Cancelling your residence visa

Related eServices

• Cancelling your residence visa online -Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship
• Request for cancellation of family residency – GDRFA-Dubai
• Labour card and employment contract cancellation – MoHRE

If you a have a residence visa sponsored either by a family member or by your employer, and you decide to leave the country permanently, your residence visa must be cancelled officially.

Who must cancel your residence visa

Normally, only the sponsor can cancel your residence visa. You cannot process the application on your own.

If a company decides to cancel an employment visa of its employee, it must first approach Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation with an application to cancel the employee’s labour contract and labour card. The employee must also sign this application. Then, the employer should apply to General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) for visa cancellation.

The company must also cancel the work permit. For this, it must submit a letter signed by the employee stating that he has already received all his wages and end of services benefits to Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation.

An individual sponsoring his/her spouse, children and other dependents must cancel the dependents’ visas first before he cancels his/her own.

Cancellation must be processed through the GDRFA that stamped the residence visa in the first place.

How to cancel your residence visa

There are two ways to cancel your visa. You can do it either through a registered typing centre or online.

• Registered typing centreThe sponsor may visit any typing office registered by GDRFA in the respective emirate. The typing centre will fill the cancellation form on your behalf and process it online through the respective GDRFA.

   

• OnlineAlternatively, the sponsor may process the cancellation online through the respective GDRFA or through the eChannels platform of the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship.

Related link

• Track visa applications and status

Documents required

The following documents are required for cancelling residence visa through GDRFA:

• cancellation form signed by the sponsor
• if the sponsor is a company or a firm, the cancellation form must be signed and sealed by the company stamp and a clearance certificate from Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation must be attached
• the original passport of the sponsored
• original identity card of the sponsored
• if  the sponsored ones are out of the UAE, the sponsor may present the original passport or a computerised extract of their residence visas. (Kindly contact Naturalisation and Residency Dept to get a computerised extract of the residence visa.)