:: The General Directorate of Passports at the Ministry of Interior said here Monday that fees levied on dependents of foreign workers cover all nationalities without any exception.

The Passports Department made it categorically clear that residence permits will not be renewed until fees on dependents are paid.

Responding to inquires received on its Twitter account, the Passports Department further said that “the fees will include all nationalities including Yemenis and Syrians.” On Sunday, the department reiterated that the fees should be paid in advance before issuance of exit/re-entry visa or renewal of residence permits (iqama).

New fees on dependents of foreign workers went into effect on July 1, and since then social media has been abuzz with different versions of the fees and the payment system. There have been also several misleading messages on these networks, saying that the fees on dependents have been rescinded or halted. Asked about such concocted messages, a source at the Passports Department said that “the information is untrue; they [the messages] are all misleading.”

The monthly levy, is SR100 ($27) per dependent for the first year. The amount will gradually rise every year until 2020; it will double to SR200 after a year, then increase to SR300 in July 2019 and SR400 in 2020.

It is important to note that the Council of Ministers approved the new fees as part of a fiscal balance program adopted in December 2016. The Saudi government is next year planning to raise the fees on expatriate workers in the Kingdom as the government is committed to its goal of achieving a balance between revenues and expenditure by 2020.