Before you start

A signed offer from a Saudi employer holding a valid Commercial Registration and an available work-visa quota on Qiwa
Degree certificates and, for many roles, employment references attested through the Saudi MoFA chain — start this before you resign anything, it is reliably the slowest step
A passport valid well beyond six months, with blank pages
A police clearance and a pre-travel medical from an approved centre (Wafid/GAMCA) in your country of departure

Step-by-step

1
Your employer raises the visa on Qiwa and gets MoFA authorisation
The company requests the work visa against its quota on Qiwa, classifies your role into a skill tier, then obtains a visa authorisation number from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. None of this is something you can start or chase directly. A mis-classified skill tier is a common quiet cause of delay.
Via employerWho: Your employer's PROWeeks, sometimes months — usually the longest phaseEmployer-borne, including the monthly work-permit levy
2
Stamp the entry visa at a Saudi mission abroad
With the authorisation number you submit passport, photographs, attested degree, police certificate and home-country medical through the mission's appointed agent. You receive a single-entry work visa with a defined window — commonly 90 days — in which you must actually enter the Kingdom.
In personWho: You, in your country of departureDays to about two weeks after authorisationNormally employer-paid; confirm before you front anything
3
Do the Saudi medical in your first days, not your first month
After landing you complete a Saudi medical — bloods and a chest X-ray for infectious disease — at an approved centre in Jeddah. A clear result is a hard precondition for Iqama issuance, and the whole 90-day clock is running while you wait for it. Book it in week one.
In personWho: YouOne visit; results within a few daysModest and usually employer-paid
4
Give biometrics and let your employer issue the Iqama
You attend a Jawazat/Absher appointment for fingerprints and a photograph; your employer then pays the fees and converts the entry visa into an Iqama through Muqeem. The 90-day deadline is legal, and the fine plus your frozen access to banking and telecoms land on you regardless of whose delay caused it.
Via employerWho: Employer PRO files; you attend for biometricsAim to complete well inside 90 days of entryEmployer-borne for the employee; dependent levies are yours
5
Activate Absher and Nafath the day the Iqama goes live
Register on Absher with your Iqama number and set up Nafath, the national single sign-on. Almost every government portal and every bank login authenticates through a Nafath push. This is also where you will later self-request exit and re-entry permissions and sponsor dependents.
Mobile appWho: YouSame dayFree
6
Register a National Address before you need it
Saudi Post's National Address is a free registration at address.gov.sa and is a required field for bank onboarding, deliveries and several government services. Newcomers routinely discover it exists only when a bank application dead-ends on it.
OnlineWho: YouTen minutes, same week as the IqamaFree

Documents you’ll need

Passport with the stamped single-entry work visa
Attested degree certificates and employment references
Home-country police clearance and Wafid/GAMCA medical
Saudi medical clearance completed after arrival
Employer's Commercial Registration and visa authorisation reference

Things most newcomers don’t know

The 2021 reform loosened sponsorship on specific conditions — it did not make you free to move at will.

The widely repeated line that Saudi Arabia 'abolished kafala' is wrong in both directions. What actually changed: a worker can transfer to a new employer without the current one's consent once the contract has ended and, per the implementing conditions, once they have completed a minimum period of service in the Kingdom; the transfer runs as an offer on Qiwa and a notice period starts. Domestic workers are excluded entirely. Your employer still holds the quota and still issues and renews the Iqama.

Source: HRSD Labor Reform Initiative, effective 14 March 2021

You can now request your own exit and re-entry permission, but the permit itself did not go away.

Before 2021 leaving the country needed your sponsor's signature. Now you apply on Absher yourself and the employer is notified electronically. But you still need a valid exit/re-entry permit for every departure, it requires a live Iqama, adequate passport validity and no outstanding traffic fines, and the self-issued version is a narrower product than the employer-issued one — shorter and single-use rather than multi-entry. Anyone who travels often is still better off asking the employer to issue a longer multiple-entry permit.

Source: Absher / Muqeem exit and re-entry service

Nafath, not Absher, is what actually breaks — and it breaks because of your SIM.

Nafath is the identity layer that banks, Qiwa, Muqeem and Tawakkalna all push approvals to. It authenticates against the mobile number registered to your Iqama. If your line is in a colleague's name, or was bought on your passport before the Iqama existed and never migrated, Nafath silently fails and you are locked out of banking and government services with no error message that points at the phone. Fix the SIM registration first.

Source: MoI Absher/Nafath; CST SIM registration rules

Premium Residency removes the sponsor entirely, and Jeddah's merchant-family business culture is where it pays off.

The Premium Residency Center runs several tracks — including a large one-time fee, a renewable annual option, and investor and special-talent routes — that let you live, work, change jobs, own property within the permitted framework and sponsor family with no kafeel. In a city where much of the private economy is family-held and deals are relationship-driven, being able to move between employers or start something without a sponsor's permission changes what is possible.

Source: Premium Residency Center (pr.gov.sa)

Common mistakes to avoid

Letting the 90-day post-arrival window drift because your PRO is slow — the fine and the frozen bank, SIM and travel access all land on you.
Starting attestation after you accept the offer. A name spelled differently on a degree and a passport is the single most common cause of a stalled Saudi work visa.
Believing the 'kafala is abolished' headline and assuming you can walk out of a contract mid-term without consequences — the reform sets conditions, not a free hand.
Travelling on a self-issued exit/re-entry permit that is shorter than your trip, or applying with unpaid traffic fines that block issuance.
Buying a SIM in someone else's name 'just for now' and then wondering why Nafath and your bank app never work.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.