Journal · Visas
Issue the exit visa before you buy the ticket.
A resident needs an exit re-entry visa to leave and come back on the same iqama. The fee on Absher is the fee. A final exit is the other button, and it ends the residency.

The search starts the week the fare looks cheap. “Exit re-entry visa Saudi Arabia.” Someone in the group chat replies with two numbers, SAR 200 and SAR 500, and a thumb. You book the flight because the thumb felt official. Then Absher asks a question the thumb did not mention, or the sponsor has not pressed his side, or a traffic fine is sitting there, and the visa does not exist on the morning the airline would like your passport.
Exit re-entry is the permission a resident needs to leave the Kingdom and return on the same iqama. It is issued on Absher, or by the sponsor through Muqeem. It is not the tourist eVisa. It is not a family visit. It is not something this desk can press for you, and it is not something a shop should press while holding your password.
The figures below are the ones Jawazat has restated for years and that people still meet on the payment screen: about SAR 200 for a single visa of up to two months, about SAR 500 for a multiple of up to three months, then more money for more months. If your screen shows a different riyal, your screen is the invoice. Do not argue with it using this paragraph.
Single or multiple, said plainly
One trip
A single exit re-entry is one way out and one way back. It suits a funeral, a wedding, a month with your parents, a medical appointment you already have a date for. The base fee people are quoted is SAR 200, covering up to two months. A further month, added while you are still inside Saudi Arabia, is commonly SAR 100. The visa still has to fit inside the life of the iqama. You cannot buy a trip that outlives the residency and then look surprised at the airport.
More than one crossing
A multiple is for someone who will leave and come back more than once before the visa dies. The base figure people meet is SAR 500, for up to three months of that freedom. Extra months inside the Kingdom are commonly SAR 200 each. It is the wrong product if you are only going home once. It is the right product if your work already knows you will be in and out, and the iqama is long enough to hold the whole period. Paying for three crossings you will not use is not sophistication. It is a donation.
- Single: one departure, one return. Common base about SAR 200 for up to two months.
- Multiple: more than one crossing. Common base about SAR 500 for up to three months.
- Extra months cost extra, and they cannot run past the iqama.
- Every person on the booking pays, including a child. A family of four is four fees.
Three dates, the same afternoon
Do this before you pay either fee. Write the three dates on paper. If they do not fit, do not open the airline app to “see the price again.”
The iqama
The residency has to be valid for the whole trip you are authorising. A visa that expires after the iqama is a visa the system should not sell you, and if a glitch lets it through you still should not travel on the gap. Renew first, or shorten the trip. The renewal has its own problems, including unpaid fines, which are described in the fines note. Clear those before you stack a flight on top.
The passport
Jawazat has said, in guidance local papers have carried, that a resident’s passport should have at least 90 days of life left when an exit re-entry is issued. Your screen may ask for more, or a particular airline may. If the passport is close, renew it before you pay SAR 200 to attach a visa to a document the check-in desk will refuse. A new passport after the visa is issued is a headache you can avoid by doing the dull thing first.
The day you intend to be back
You generally need to leave within the window the visa gives you for travel, often discussed as a few months from issue, and you need to be back before the date printed on it. Missing that return is not a small conversation at the airport. People who stay out too long have been told a new work visa can be blocked for years. Dependants are sometimes treated differently from the worker. Do not volunteer to become the example. If the wedding might slip by a week, buy the week now, while you are still in the Kingdom and the extra month is the cheaper of the two prices.
Already outside, which is the expensive version
You can often extend an exit re-entry from abroad, through Absher or the sponsor’s Muqeem, and only inside the remaining life of the iqama. The extension is where people discover the second price list. Guides that cite the long-standing fee decision describe the extra month as higher once you have already left: commonly SAR 200 rather than SAR 100 on a single visa, and commonly SAR 400 rather than SAR 200 on a multiple. That is the “I will sort it from my mother’s house” premium.
Sort it before the morning of the flight home, not from the airport queue with a dying battery. If the iqama itself dies while you are outside, an extension of the travel visa will not invent a residency. That is a different, worse phone call, usually to the sponsor, and it is not a call this website can join.
