Qatar surprises almost everyone who moves here. The expat who arrives expecting a conservative, restrictive Gulf state and finds a cosmopolitan, genuinely welcoming country with world-class infrastructure and a quality of life that, once you’ve learned how it works, exceeds what they had at home. The professional who comes for two years and stays for…
Getting a work visa for Qatar isn’t as simple as accepting a job offer and showing up. The process involves your employer, multiple government ministries, medical tests, document attestation, and typically takes 6-12 weeks from start to finish. One missing document or mistake can delay everything by a month. The complete process: Your employer applies…
Your Qatar ID card is the single most important document you’ll hold as a resident of Qatar. Without it, you can’t open a bank account, rent an apartment, get a driving license, or legally work. It’s your residence permit, your national ID, and your gateway to every government and commercial service in the country. The…
Bringing your family to Qatar isn’t automatic. Even with a valid work visa, you need to meet specific salary requirements, provide attested documents, and navigate a 2-3 month approval process. The most common shock for new expats is discovering their salary doesn’t qualify them to sponsor family members. The critical number: QR 10,000 per month…
Changing employers in Qatar used to trap expats in bad situations. Until 2020, you needed your current employer’s permission to switch jobs, giving companies enormous power over workers. The 2020 labor law reforms fundamentally changed this, but six years later, many expats still don’t understand their rights or how the process actually works. The law…
For years, Qatar’s exit permit system trapped workers in the country. You couldn’t leave Qatar, even for vacation, without your employer’s written permission to exit. This gave companies enormous control, with some refusing exit permits to prevent employees from job hunting abroad or attending family emergencies. The 2018 reforms abolished exit permits for most workers,…
For decades, living in Qatar meant being tied to your employer. Lose your job and you had 30 days to find another sponsor or leave the country. Your entire residency depended on someone else’s decision to keep sponsoring you. The Qatar Golden Visa, officially called Permanent Residency Permit, changed this fundamentally when it launched in…
Your Qatar residency permit doesn’t last forever. Every QID has an expiry date linked to your employment contract or sponsorship status, and when that date approaches, you must renew or leave the country. Miss the deadline and you face daily fines of QR 200, potential deportation, and an entry ban that could lock you out…
Moving to Qatar or planning to visit? Understanding which visa you need is your first critical step. Qatar offers multiple visa types depending on your purpose – work, family, business, tourism, or investment and getting the wrong one can delay your plans by months. The short answer: Most expats in Qatar hold either a work…
Figuring out where to buy groceries in Doha takes longer than it should. Not because options are limited, they’re actually excellent, but because the city’s supermarket landscape is fragmented across chains with very different strengths, and the product you want is rarely in the first place you look. After years of shopping in Doha, I’ve…
When you land in Qatar and turn your phone on, you’ll get a signal from one of two networks: Ooredoo or Vodafone Qatar. That’s it. Qatar has exactly two mobile operators and no third option is coming anytime soon. This makes the comparison both simpler and more consequential than choosing between networks in most countries….
Remittances are one of the most financially significant things millions of Qatar residents do every single month. Qatar consistently ranks among the world’s top remittance-sending countries per capita, which makes complete sense when you consider that roughly 88% of the population are expatriates, the majority of whom are supporting families back home. I’ve been sending…