Director visa in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia names executives in the residency law itself and prices them by annual pay. We establish which product your contract reaches and what it takes to stop renewing altogether.
Executive wage line
Порог руководителя
SAR 960,000 a year
960 000 SAR в год
Paid on approval
Плата при одобрении
SAR 4,000
4 000 SAR
First term
Первый срок
5 years
5 лет
To permanent status
До постоянного
30 months
30 месяцев
When a Saudi director needs premium status
The law names executives directly
Administrative talents, researchers in priority fields and executives are written into the definition itself. A senior officer is a category here, not somebody's interpretation.
The threshold is annual rather than monthly
Your pay is measured across the year. A package heavy on an annual bonus can clear a line that the same salary, read month by month, would miss.
Your employer must be approved
The contract has to be with an entity the residency centre accepts, and a recommendation letter from that employer comes with it. The company is assessed before you are.
Thirty months buys the exit from renewals
Live here long enough on the status, keep the contract and the field, and the permanent form lifts the wage floor and the field restriction entirely.
False information ends the status
The grounds for cancellation are published and one of them is an incorrect statement in the application. A tidied-up CV becomes a ten-year problem.
What you get
- Your annual package measured the way the criteria measure it
- The employer tested against the centre's accepted list
- The corporate file aligned with the investment registration
- Thirty-month residence tracked from the first day
- The cancellation grounds explained before you sign anything
What Saudi Arabia asks a director
Premium residency is a family of products rather than one permit, and two reach a senior officer: the exceptional-competence product, which reads your employment contract, and the general product, which reads your bank balance. A third route is the ordinary status of a general manager appointed by a foreign company.
How the Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Hong Kong answer this is compared on director and executive visas; what else we run in the Kingdom sits on our Saudi Arabia page.
Three routes, and what each reads
Exceptional competence, executive branch
The definition covers administrative, health and scientific talents, researchers in priority fields and executives. For an executive it asks a contract with an approved employer, a recommendation letter from them, completed probation and an annual wage floor.
The general product, paid for
No contract, employer or field: the one-year renewable form and the unlimited form are granted on payment, with proof you can support yourself. The route for someone whose money arrives before their job does.
General manager of a registered investor
Where a foreign company registers with the investment ministry and appoints you to run it, the status follows the company. Since the investment law was replaced, the company holds an investment registration; calling it a licence dates you.
What the centre charges for each
| Product | Payment on approval |
|---|---|
| Exceptional competence | SAR 4,000 |
| One year, renewable | SAR 100,000 |
| Unlimited duration | SAR 800,000 |
| Executive wage floor | SAR 960,000 a year |
| Window to pay after approval | 30 days |
Approval is not the end: the payment and a medical insurance document for you and your family must both arrive within thirty days, and the cards issue only once they have.
Five years, then the way out of renewing
The exceptional-competence status runs five years and is renewable. Permanent status opens on three conditions together: a valid contract with an approved employer at the wage floor, continued work in a priority field, and at least thirty months of residence in the Kingdom during the permit, continuous or not. When it is granted, the limits on duration, field of work and minimum wage are all lifted.
The status also removes two costs that shape expatriate life here: holder and family are exempt from the fees charged to non-Saudis on moving between establishments, and fall outside the dependants' levy private-sector expatriates pay for each accompanying relative. Exit and re-entry need no visa.
It can also be taken away. The published grounds are a conviction punishable by at least sixty days' imprisonment or a fine from SAR 100,000, a decision or judgment deporting the holder, incorrect information in the application, and failure to keep to the obligations the permit carries.
Sources: the executive definition, the wage floor, employer and recommendation conditions, payments, terms and cancellation grounds — Premium Residency Centre, conditions and criteria, Arabic edition read 24 September 2026, under the Premium Residency Law, Royal Decree M/106 of 1440H as amended; registration replacing licensing — Ministry of Investment, 19 September 2026.
Stages of work
Measuring the package across the year.
Base pay, allowances and the annual bonus are added the way the criteria add them, because this threshold is annual. We say at once whether you clear it, sit near it or need restructuring before filing.
Checking the employer is accepted.
The contract has to be with an entity the residency centre accepts, and it must be willing to write the recommendation letter. Both are confirmed before your personal documents are collected.
Aligning the corporate record.
Where the employer is a foreign-owned company, the investment registration, the commercial registration and the appointment naming you as general manager have to agree. A mismatch here stops the personal file later.
Choosing the product honestly.
Exceptional competence, the paid general product and the ordinary manager's status are costed side by side. Paying for the general product sometimes beats restructuring a package that misses the floor.
Filing, then the thirty-day window.
Approval starts a clock: payment and the medical insurance document for you and your family both have to arrive inside thirty days, or the approval is wasted. We diarise it from the day the notice lands.
Counting towards the permanent form.
From day one we track residence against the thirty-month requirement and watch the contract and the field: those three together lift the wage floor and the renewals for good.
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