The money does not come back
If you pay and then do not travel, do not expect a refund because the relative recovered, or the fare went up, or you changed your mind in the car park. The fee is for the visa, not for the journey. Cancel the flight if the ticket allows. The visa fee is a separate grief.
Who is allowed to press the button
Some residents issue their own exit re-entry on Absher. Some have to wait for the employer. Some are on a family file, and the head of the family is the person with the button. Ask which of those you are before you promise your mother a date. “HR will do it tomorrow” is not a visa. A screenshot of a request number is closer. The visa itself, visible in your Absher, is the thing you can plan a non-refundable seat on.
A shop that offers to issue it with your password is offering to be you. Decline. Sit with them if the Arabic defeats you, and type the code yourself. The Absher note is the longer version of that refusal. It applies doubly here, because this is a button that can also be the final-exit button if you are tired and the labels look like cousins.
- Worker issuing for himself: Absher, your own login.
- Employer issuing: Muqeem or Absher Business, their job, your visa.
- Family member: the head of household’s Absher, not a forwarded OTP as a lifestyle.
- Anyone else: no.
Final exit is not a longer holiday
A final exit is for leaving and not coming back on this iqama. It lives on the same platforms, close enough to the other request that tired people have pressed it. It is widely issued without a separate visa fee of the 200-or-500 kind. That “free” is not a kindness you should wander into. Unpaid traffic fines, an unpaid dependent levy, or a car still registered in your name can stop it. Once you leave on it, the residency ends. Coming back later means a new visa, a new employer or a new eligibility, not this file with a fresh sticker.
Read the label twice
If you are going home for three weeks, you want exit re-entry. If you are done, you want final exit, and you want the car transferred, the fines paid, the bank told, and the last salary understood before you are in the departure hall. Do not let a colleague “just finish the Absher” at 9 p.m. because the flight is at 1 a.m. That is how a holiday becomes an ending. If you are unsure which Arabic line you are on, stop and get a second pair of eyes on the screen, not on a photograph of the screen taken in a lift.
After a final exit, do not book a return “just in case” on the same residency. There is no same residency. Friends who say they came back easily came back on a new visa, or they are misremembering, or they were exempt in a way you are not. Ask the sponsor in writing if your case is odd. Odd cases exist. They are not a strategy.
The order that wastes the least money
Passport first, if it is short. Fines second, if the list is not empty. Iqama date third. Then the exit visa, single or multiple, for a period that ends before the iqama. Then the ticket, for dates inside the visa. Then tell the family. Reversing that order is how people own a fare and a story.
If you are the sponsor pressing this for your wife or your child, press each person as a person. One payment does not cover the household. Check each name against each passport. A child whose visa was issued on a passport you renewed last month is a child who may not board. This is boring. Boarding is where boring gets expensive.
Keep the visa where the airline can see it. A resident who insists the iqama alone is enough will be educated by the check-in agent, in public, at a bad time. You can be right about many things in this country and still be wrong about that one.
Conclusion
Exit re-entry is leave and come back. Final exit is leave. The common fees, SAR 200 single and SAR 500 multiple, are a starting point that Absher is allowed to replace with the live number, and extra months cost more, especially from abroad. Fit the trip inside the iqama, give the passport enough life, pay the fines first, and buy the ticket after the visa exists. Do not hand anyone the password to do it faster. Faster is how the wrong button gets pressed.
Questions people actually ask
How much is a Saudi exit re-entry visa?
The figures Jawazat has repeated, and that Absher commonly still shows, are about SAR 200 for a single visa of up to two months and about SAR 500 for a multiple of up to three months. Additional months are extra. An additional month bought while you are already outside is often charged at a higher rate than the same month bought before you flew. Pay whatever the screen says that day.
Can I leave Saudi Arabia on an iqama alone?
No. The iqama shows you are a resident. The exit re-entry visa is the permission to leave and return on it. Issue that visa, on Absher or through the sponsor, before you pay for a ticket you cannot change.
What is the difference between exit re-entry and final exit?
Exit re-entry keeps the residency alive while you are away, if you return on time. Final exit ends the residency when you go. They are different requests. Read the label. A final exit is not undone by a change of heart at the other airport.
Related notes
Updated 18 October 2026. KSA GUIDE is independent and based in Riyadh. We are not Absher, Jawazat or Muqeem. The payment screen is the fee.