Saudi Arabia announces new rules for Pakistani pilgrims

RIYADH: New Umrah policies have been announced by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which will become applicable from 1 Rabi-ul-Awwal and will require pilgrims to get food vouchers while submitting an Umrah visa application.

As per the new guidelines, any applicant for an Umrah visa needs to submit a booking of accommodation in a hotel, food vouchers, and transportation along with other documents. This is in the context of Saudi Arabia’s overall effort in improving service quality.

As per the newly-announced policy, each application for an Umrah visa needs to contain a food voucher worth 20 SAR per night, apart from booking of accommodation and transport arrangements.

All these services would be provided through the Kingdom’s Nusuk digital platform where all the services of pilgrimage would be integrated.

Initially, the new policy would be applicable for the pilgrims coming from Pakistan, India, Egypt, and Bangladesh; thus, these are the only countries that have started implementing the new digital requirements.

To support this policy, the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah has already connected around 10,000 restaurants located in Makkah and Madinah to the Nusuk platform.