply put is that you can enter any time on a Visa upon arrival whereas with the family visa you need to the QID first. In terms of covid i believe both fall into category B.
For Family visit visas, applications were accepted from 12 July but the Eid holidays followed soon after and in practice applications only started getting processed by the authorities from 26 July. Traditionally the approval process took 3 days but rumours on FB say it would now take 2 weeks. So as of now there are no known cases of anyone actually getting this visa yet.
For visas upon arrival, I am not sure if tourists are being allowed to pass the borders yet. My HR is in touch with a travel agency and they are not aware of any tourists entering Qatar yet. (How frustrating!) If this is true I have no idea how they are even stopping tourists from boarding the plane; it'll be chaos at Doha airport. These are all rumours so I really cannot validate any of this but since I am not certain I have told my wife to stay put for another 4-5 more weeks before we make any travel arrangements.
Do you already have a work permit pre-approval? If you do your company should give you a 1page pdf with your visa number on it. You will enter using that so you will not be a 'Tourist' like your family if you decide to travel together.
As for Ehteraz, if you upload all the documents correctly you should get an approval almost immediately. If you don't it most likely means there's something wrong. I didn't need to upload my hotel reservation because I had my visa number, but I understand for tourists you need to have hotel booked pre-travel. The Ehteraz is really good because it'll clearly state if you're exempt from hotel quarantine. (My biggest fear was arriving at the airport at 1am and then being locked up in an expensive hotel!)
For your flight day I recommend you print out all documents. For the vax cert I even requested a genuine hardcopy from NHS which you can get free on the .Gov.uk website. It just makes it a lot easier for the airport staff too to have paper rather than passing mobile phones around.
Fingers crossed situation would clear up soon!