RIYADH — The Directorate General of Passports (Jawazat) announced on Wednesday that the mandatory health insurance is necessary when applying for extension of family visit visa electronically via the Absher portal of the Ministry of Interior. All the technical requirements have been completed for linking the extension of the family visit visa to extending the validity of health insurance policy for visitors. The arrangements for this have been made in cooperation with the General Secretariat of the Council of Cooperative Health Insurance and the National Information Center, the Saudi Press Agency reported quoting the directorate sources. The Jawazat confirmed that visitors in the Kingdom would not be able to extend visit visa without having valid health insurance documents and that they must renew their health insurance before its expiry date. The directorate stated that some sections of visitors, including those who came on Haj and Umrah and diplomatic visas, as well as visitors to diplomatic missions besides official guests of the Kingdom, have been exempted from the condition of having the mandatory health insurance policy. The Jawazat pointed out that at the time of extension of family visit visa, the remaining period for the expiry of visit visa should be seven days or less, and not to exceed the visa expiry of more than three days. The total period of visa visit after the extensions is maximum 180 days from the date of entry into the Kingdom.
