Ruling on selling a visa to a worker with his consent
Question

                I hope that you can give me the shar’i ruling on selling a visa to a worker so that he can use it. Please note that I want to open a store for this worker, and the sale will be done with the consent of both parties, and there is no pressure on him. 

The second thing is that if selling the visa is haraam, is it haraam to make him pay the cost of the visa, which is 2000 riyals and the costs of the person who does the paperwork?.
Praise be to Allah.
    If this worker is sponsored by you and is 
    going to work for you, then it is not permissible for you to sell the visa 
    to him, and it is also not permissible for you to make him pay the costs, 
    because that is contrary to the state system which dictates that these costs 
    should be paid by the business owner, not the worker. 

    Our scholars have ruled that it is haraam to 
    sell visas in all cases, because that involves lying and cheating the state. 
     

    Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy 
    on him) was asked: Some people obtain a visa that costs nearly three 
    thousand riyals, then they sell it for eight or ten thousand to another 
    person so that he can bring his brother. What is the ruling on that? 

    He replied: The visa is a kind of 
    permission, i.e., he is taking permission from the ministry to bring in a 
    worker, then he sells this permission to someone else so that he can bring 
    in a worker. This is haraam and is not permissible, because we say that if 
    you need this worker, the visa is in your hand, and if you do not need the 
    worker, then give the visa back to the one from whom you took it. It is not 
    permissible for you to sell it. If we were to do that, then everyone would 
    be buying visas and making money from them. Moreover, this is lying, because 
    if a person takes a visa on the basis that he is going to bring in a worker, 
    then he sells it, he is a liar. But tell me: if he has no need of a worker, 
    such as a man who takes a visa on the basis that he is going to bring in a 
    worker, but he has no need of him, can he sell it? The answer is no, rather 
    he should return it, because it was granted to him on the basis that he 
    himself was going to bring in a worker, then he has no need of him. So he 
    should return it, because there may be other people who are waiting for a 
    visa. End quote from Liqa’ al-Baab il-Maftooh (170/15). 

    The scholars of the Standing Committee for 
    Issuing Fatwas were asked: I am a young man, 33 years old, and I am not well 
    off. One day one of the brothers who are resident in the Kingdom, who is of 
    Pakistani nationality (Muslim), came to me and asked me to get some visas 
    for him so that he could bring some of his relatives from Pakistan, and he 
    would pay me seven thousand riyals for each visa. I did that, because of my 
    financial situation and because I needed the money, and I took from him the 
    price of four visas, and I brought in the people for whom he had bought the 
    visas. Now they have been in the Kingdom for four years and they are working 
    independently. My question is: is this money that I took from them halaal or 
    haraam? Please note that the people in question have gotten many times more 
    than the money they paid me, and they are happy with their situation and 
    what they paid in order to come and live and work in the Kingdom. 

    They replied: 

    This money is haraam, because it was paid in 
    return for sponsorship, which is a contract that represents a kind of favour 
    or charity, and it is also lying, because it is going against the system 
    that the state has set up in the public interest. End quote. 

    Fataawa al-Lajnah al-Daa’imah 
    (14/189). 

    And Allaah knows best.