🌍 Iqama renewal fee went up again and my company found out the same day we did

Got a message at 9 pm last Tuesday that the new Iqama fee had to be paid by Sunday. Nobody in HR had warned us, and the amount was 1,200 riyals more than last year for my family. I have two dependents here, so the dependent levy alone was a bigger bill than my first month's rent. It is the third increase I have seen in six years in Riyadh, and I am tired of being surprised. My company says they will not cover the extra part because the contract mentions only a base allowance. I went back and read the contract line by line on my phone in the parking lot. It says housing and transport and nothing about government fees, so on paper they are right. Being right on paper does not help a person who has to find 1,200 riyals by Sunday. I asked two colleagues from the sales team and both of them said the same thing happened to them. One of them borrowed from a friend, the other paid by selling his old laptop to a coworker. Everyone has a plan, and the plan is usually a loan from someone who is also short. Meanwhile the transfer to my parents in Hyderabad this month is going to be smaller than usual. I have started keeping a small spreadsheet of every fee I pay to the government here. Iqama, exit and re-entry, health insurance, and the traffic fines that arrive in a text message at midnight. Last year the total was 9,400 riyals, which is almost two months of my salary. Seeing it in one column made me realise how much of my income never even reaches my account. People back home think working in the Gulf means savings pile up quietly in the background. For me it means a calendar full of renewal dates and one eye always on the next deadline. I am not planning to leave this year, but I am counting the months again. Last month I skipped a family dinner just to stay under budget, and nobody at home knew why. Does anyone here work for a company that covers these fees in full?

The last line about skipping a family dinner and nobody at home knowing why is my brother exactly. He's been in Kuwait nine years and we found out about the fee stress only when he visited in March. My mother kept asking why the transfers got smaller and he'd just say work is slow these days. Please tell your family a bit of it, they'd rather know than guess.

That spreadsheet idea hit me hard, I did the same thing in Jeddah and stopped after four months. The total got so big I just stopped opening the file, which didn't make the fees any smaller. My wife and kids went back to Hyderabad in 2024 mostly because of the dependent fees. I visit twice a year now, and some days I still can't tell if we did the right thing.