Gulf Desi Hub

Two things about Qatar catch people out constantly. The first is that the old Metrash2 app no longer works — the Ministry of Interior switched it off on 1 March 2025 and moved everything to a new app simply called Metrash. Most guides online still tell you to open Metrash2. The second is that a great many workers believe they need their employer’s permission to leave the country. For most people that has not been true for years, and believing it hands your employer power they do not actually have.

Which office answers which question

Qatar splits your working life between two ministries. Opening the wrong one is the single biggest time-waster, so it is worth learning once:

Ministry of Interior (MOI) — the Metrash app and moi.gov.qa. Your Qatar ID (QID), residency permit, visa status and expiry, exit permit if one applies to you, traffic fines and official certificates.

Ministry of Labour (ADLSA) — adlsa.gov.qa. Your registered employment contract, unpaid or late wages, labour complaints, and changing employer.

Before you start

• Your QID number — 11 digits, printed on your Qatar ID card. This is the fastest way in on almost every screen.
• Your passport number and nationality, for the screens that ask for those instead.
• A phone number registered in your own name. Metrash and the ADLSA complaint service both send one-time codes. If your employer registered their number against your file, ask them in writing to change it — you cannot control your own file without it.

Checking your QID and residency

Download the current Metrash app, or use the MOI web portal, and look for the residency permit enquiry. Enter your QID and you should see your expiry date, your sponsor, and whether anything is flagged on your file.

Check the expiry date yourself rather than accepting a verbal “it is done”. An expired residency file is the sort of problem that stays quiet for weeks and then becomes expensive at exactly the wrong moment.

The exit permit question, answered properly

This is the part worth reading twice, because it is the belief employers most often use to keep people in place.

Most workers in Qatar no longer need an exit permit to leave. The requirement was removed for the majority of private sector workers in 2018. In January 2020 it was removed for the groups left out of that change: domestic workers, staff in government and public institutions, and workers in oil and gas, agriculture and at sea.

Two exceptions remain. Members of the armed forces still need permission. And an employer may apply in advance to the Ministry of Interior to keep the requirement for specific staff whose roles they argue are critical — capped at no more than 5% of that company’s total workforce. If your employer claims you are in that 5%, that is a claim they must have had approved by the MOI, not something they decide over WhatsApp.

Domestic workers do not need a permit, but are required to tell their employer at least 72 hours before travelling.

If someone tells you that you cannot leave

1. Check your own file first. Open Metrash and look at your own status rather than relying on what you have been told.
2. Get the claim in writing. Ask, by message, why you cannot travel. Keep the reply. Employers are far more careful about what they type than what they say.
3. Take it to ADLSA. The Ministry of Labour handles complaints against employers, and filing one is free. The current complaint channels and hotline numbers are listed on adlsa.gov.qa — use the number on the official site, not one an agent gave you.
4. Tell your embassy. Every one of the five countries this site serves has a labour or community welfare section in Doha. They keep records, and a documented case carries far more weight than a spoken one.

If the underlying problem is wages rather than travel, start with our step-by-step guide to filing a labour complaint over unpaid salary.

Leaving for good rather than travelling? The exit step is the last one, not the first — our final exit checklist sets out the order that protects your money, from resignation to the last 72 hours.

Your passport belongs to you

Worth saying plainly, because it comes up in the same conversations: holding a worker’s passport against their will is not lawful in Qatar or anywhere else in the Gulf. An employer keeping your passport “for safekeeping” when you have asked for it back is a labour complaint, not a rule you have to accept.

Three rules that will save you money

• Never give your Metrash login, QID or one-time codes to anyone — not an agent, not a colleague, not your employer. Whoever holds those can act on your file without telling you.
• Never pay to check your own status. Everything above is free. A website charging a fee to look up your QID or visa is not an official one.
• Screenshot everything, with the date visible. A screenshot taken today is worth far more than your memory of it in eight months.

Verify before you act

App names, menus and rules change — the Metrash2 switch-off is proof of that. This guide is written to get you to the right official place rather than to replace it, so confirm anything important on moi.gov.qa and adlsa.gov.qa themselves. Working elsewhere in the Gulf? We have the same guide for Saudi Arabia and for the United Arab Emirates.

If you are unsure what your own status means, ask in the community. Say what your job is, what your QID says, and what you have already been told — that is usually enough for someone who has been through it to point you the right way.