Holding Passport

Legality of Holding Passport by Employer

All of us know that employers in Saudi Arabia hold the passports of their employees who are under his sponsorship. However, only few of us know about the legality of this act of holding passports of employees by Kafeel. Kafeel hold passport and hands over to the employees when they are leaving for temporary or permanent basis from Saudi Arabia. Let’s say if they are leaving for temporary basis, they have to surrender the passport to Kafeel when they are back from their country. Most of the times expatriates have to face a lot of trouble when their Kafeel is out of Kingdom or out of city and they have to go back to their country onemergency basis. In few cases, Kafeel blackmails them and expatriates cannot do anything as their passport is with their Kafeel

Legality of Holding Passport by Employer

When I searched into this issue, I came to know that holding passport by employer is illegal. Every employee has a right to keep his passport in his own custody. If an employer holds passports of his employees, he is violating the Resolution No. 166 of the Council of Ministers Resolution dated 12-04-1421.

It is a matter of fact that we face many problems in Saudi Arabia just because we do not know about the laws and regulations here.