Brunei or Lebanon
Two countries side by side across the same rows as the full comparison. A dash means the value is missing: fields are not filled with guesses. about the data
| Brunei | Lebanon | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary in IT | — | — |
| Citizenship | 20 years | — |
| Partner can work | no | — |
| Parents | — | — |
| Pets | no trouble | — |
| Pet limit | no limit | no limit |
| Quarantine | no | — |
| Residence permit fee | — | 72 000 000 LBP |
| Rent, 2 bedrooms | $ 946 · estimate | $ 1 014 · estimate |
| Basket | $ 31,6 | $ 37,8 |
| Life expectancy | 75.5 | 77.94 |
| Homicides/100k | 0.49 | 2.64 |
| Natural hazards, 0–10 | 2.8 | 3.9 |
How the two sets of routes differ
Long-stay routes in this reference: Brunei — 19, Lebanon — 48. Types present in both: work, family, investment and repatriation. Brunei adds: talent. Lebanon adds: study.
Fees, thresholds and deadlines
Brunei: the fee is 50 BND wherever it is published. Lebanon: fees range from 20,000 to 216,000,000 LBP. Routes with no fee: 4. Routes stating an income threshold: 1; the lowest is 50,000,000 LBP a month. Routes with a published decision deadline: 1; the shortest is 4 days.
Beyond the first permit
Citizenship: Brunei after 20 years; the other country publishes no term.
Brunei in brief
Brunei is an oil-and-gas monarchy on the island of Borneo with one of the most closed long-term entry regimes in the world. The grounds for working residence are the Employment Pass, rigidly tied to a specific employer and requiring the employer to hold a Foreign Workers Licence from the Department of Labour, the Professional Visit Pass for select categories of experts, the Dependant's Pass for family members, and the Student's Pass. For none of these categories does the immigration service's official website publish processing times. There is no separate permanent residence status with a published number of years: the closest analogue, the Entry Permit, is granted at the discretion of the Controller of Immigration without an objective criterion. Naturalisation is governed by the Brunei Nationality Act (Cap. 15): 20 years of residence in the country out of the preceding 25 years, an oral exam in Malay before the Language Board, and a decision made entirely at the Sultan's discretion; time spent in the country on temporary passes (including work passes) does not count toward this period unless the Sultan directs otherwise. Dual citizenship is not permitted. There is no personal income tax — the Income Tax Act taxes only the income of legal entities. The country's economy rests on the extraction and export of oil and natural gas. Since 2014 the Syariah Penal Code Order, 2013 has been phased in and is in force; under the code's direct provision (s. 3(1)) it applies to both Muslims and non-Muslims unless expressly stated otherwise, and it includes hudud and qisas categories of offences. The sale of alcohol is banned throughout the country (Excise Order, 2006, s. 73).
Lebanon in brief
Lebanon combines high seismic risk and low governance figures with reasonably good population health. Earthquakes at 8.2 out of 10 on INFORM are the principal natural hazard; there is no river flooding at all, drought is 2.9, coastal hazards 3.2, tsunami 3.9, and overall natural hazard 3.9. On the World Bank scale, political stability is −1.39 (the twenty-fifth lowest figure among 173 countries), control of corruption −1.30, government effectiveness −1.13 and rule of law −1.09. Yet life expectancy is 77.94 years — higher than most of its neighbours in this part of the guide — health spending is 260.81 dollars per person per year, water access reaches 92.6 percent of the population, road deaths run at 9.7 per 100,000 and homicides at 2.64. The air is middling: PM2.5 at 26.69. Unemployment is 10.98 percent, and 22.74 among young people. A one-bedroom in Beirut rents for 666 euros a month with utilities at 174, and the monthly transit pass costs 69.34 dollars — one of the most expensive in this guide. The immigration framework rests on a single authority, the General Directorate of General Security, and it publishes every service as a table: type of request, fee, required documents. Not one service has a column for processing time. What shapes everything is the tie to a sponsor and to the work permit: the annual residence permit is the main form, and it is also what family members of a worker receive. **The word "permanent" here does not mean indefinite.** The directorate has a page headed "Permanent residence", and that same page states that such a permit is issued for two or for three years. Years lived in the country do not lead to it: the grounds are a cash guarantee of 4.5 billion pounds (with a written undertaking not to work if the applicant is under 64), business or investment for nationals of Arab countries, or holding a three-year or two-year work permit of the first and second category. It is separately stipulated that this permit is not granted to Egyptian nationals. The family route runs through the free courtesy residence permit, and its conditions are asymmetric by the sex of the Lebanese spouse: the husband of a Lebanese woman needs a marriage older than a year, the wife of a Lebanese man must not work. What is not in this data: the directorate publishes no processing time for any service — every table has a fee and a document list, but no deadlines. The procedure for bringing in cats and dogs is described neither by a national source nor by other countries' veterinary authorities: APHIS lists only turtles for Lebanon. The city's population is not given: no official source separating Beirut from the governorate could be found.
Other comparisons
Brunei or… Taiwan · South Korea · Japan · Thailand · Kazakhstan · Uzbekistan · Malaysia · Azerbaijan
Lebanon or… Philippines · Bangladesh · Kuwait · Iraq · Mongolia · Oman · People's Republic of China · Sri Lanka
More on each: Brunei · Lebanon. Build your own comparison — up to four countries
This material is for reference and is not legal, tax or immigration advice. Visa rules, tax thresholds and prices change. Before deciding anything, check the official sources and consult a licensed professional in the relevant country.