# Visa help for Spouse



## rsosa72 (Jun 20, 2015)

I am a US citizen who will begin working in Abu Dhabi, UAE with an American company next month. I have spoken to my employer and of course they will apply for a work visa for me. I will be able to take my wife and son to live with me for the duration of my contract. 

Here is where I do not understand. My wife is a Philippine citizen who has a US green card and lives with me in the US. We were married in the Philippines 3 years ago and she has had her US green card for over 2 years now. I was told by my new employer that we need to have our marriage certificate certified in the Philippines, then take it to the UAE embassy in the Philippines so they can certify it. I was told my wife cannot travel with me to UAE until her visa has been approved. Well I did some research on my own and found that my wife can apply for a visit visa because she has a US green card and be able to fly with me. I found this on the UAE embassy web site in the USA. I even called them earlier today to validate what I read and was informed yes she can fly with a visit visa. I inquired with the person I spoke with about my wife and her green card status and he told me to let my employer know to tell the UAE visa office there in UAE because the requirement may be different. He did tell me that the UAE embassy here in the USA cannot process that type of visa. He said make sure that my new employer states the green card. 

Has anyone been in this same situation? Do we really need to go all the way to the Philippines to get this certification done? Is there another way? 

Any help is greatly appreciated.


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## Stevesolar (Dec 21, 2012)

Hi,
I think there are two separate issues here.
One issue is whether your wife can arrive on a visit visa - as she has a green card, then maybe she has slightly different visa requirements to somebody with a straight Philippines passport.
The second, separate, issue is one of documentation required for you to sponsor your wife and child on a spouse visa. For this you will certainly require attested copies of both your marriage certificate and your child's birth certificate. These need to be attested by the relevant government authority in the countries that issued them along with the UAE embassies in those countries. In the UK - there are companies who, for a fee, will get this all done for you. Rather than travel to Phillipines - you should check whether you can find a company that can do that for you and save you the journey. If your child was born in USA - then that would need to be also done there.
Cheers
Steve


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## rsinner (Feb 3, 2009)

Steve has already answered the attestation question. The attestation is to certify that the document is genuine, and can only be done in the country where it was issued. 

On the visa - her passport dictates the visa requirement. A quick and easy way to check is the IATA website IATA - Personalised Passport, Visa & Health travel documentation advice

Most likely she will need a pre-arranged visit visa, which needs to be either sponsored by your company (they should definitely have the ability to sponsor visit visas) or by the airline you fly (e.g. Emirates, Etihad etc) or by the hotel you stay at.

The residence visa can be processed while she is here (though it may become tight if its just a 30 days visa and will probably need to be extended), and she may have to leave the country and come back as a final step (this can be done by flying to a neighboring country like Oman).


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## kevinthegulf (Aug 16, 2009)

Getting your marriage certificate attested in the Philippines, is quite simple, I used a company both for my Qatar & UAE residency, send the original & they get them attested at the appropriate embassy in Manila, assume a birth cert will be similar.
Cant quite remember their name & it will be a few days before I can check on it, seem to think it took just about 2 weeks including courier service


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## aleleeson (Jun 10, 2015)

wow... we were in the EXACT same situation except different countries..

my husband is german and i have residence etc. in germany ..i am form trinidad. 

We did not need to go to trinidad because as the poster above me said a company can do that for you. we were also married in trinidad... the company that did this for us was called earnest and young and my husband's company arranged all that.

how or situations were the same is that initially they said the same to us. That I can not travel with him until I have the correct visa...we looked it up then asked them about the tourist visa option. They said it is possible but then I would have to make a "visa run" after the visitor visa expires and come back on the correct visa...so the choice was up to us. They paid for the visa run but I imagine that if a company would prefer your wife to wait it is due to the cost of visa runs. Note that because of my nationality I can not simply go to Oman.. I had to go all the way back to Germany so check how expensive the visa run for your wife will be.


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## rsinner (Feb 3, 2009)

aleleeson said:


> Note that because of my nationality I can not simply go to Oman.. I had to go all the way back to Germany so check how expensive the visa run for your wife will be.


Actually you could.
You CANNOT go to Oman by road (as you will have to enter Oman). 
But you can go to Oman on a flight, not cross the immigration, and come back on the same flight. This would cost c. 500 AED on something like Rotana Jet or Fly Dubai. I know of Chinese and Indian passport holder who have done this, hence Trinidadians surely would be able to do this


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## rsinner (Feb 3, 2009)

aleleeson said:


> the company that did this for us was called earnest and young and my husband's company arranged all that.


I guess you mean Ernst & Young (E&Y). They are one of the Big 4 accounting (and B2B services) firms, and will be very expensive for individuals.


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## aleleeson (Jun 10, 2015)

rsinner said:


> Actually you could.
> You CANNOT go to Oman by road (as you will have to enter Oman).
> But you can go to Oman on a flight, not cross the immigration, and come back on the same flight. This would cost c. 500 AED on something like Rotana Jet or Fly Dubai. I know of Chinese and Indian passport holder who have done this, hence Trinidadians surely would be able to do this



I guess his company didn't know then because they said I had to go back to Germany .. i know they said this due to nationality as they also offered the option for our kids ..who also came on the tourist visa but have german passports to go to Oman, but for me they said I had to go back to Germany. 

It could be that they just didnt know, because in the beginning, like I said, they also didnt seem to know that we could come on tourist visas.. the company he works for is a new company here.


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