# Detect tampered and deepfake Iqama (Saudi Residence Permit) > The Iqama, or muqeem card, is Saudi Arabia's residence permit, issued by the General Directorate of Passports (Jawazat) to foreign workers and their families, and it is the document employers, banks, and government portals use to confirm legal residency and profession. Because the printed profession governs what work a holder may do and validity tracks sponsorship payments, forgeries upgrade professions, stretch expiry dates, or fabricate cards for lapsed sponsorships. **Canonical URL:** https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/iqama **API document class:** `iqama` --- ## What a genuine iqama contains The card carries the holder's name in Arabic and English, an Iqama number, nationality, date of birth, photograph, profession in both languages, and validity dates that the Kingdom prints in the Hijri calendar. Profession and expiry are the fields that matter to verifiers: the profession defines permitted work, and the expiry reflects whether residency fees are current. Newer plastic cards replaced earlier paper forms, and many checks now run through the Absher and Muqeem digital portals alongside the physical card. Dates being Hijri is a legitimate convention rather than an error, and misreading a Hijri month as Gregorian is the classic false positive a careful analysis avoids. ## How iqama forgeries are made ### Profession-field integrity The printed profession controls permitted work, which makes it the fraud target. Text substitution inside one line, a font pass change, or realignment against the Arabic text localises an upgrade from labourer to engineer. ### Hijri date handling Validity dates print in the Hijri calendar, about eleven days shorter per year than the Gregorian. Reading them as Gregorian manufactures expiry errors, so the analysis interprets both calendars and checks coherence between renderings where both appear. ### Expiry and sponsorship coherence A current expiry implies residency fees paid and sponsorship intact. An expiry far beyond the sponsorship or employment documents in the file contradicts how renewals actually work. ### Card edition and print The plastic muqeem card has known layout, typography, and security features. Cards mixing generations of design, or printing security features flat, were assembled rather than issued. ### Name transliteration coherence Arabic and English name fields must transliterate consistently, and a mismatch between the two renderings, or between the card and the passport, is a composite signal worth escalating. ## What TamperCheck checks on an iqama TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks across three layers and returns a risk score from 0 to 100 with plain-English findings tied to specific regions of the document. These three carry the most weight on this document class. ### Portrait substitution and face-swap analysis The document is isolated from whatever it was photographed on, then the portrait region is assessed against the card surface around it. A pasted or generated face rarely matches the substrate it was placed onto. ### Security print, foil, and hologram analysis A genuine security overlay or guilloche background behaves differently from a printed picture of one. A reproduction loses the structure that made the feature a security feature in the first place, and that loss is measurable even when the copy looks convincing on screen. ### Date and validity consistency Issue, expiry, and period dates are checked against one another and against the file's own creation metadata, which catches backdating and validity extension. ### And many more checks The three above are the layers that carry the most weight on an iqama. Every upload runs the full suite of 200+ checks regardless of document class, spanning file structure and metadata, pixel-level forensics, font and text rendering, optical and print characteristics, provenance signals, AI-generation signatures, and many more checks. ## Who verifies an iqama, and why Saudi employers, banks, Jawazat, and exit-reentry desks. In each case the document is being used to unlock money, access, or a legal status, which is exactly what makes it worth forging. ## How to verify an iqama in 4 steps 1. **Photograph both sides.** Capture the card flat and complete at full resolution, keeping the Arabic fields, profession line, and dates sharp for close reading. 2. **Read the dates correctly.** Interpret validity dates as Hijri where printed so, and compare any Gregorian rendering against the Hijri line for internal coherence. 3. **Weigh profession and expiry.** Check the printed profession against the employment documents in the file, and the expiry against the sponsorship story behind the application. 4. **Run a forensic check on the file.** Profession upgrades are single-line edits that hide in bilingual print. TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks spanning the profession line, the date fields, and print integrity, and returns a risk score from 0 to 100 with findings tied to specific regions of the image. ## Frequently asked questions ### Why do Iqama dates look wrong? They are usually printed in the Hijri calendar, which runs about eleven days shorter per year than the Gregorian. Reading a Hijri month as Gregorian makes authentic cards look expired or not yet valid, so calendar-aware reading is the first step of any check. ### Why does the profession on an Iqama matter? Saudi work permits are profession-specific, and working outside the printed profession is a violation for both worker and employer. That is why profession upgrades are the card's characteristic fraud, and why a font or spacing change on that single line is a serious signal. ### Is the digital Muqeem record enough without the card? Portal status is increasingly accepted, and the physical card remains the document most institutions still scan. When both exist they should agree on name, profession, and validity, and disagreement between the two is worth resolving before any decision. ### How does TamperCheck handle Iqama cards? TamperCheck reads the validity dates with Hijri awareness, inspects the profession line for localised text substitution, and scores print and edition integrity. Analysis runs on a single REST endpoint, the upload is processed ephemerally and not stored, and findings reference the exact card regions involved. ## Related document types - TamperCheck Forensic Report: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/forensic_analysis_report - Unknown: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/unknown --- Try TamperCheck now: https://tampercheck.ai/dashboard · Docs: https://tampercheck.ai/docs · Pricing: https://tampercheck.ai/pricing