A daily fine now awaits foreign residents who linger in Qatar past the deadline tied to a cancelled residence permit, with the departure window now standing at 14 days, an Interior Ministry official has confirmed.
The figure marks a sharp reduction from the month-long allowance previously granted. Captain Ali Ahmed Ali Al Kuwari of the Airport Passports Department explained the change during a Public Relations Department webinar on safe travel, as reported by Gulf Times. “Earlier it was 30 days, but currently it is two weeks,” he said. Anyone staying beyond that two-week mark, he noted, faces a charge of QR10 for each additional day.
Penalties extend to visitors as well. Al Kuwari pointed out that those who remain past the stay duration printed on their visit visa stamp are billed QR200 daily, and he advised travellers to read the validity and permitted length of stay on the stamp inside their passports closely.
He recommended the Metrash app as a pre-departure checkpoint, allowing users to verify whether unpaid traffic fines, overstay charges or other obligations might interfere with their travel. The same platform, he added, handles the transfer of a residence permit onto a newly issued passport.
For families, Al Kuwari laid out specific obligations around newborns. Births must be reported to the passport authorities, and a child born locally requires a residence permit sponsored by the father once the relevant embassy supplies the necessary paperwork. A newborn lacking that permit, he cautioned, would be barred from returning to Qatar once taken abroad.
Travellers were also encouraged to rely on the airport’s electronic gate system to move through immigration faster, with 76 e-gates now in operation across arrival and departure areas at Hamad International Airport.
