To verify a Saudi visa is genuine, check the visa number on an official Saudi enquiry before you buy a ticket. A colour PDF can be edited in an hour, and a barcode can point at any website the editor chooses. Apna Ghar will not name a single secret page that checks every visa type, because work visas, family visas and tourist visas are not all issued in the same queue. Tourist visas that were issued through the official tourist platform belong on that platform. Other visas should be checked on the enquiry the issuing authority names, starting from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rather than a look-alike domain an agent sent you. Your flight waits until the enquiry agrees with the paper.
What to match on the screen
- Visa number, passport number, and the spelling of the name, including the father’s name if it is in the passport.
- The sponsor or the purpose: work, family visit, tourism, or something else. A work story with a visit visa is the wrong document. See Saudi visit visas and the work visa guide.
- The dates. An expired visa that “will be extended on arrival” is a sentence you should not trust.
- The nationality and the number of entries, if the screen shows them. A one-entry visa is not a multiple-entry visa because the PDF says so.
- The embassy, the platform, or the mission that issued it. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the policy home. A random “visa check” site with ads is not.
- The job title, if it is a work visa. Compare it with the offer. A mismatch is a problem now, not after you land.
PDFs, barcodes and agents
Open the official site by typing it, or from a bookmark you created earlier. Do not tap the link in the same WhatsApp message as the PDF. Look-alike domains change a letter and copy the layout. If the agent says the enquiry is only for embassies, that is convenient for the agent. Try the official page yourself. If the site is down, wait and try again. A down site is not a reason to pay the agent’s cousin for a “manual check”. Scan a barcode only if the address it opens is a government address you recognise. A barcode can point anywhere, including a page that always says “valid”.
A genuine visa can still sit on top of a false job. The enquiry proves the visa record. It does not prove the salary, the housing, or that you will work for the sponsor named on the paper. Read basic wage and allowances on the contract, and put the basic through the salary converter. Use SAR to PKR only as a mid-market reference. If the sponsor is not the employer you were promised, stop. “Free visa” arrangements, where you work for someone else, are how people become illegal while holding a visa that was, technically, genuine.
If the number does not exist
Stop paying. Ask for the passport back in writing. Keep the PDF, the chat, the receipt and the screenshot of the enquiry that does not find the number. Read how to report fraud and use FIA plus, if a promoter was involved, the Bureau of Emigration. Do not let the agent issue a “replacement visa” for another fee. Replacement, in this pattern, means a second PDF. The work path, when the visa is real and the job is the job, continues in the Saudi work-visa guide, including the medical if Wafid is required and the Protector step in Pakistan.
An Iqama is not checked the same way. A visa is the document before you are a resident. An Iqama is checked later on Absher by the resident, not by an agent who asks you for the one-time code. Never share that code. If someone says they can “convert the visit into an Iqama” without the official steps, they are describing a story. See checking an Iqama only after you actually have one. Until then, the visa enquiry is the tool.
Do the check before you resign and before you buy a non-refundable ticket. Write down the visa number, the passport number and the date you looked. If a friend in Riyadh offers to “see it on the system”, thank them and still open the official page yourself. A friend’s screenshot can be old. The enquiry you run on the day you pay for the flight is the one that counts. If the purpose is work, the Protector step in Pakistan is still waiting after the visa is real. A genuine visa does not cancel that stamp, and a genuine stamp does not prove the visa.