A business owner can sponsor family in Qatar on the route that fits the owner’s residence. With a work residence permit on your own company, apply for the family residence visa: salary at least QAR 10,000 a month, or QAR 6,000 with family housing. With investor residence, a spouse, children and parents can join with no salary rule stated.
Two routes, depending on your own residence
Under Law No. 21 of 2015, the residence law, a resident can bring a spouse, unmarried daughters, and sons up to 25 who are still at university. Parents are a different matter: they need the Minister’s approval and a reason he accepts. Which part of this applies to you as an owner turns on your own permit.
Take an engineer who set up a contracting company in Doha in February 2025 and made himself its manager on a work contract. His residence permit is a work permit on his own company, which is common for owners, and the law is fine with it: a partner authorised to sign may do administrative work in the company with the authority’s approval. An investor is in a different position, holding residence with no sponsor at all. So before anything else, look at which permit you have.
| Work residence on your company | Investor residence | |
|---|---|---|
| Who can join | Spouse, sons up to 25 if studying, unmarried daughters; parents with approval | Spouse, children and parents |
| Salary rule | At least QAR 10,000 a month, or QAR 6,000 with family housing from the employer | None stated |
| Profession | A technical or specialised (non-labour) profession on the contract | Not stated |
| MOI fee | QAR 200 | QAR 100 |
Owners with a work residence permit
Say you run a small trading company in Al Sadd and, since 1 March, your own work contract pays you QAR 8,000 a month. On salary alone that falls short of the family residence visa: Article 58 of the Executive Regulations wants QAR 10,000. If the company also gives you family housing, the floor drops to QAR 6,000 and you pass. The Ministry of Interior reads both figures off the contract, so put the housing in it.
The Ministry’s page adds a test the regulation does not have. In the private sector, the sponsor’s contract must name a technical or specialised profession (an accountant, say, rather than a labourer), and the contract must be accredited. Applications go in on Metrash2. When we looked on 21 October 2026, the fee shown was QAR 200.
Owners with investor residence
Picture an investor who received residence under the foreign investment law in January 2026, without a sponsor. It runs for five years and can be renewed, and her spouse, children and parents can be granted residence too, without any of them needing a job in Qatar. Real estate owners can get the same kind of residence.
For the family itself, the Ministry of Interior runs a separate visa for relatives of an investor or real estate owner, at QAR 100 on its page. You will need proof of the relationship, an attested good conduct certificate and a medical test done outside Qatar. Neither the service page nor the regulation states a salary or housing rule for this route. The investor’s own residence visa asks for a letter from the concerned authority confirming the investment.
After your family arrives
Each family member aged over 18 has a medical examination in Qatar after arrival, as part of the residence procedure. A child born in Qatar needs a residence permit too: apply within 90 days of the birth or of the child’s entry into Qatar.
If you only want family to visit, the Ministry’s family visit visa is granted for one month and can be extended by up to five months for first-degree relatives. The host needs a monthly salary of at least QAR 5,000 on an accredited contract, and the visitor needs health insurance.
How we help
We check which route your own residence puts you on, compare your contract with the salary and profession rules, and prepare the family residence file with you: the attested documents, the forms and the order to submit them. The Ministry of Interior decides each application.
