If you’re a non-resident of India (NRI) based in UAE and your residency visa needs to be transferred from one sponsor to another, you must know some changes have recently been made, which may affect your family’s visa.
The immigration authorities of United Arab Emirates have added the option of a ‘hold service’. With the help of ‘hold service’, you can put your family or dependent’s visa on hold, allowing them to change their UAE residence visa from one sponsor to another.
You may wonder what ‘hold service’ means and how you can avail its advantages.
Well, ‘hold service’ for visas implies if you get terminated from your job or left it as you have a better job offer, you will require to change your visa from your current employer to your new employer. However, if you are sponsoring your family, you will also have to cancel and reissue your dependent’s visa. If you are sponsoring your family, then you can use visa ‘hold service’.
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The service of putting your family’s visa on hold allows a family sponsor to tell the authorities that you do not want to cancel the family’s visa, rather put it on hold. On the other hand, you can change the sponsor for employment without any worry.
If you want to avail ‘visa on hold’ service, you can do the following:
- Start your application by visiting an Amer service centre in Dubai or at a service centre by the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship (ICA) in any other emirate.
- You will have to submit a few documents like
- Holding application
- Labour cancellation documents from current employer
- New company offer letter from MOHRE
- Sponsor and dependent’s original passport
- Pay fees for
- Holding application (Dh 75)
- Refundable deposit (Dh 2,500)
- Each passport’s holding fee (Dh 141)
It is important to note that you can apply for the ‘visa on hold’ service only in the emirate you are living in. For example, if your visa was issued in Sharjah, you can only apply for the hold services at an ICA centre in Sharjah. And you can put the visa on hold for a maximum of 6 days.
If you want to put your family’s visa on hold, you need to:
- Cancel your labour card provided by your current employer
- Visit an Amer centre or an ICA customer happiness centre and request for putting your family visa on hold
- Cancel your current visa
- Apply for a new residence visa through your new employer
- Once it is stamped, remove the hold on your family’s visa. You will then be refunded the deposit amount
