Bangladesh becomes first country to get Saudi Arabia's e-visa facilities

Bangladesh has become the first country to get e-visa facilities from Saudi Arabia, which eliminates the need for visa stickers for work, visits, and transit for Bangladeshis.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia introduced e-visa on Monday and chose Bangladesh as the first country to implement the new initiatives, reports BSS.

"We choose Bangladesh as the first country to implement the new technology," Saudi Ambassador to Bangladesh Essa Yousef Essa Alduhailan said while making the announcement at the Embassy in Dhaka on Monday (1 May).

From now on, Bangladeshi nationals do not need to get a sticker visa of any category including work visa for travelling to the oil-rich Kingdom that hosts more than two million Bangladeshi expatriate workers.

The Saudi envoy said introduction of error-free e-visa, using both Arabic and English language, will reduce hassle, cost and time to get Saudi visas.

He said the Saudi government spends a huge amount of money to issue sticker visas while printing such stickers is a difficult task.

"It will be a win-win situation for the intending Bangladeshi workers and other stakeholders including the recruiting agencies," the ambassador said adding that his country is keen to work with Bangladesh for betterment of the expatriate Bangladeshi workers.

Earlier, Saudi Arabia had introduced e-visa facilities only for Umrah visa.

The ambassador said the introduction of e-visa will help the embassy here to manage a huge number of visa applications as currently the Saudi mission here issues 7,000 to 8,000 visas daily.

The Saudi government has plans to introduce a similar e-visa system in other countries eventually.

Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) Director General Shahidul Alam also spoke on the occasion.

Saudi Arabia continues to be the favourite destination for Bangladeshi migrant workers while nearly 100,000 Bangladeshis migrated to the Arab nation in the last quarter of 2022 alone, according to a recent report of the Bangladesh Bank.

Saudi Arabia was the second-biggest source of remittances to Bangladesh in the fourth quarter last year, just behind the United States, as workers brought in about $910 million from the Kingdom during the period, the central bank report showed.