Family RP Reader Experience 1

Below is the experience of Doha Guides reader RR shared as comments during September & October 2023. We are re-publishing this Reader Experience as a single post so that it may help others.

Comment 1 – 11 September 2023

Hi DG and Everyone,

I received the approval of the Family Visit Visa for my wife yesterday (11-Sept-2023). The Family Visit Visa took 7 weeks before receiving the approval. I want to share our experience with others who might be in similar situations:

Applied Family Visit Visa through Metrash on the last week of July 2023.

After a week, an SMS for missing documents was received but required me to upload the same documents (Marriage Certificate, Passport and Round-Trip Tickets).

The status changed from “Under Process” to “Under Review” after 3 days of uploading the documents.

I went to the immigration office in Gharaffa when the application was around 3 weeks. The first time I went was in the afternoon and I was told to come in the morning as the afternoon is for companies.

The next day I went again but my application was not checked in the system. I was only told by the officer at the reception to wait for the SMS. This was around the time when the office was moving to the new location in Duhail.

End of August 2023, we had to change the flight date as the approval for the visa had been delayed for around 5 weeks during this time and there is about a week remaining before the flight that we booked originally.

On 10 September 2023, I went to the new Immigration office at Duhail after the MOI announcement. I was directed to Office No. 06 and was given a queue number.

When I was called, I informed the officer that I was following up my application. The officer checked the system and told me to check Metrash as the application is now approved. The status in Metrash had changed from “Under Review” to “Under Process” with a Visa Number and issue date of 10-Sept-2023.

On 11-Sept-2023, I received an SMS for the approval of the Family Visit Visa. Also included in the SMS is a link to purchase the mandatory insurance. The visa payment and printing will only be possible if you have purchased the insurance. A visa number is required when purchasing the insurance and this will automatically be updated in Metrash.

I have also applied for a Family RP for my wife mid of August and the status is currently “Under Review” (Stage 2).

I hope this can help others who are in similar situations.

RR

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Comment 2 – 24 September 2023

Dear DG and Everyone,

I received the approval for the Family RP for my wife today, 24-Sept-2023 and I would like to share our experience with someone who might be in a similar situation:

I applied for Family RP for my wife in Metrash on 13-Aug-2023 using the Marriage Certificate, Education certificate (uploaded in “Other Documents”) and Passport. This was done while the Family Visit Visa for my wife that was applied on 25-Jul-2023 was “Under Review” at the time.

A few hours after the application, I received an SMS for missing documents and it was regarding “Other Documents”. The next day (14 Aug 2023), I uploaded the NOC on the “Other Documents” placeholder. I forgot to include the Company Computer Card but the upload went through.

On 22-Aug-2023, I received another SMS for missing documents and again it was related to “Other Documents”. This time I uploaded a jpeg file showing the NOC letter, my QID and the Company Computer Card side by side as suggested by Doha Guides and made sure that the file size is below 500kb. The upload went through and the Status remains to be “Under Process”.

• On 27-Aug-2023, the status was updated to “Under Review”.
• On 11-Sept-2023, the Family Visit Visa was approved.
• On 19-Sept-2023, the status of the RP Visa was updated to “Under Process” with the visa number.

On 21-Sept-2023, my wife arrived in Qatar under the Visit Visa that was approved last 11-Sept-2023.

On 24-Sept-2023, the SMS for the approval for the RP Visa was received and we immediately converted the Visit Visa to an RP Visa through Metrash. We will be going for the medical test tomorrow and do the remaining procedures for the fingerprint and the QID.

Hopefully, this can help someone who is currently applying for the Visit Visa and/or RP Visa.

RR

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Comment 3 – 09 October 2023

Hi DG & Everyone,

We finally received the “OK” result for the fingerprinting procedure for my wife and currently waiting for the QID to be delivered to us. I would like to share our experience regarding the procedures.

This is also an update to the comment that I posted last 24-Sept-2023 where I shared our experience with the procedure from the application until the approval of the Visit and RP visa.

On 28-Sept-2023 (which was a Thursday) around 5 PM my wife went for the medical test. We checked the status on the MOPH website the next day and it said “Please check at the information desk in the Medical Commission Headquarters – Mesaimeer during official working hours. Please bring your passport and Medical Commission receipt”.

On 01-Oct-2023 at 1:30 PM, we received an SMS saying that my wife was requested to come to the x-ray section at the Medical Commission for a repeat x-ray. We went to the Medical Commission around 2:30 PM and finished before 3 PM. My wife told me that after the repeat x-ray, she was asked to wait for a few minutes before the staff told her “It’s OK” and she could leave.

I think the x-ray that was taken the first time was not clear. At around 8:30 PM the same day, we received an SMS from MOPH saying “Medical examination of xxx with MC No. xxx is Fit. Kindly proceed to MOI for further actions”.

On 08-Oct-2023 at around 7:45 AM, we went to the CEID office at Salwa Road for the fingerprint process. The fingerprinting form was not required and my wife told me that only the copy of the RP visa was scanned.

On 09-Oct-2023 at 7:00 AM we received an SMS from Metrash saying that the fingerprint is OK. Immediately, I checked the Metrash App and I can now apply for QID. I entered the required details and proceeded to pay.

We prepared a passport-size photo with a blue background but it was not required. The signature was not also required. I think this is because my wife had worked in Qatar for a number of years until July 2022 and she was under the sponsorship of a company. Also, we can see in the Qpost status that the QID No. is the same as what she had before.

As mentioned, my wife had previously worked in Qatar and she was under the sponsorship of a company until July 2022. This might have somehow affected the approvals which could mean that the timeline for the approvals that we had experienced could be different with someone who will be entering Qatar for the first time.

I am sharing our experience with the procedures to hopefully help others who are in similar situations and need the information. Best of luck to everyone.

RR

Doha Guides Team has made minimal changes to the comment to make it easy to read. Thank you RR for sharing this in detail.

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Read Another Reader Experience (Experience No. 2)