Saudi Arabia agrees to withdraw additional Umrah tax on pilgrims

Saudi Crown Prince to abolish 2,000 riyals extra fee on Pakistanis after Imran’s request

Saudi Arabia has agreed to withdraw an additional Umrah fee of SAR2,000 (Dh1,958) for Pakistanis following a request made by Prime Minister Imran Khan during his recent visit to Saudi Arabia.

Secretary of religious affairs Mohammad Mushtaq informed about the waiver to the senate committee that met to discuss the problems faced by Pakistanis while performing Haj and Umrah.

The chairman of senate standing committee on religious affairs, senator Maulana Abdul Ghafour Haideri, said he had received several complaints about the “discriminatory tax” on Pakistanis performing more than one Umrah within two years.

Mushtaq explained that the rationale behind the Saudi move was to discourage repeated Umrah by some people and that the same tax had been levied on all pilgrims. “However this new tax of SAR2,000 on people performing more than one Umrah within two years has been abolished for the people of Egypt and Turkey after requests were made by governments of these countries to the Saudi government,” Mushtaq said. The matter was first taken up with Saudi authorities in Islamabad and later “the prime minister during his visit to Saudi took up the matter with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and he has agreed to abolish the tax,” the secretary said.