Is husband visa (wife visa) sponsorship any good?
Few days back one of my readers on the Forum asked me a question: What are the pros and cons of having husband visa sponsorship? I thought this was such an important question and I had to dedicate an entire post for this topic. Many of the women who live in UAE have been sponsored their residence visa by their husbands or vice versa. Being on husband visa has many advantages and few disadvantages. This post is going to be short and quick, read on:
Advantages of Husband Visa Sponsorship:
You can live and work in UAE:
Well, obviously this is the most obvious advantage of being on your husband or wife visa. Having a residency visa sponsored by your husband or wife visa provides you the opportunity to live here in UAE. Not only live, it provides you an opportunity to work in a professional organisation in the UAE.
If you find a job, your employer will only need to arrange Labour Approval:
When you have husband or wife sponsored visa, and if you find a job, your company needs to only apply for your labour approval the Ministry of Labour. That is if you are under MOL company. Most free zone companies insist that you work under their sponsorship; but there is no rule on this.
Changing jobs becomes that much easier
Since you do not need to worry about residence visa changes, while you want to change jobs, you only will need to cancel your labour approval from one company and apply with another company. You do not need to cancel your residence visa. This seems to be quicker than if you had to change your residence visa which may consume more time.
The company that hires you does not need to spend money on residence visa
The most important aspect of having husband or wife sponsorship is that the company which hires you does not need to spend on residence visa expenses. This may run into few thousands of Dirhams. But this is a saving for the company. Therefore, you may come across job ads that particularly require husband sponsored women. It also becomes in many cases the criteria for hiring employees.
Disadvantages of Husband visa:
When your husband loses job, you need to pack up
The most obvious disadvantage is that when your sponsor, (husband or wife) loses their employment, the residence visa needs to be cancelled. Hence you lose out on the residence visa when your sponsor loses job.
Expenses of Visa is your husbands responsibility
If your husband’s or wife’s company does not cover the visa expenses of the dependents, it becomes your family expense to pay for the visa charges, Emirates ID charges, medical examination fees etc.
So there you are. These are in brief the pros and cons of husband sponsorship.
Do you have labour ban
I have got asked this question as to whether there is labour ban for husband sponsorship individuals. Absolutely Yes. Labour ban as per the latest MOL rules depends on your skill level. If your skill level is below the requirement for husband visa, then you will definitely have a labour ban. I have written many posts in this regard. Read them from links below.
Familiarise yourself with these important aspects of UAE Labour Law.
Documents required to apply for Husband visa / Wife visa sponsorship
I remember writing an article on this some time back. Read about Family visa sponsorship – Document required and process.