Two-month UAE visa amnesty scheme begins September 1

DUBAI: The UAE government’s two-month visa amnesty scheme begins on September 1, and the overstaying expatriates wishing to regularise their residency status are looking for answers to a number of questions in this regard.
Typing centres are inundated with calls and enquiries from overstaying expats eager to regularise their residency status or fly back home. However, these centres also await details and instructions from the immigration authorities.
A report in the ‘Khaleej Times’ said that during the grace period, illegal residents will have the opportunity to get their fines waived so they can either fly home or stay in the country.
“We have been receiving a lot of enquiries from residency visa over-stayers. They have a lot of questions, asking us about how to process the documents and how to apply to regularise their status,” said Firose Khan, operation manager at Arabian Business Centre.
Khan admitted that as they tackled all these queries, they couldn’t say much about the procedure because they were also waiting for details from immigration authorities.
“In a couple of days from now, we will be receiving more information from the authorities, and our online portal will be updated,” he said.
Mohammed Dawood Shahbuddin of Seven City Document Clearing Services said his agency was also getting several calls every single day. “These over-stayers really want to regularise their status,” he said.
Explaining some details about the amnesty process, Shahbuddin said an over-stayer could submit his/her documents to them and they would turn them over to an Amer centre. Once the application is approved by the authorities, an outpass will be issued and the illegal resident will have 14 days to exit the country.
“The over-stayer will have to either get an offer letter from a company and apply for a visa to continue staying here or leave the country,” he added.
Many typing centres, however, are yet to receive full instructions from the authorities.