Whether you’re new to working in Bahrain or have been residing here for quite a while, most likely the thought of bringing your family has crossed your mind. After all, who wouldn’t want to have his/her spouse, children, and parents living closely in the same house?
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In today’s post, we present the general requirements and procedure for sponsoring your family in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Keep on reading below to learn more!
Contents
Guide to Sponsoring Your Family in the Kingdom of Bahrain
To sponsor your family in Bahrain, you will need to coordinate with your employer, who is actually the one who will request for the residence permits of your dependents through the Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA).
Required Documents
Before anything else, be sure to prepare the following:
- Copy of your passport
- Copy of your dependents’ passports
- Copy of your dependents’ birth certificates (attested by the embassy of your home country in Bahrain and by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bahrain)
- Copy of your marriage certificate in Arabic or English (attested by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of your home country and by the Bahrain Embassy in your home country)
- Copy of your latest paid electricity bill
Procedure
Once these documents have been gathered, the next step would be for the employer to:
- Log in to LMRA’s Expat Management System (EMS) and begin the process of applying for the residence permits of the employee’s dependents.
- Print the application confirmation.
- Check the application by: (a) Logging into the EMS using the application ID; (b) Visiting the LMRA website’s Express Services section and using the application ID or employee’s passport number/personal number; or (c) Calling the LMRA Contact Centre via +973 1 750 6055 and stating the application ID. (NOTE: Phone service hours are from 7:30 am to 7:00 pm).
- Once the residence permits have been approved, pay the fees through the EMS or any of the accredited banks.
- Print the permits from the EMS and go to the immigration office to get the residence permit stickers.
Additional Reminders
- To qualify for family sponsorship, the employee must be earning at least BHD 400 per month.
- The applicants’ passports must be valid for at least six (6) months, though it is highly recommended that these be valid for at least two (2) years before applying.
- If a dependent is older than 18 years of age, the process for issuing his/her residence permit should be done directly through the Nationality Passports and Residency Affairs.
- For children born in Bahrain or issued new passports in Bahrain, they should have a new file opened (or updated) at the Nationality Passports and Residency Affairs.
DISCLAIMER: The above guide is presented for information-sharing purposes only. To know more about the requirements and procedure for sponsoring your family in Bahrain, please visit the official website of the Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA).
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