My Passport

There is no Saudi law that requires anyone to surrender their passport to any person or company. Despite this the practice still is quite common, although completely illegal.

International law is clear that you have the right to have your passport in your possession. In fact, your passport belongs FIRST to the government that issued it, and secondly to you. Your country may impose serious penalties for seizure of the passport. If your employer tells you he wants to hold your passport REFUSE, tell him if he continues to insist that you'll contact your Embassy. If a Kafeel demands to hold your passport it is a violation of Resolution 166, Council of Ministers Resolution dated 12/04 14:21h..

See the following article from the Arab News:   http://www.arabnews.com/node/384695

Thanks buddy for your comprehensive reply

wjwoodward wrote:

There is no Saudi law that requires anyone to surrender their passport to any person or company. Despite this the practice still is quite common, although completely illegal.

International law is clear that you have the right to have your passport in your possession. In fact, your passport belongs FIRST to the government that issued it, and secondly to you. Your country may impose serious penalties for seizure of the passport. If your employer tells you he wants to hold your passport REFUSE, tell him if he continues to insist that you'll contact your Embassy. If a Kafeel demands to hold your passport it is a violation of Resolution 166, Council of Ministers Resolution dated 12/04 14:21h..

See the following article from the Arab News:   http://www.arabnews.com/node/384695

I exactly told this in an other thread.

Hello Hunter,

Of course WJ is correct in quoting the international regulations.

Even if you do keep the passport on you, it is not of much use since in order to exit Saudi, one require to stamp either an 'exit re-entry' or 'exit only' on your passport and this can only be done by your employer.

There is a long list of stories which you might have heard, I am afraid some of them have a lot of truth in them, one needs to be very patient, tolerant and 'minding your own business' type of person to survive here.