House Rent Contract Required for Work Permit Issuance, Renewal in Saudi Arabia

The issuance or renewal of work permits has been linked with the authentication of house rent contracts in the Ejar network, the Ministry of Labor and Social Development and the Ministry of Housing announced on Monday.

This is in implementation of the Council of Ministers’ decision issued in February 2017 that made it mandatory for the Labor Ministry to issue or renew work permits only when house rent contracts are authenticated and registered in the Ejar network.

The implementation of the process to link house rent contracts with the issuance or renewal of work permits will begin in September.

An awareness campaign will be carried out by the ministries concerned to ensure the success of the linking process.

The ministries will ensure that expats authenticate their house rent contracts and register in the Ejar network.

The Ministry of Housing is working to develop the rent system through sustainable solutions to meet the challenges in the real estate market. The objective is to protect the rights of tenants, landlords and middlemen through transparency, trust and impartiality.

The Ministry of Housing has provided several services to carry out the house rent contract authentication through the Ejar network.

Ejar has authorized real estate middlemen to carry out the authentication work.

The Ejar program was officially launched on Feb. 12, 2018, in implementation of the Council of Ministers decision issued in February 2014 to establish an electronic network for rental services to facilitate renting procedures and registering the mutual commitments between tenants, landlords and real estate middlemen.

The Ejar program has also enabled the payment of rents electronically through SADAD either monthly or quarterly or half-yearly or annually.

This will help tenants and landlords eliminate cash transactions.