Salary cap tied to renewal of Family residence

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First of all, I would like to thank you for your free legal advice to many expatriates here in Kuwait. My inquiry is as follows: my new company can’t give me a new residence because my visa is a factory visa and cannot be transferred to a construction visa unless it involves cancelling it and exiting the country before re-entering the country on a new visa … my family is here and my son is also studying here. The company officials talked to one of our subcontractors asked for a favour and confirmed that they can sponsor me on a visa from their factory with a position yet unspecified.

I am, however, sure the salary which I am getting now — KD 650 — will not be reflected on the salary paper (iznaamal) — work permit — because all their visas and salary is for a maximum of KD 200 maximum. My question is in this case can I renew my family visa with this salary on the work permit ? Will there be any conflict with my visa in the future? I am an engineer and my position is that of a QA/QC Engineer in this new company.

Name withheld

Answer: Yes, it is very likely that you could face problems in the renewal of your family’s residence if your new work permit reflects a very low salary, which is below the salary cap required to get a family visa.

Until very recently, once a person got a family residence after meeting all the requirements the Immigration Department would “ignore” these requirements – if the sponsor failed to meet them – on renewal of the residence of his family. But now things have changed and the Immigration Department has become very strict. So, it is quite possible that your renewal request could be rejected although it is not certain. So, you just have to file an application and try your luck.

This news has been read 10160 times!