As of 6 September 2026, Qatar’s Criminal Evidences and Information Department issues this certificate for QR 10, about two pounds, with a turnaround of roughly two weeks. Applying through Qatar’s embassy in London instead costs £80 and takes at least three months.
The Qatar Good Conduct Certificate is the police clearance a foreign employer, immigration authority or licensing body will ask you for, and it comes from the Criminal Evidences and Information Department at the Ministry of Interior. Getting it is not complicated. Choosing the wrong door costs forty times the fee and six times the wait.
That gap is not a rumour. It sits in two official records, and almost nobody writing about this document puts them side by side.
What does it cost?
QR 10, from the department itself. The UK Home Office, which publishes country-by-country guidance for people who need an overseas police check, states it twice in its Qatar entry: a fee of QR10 for a local applicant in person, paid in cash at the office, and a fee of QR10 for an overseas applicant by mail, paid by cheque. Roughly two pounds either way, with a turnaround it puts at up to two weeks.
Now the other counter. Qatar’s embassy in London lists, for the same certificate, fees of £80, and adds that it takes at least three months to process.
Neither figure is wrong. They are prices for two different routes, and only one of them is advertised to people who have already left Qatar.
⚠️ One honest caveat: the Home Office marks its Qatar entry as amended in July 2017. QR 10 may not be today’s number, and we are not going to pretend an eight-year-old figure is a live quote. What the two records together establish is the shape of the gap, and that is what should change your behaviour.
Can you apply after leaving Qatar?
Yes, and this is the point most people arrive not knowing.
The Home Office guidance is explicit that Qatari nationals and former residents may apply, and that overseas applicants may apply in person or through mail at the Criminal Evidences and Information Department. The mailing address it gives is the department itself: Criminal Evidence and Information Department, Ministry of Interior, P.O. Box 23004, Doha.
Two things it also settles, and both save wasted effort: third-party representatives cannot apply on your behalf, and a prospective employer in the UK cannot apply for you. This is a document you request yourself.
Qatar sits with Oman and Bahrain here. Oman serves former residents through its own channel, and Bahrain runs a dedicated online request for foreigners outside the Kingdom. Kuwait is the Gulf exception, and the one that traps people: its certificate is not available once you have gone, so it has to be collected before the residency is cancelled.
What does the embassy actually require?
More than the department does, which is part of why it costs more.
The London mission asks for a fingerprint document taken by the Metropolitan Police and certified by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, or by the foreign affairs office in Ireland. Four passport photographs. Colour photocopies of the picture page of both the old and the new passport. A colour photocopy of the Doha residence permit. A cover letter setting out why you need the clearance, the period you worked in Qatar, your current address and contact details. And a prepaid self-addressed special or recorded delivery envelope to get everything back.
The £80 must be paid by banker’s cheque, draft cheque or postal order made out to the Embassy of the State of Qatar, in sterling. There is no card payment. Postal orders are accepted only if issued in the United Kingdom.
One detail changes the whole plan: the embassy states that its consular departments are no longer open for in-person enquiries or document drop-offs. This is a postal process. Everything goes to the Legalisation Section, Police Clearance, South Audley Street, London W1K 1NB.
What does the direct route require?
A letter, your documents, and your own fingerprints, sent to Doha.
Per the Home Office guidance, an overseas applicant supplies a letter requesting issuance of the Good Conduct or Police Clearance Certificate, stating the purpose of the request and the first date of arrival in Qatar and the last date of departure. Then a complete photocopy of every page of the passport regardless of whether there is anything on it, a set of fingerprints taken at a local police station, three passport-size photographs, a self-addressed return envelope large enough for an A4 document, and a letter of non-objection from the former sponsor or employer.
That last item is the one that stops people. If you left on bad terms, or the company no longer exists, a non-objection letter is not something you can produce on demand, and the embassy route may be the only one open to you. That, rather than the fee, is the real reason to check both doors before committing to either.
How do residents apply from inside Qatar?
Through the Ministry of Interior. The MOI portal carries the service online, and so does Metrash2, the same app residents already use for traffic fines and most residency transactions. In person, the Criminal Evidences and Information Department handles it directly.
You will need your Qatar ID and a passport copy. Fingerprints are taken where they are not already on file, which for most residents they are, because they were captured when the residence permit was issued.
The Home Office adds one requirement for local applicants that residents often miss: a letter of authorisation from the sponsor or prospective employer, alongside the request letter and the original passport.
Does it need attesting?
Usually, if it is going to a foreign authority. The certificate is normally attested by Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then by the destination country’s embassy in Doha, and the destination country sets its own requirements and charges for the second half.
Qatar publishes no single fee schedule covering that end to end, and the sequence differs by destination. Ask the receiving authority exactly what it wants stamped before paying for anything, because attestation done in the wrong order has to be done again.
How long is it valid?
Qatar publishes no validity period, and we are not going to invent one. In practice the receiving authority sets the deadline, and three or six months from issue is the common demand.
Time the application to their deadline rather than to your departure date. Getting it too early is what forces a second application later, from abroad, at embassy prices.
What is the short version?
Qatar’s Good Conduct Certificate comes from the Criminal Evidences and Information Department at the Ministry of Interior, in person, through the MOI portal or through Metrash2. Applying to the department directly, including by post from abroad, is recorded at QR 10 and about two weeks; applying through the embassy in London costs £80 and at least three months, is postal only, and needs Metropolitan Police fingerprints certified by the FCDO. Former residents can apply either way, unlike in Kuwait, but nobody can apply on your behalf, and the direct route needs a non-objection letter from your former sponsor, which is the thing most likely to force you to the embassy. The QR 10 figure comes from UK guidance amended in July 2017, so confirm it before you post a cheque.
If you are working through a Qatari exit at the same time, what the exit permit law actually requires is the other document people get wrong on the way out.
Sources: UK Home Office, Applying for a criminal records check for someone from overseas, countries Q to Z, Qatar entry, amended July 2017, read 6 September 2026; Embassy of the State of Qatar in London, Police Clearance from Qatar, read 6 September 2026. Qatar’s national portal, Hukoomi, was returning server errors on its service pages when we re-checked, so it is not cited here.
Last updated: 6 September 2026.
