Iraq 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
| Iraq | Lebanon | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary in IT | — | — |
| Citizenship | — | — |
| Partner can work | — | — |
| Parents | — | — |
| Pets | no trouble | — |
| Pet limit | no limit | no limit |
| Quarantine | no | — |
| Residence permit fee | — | 72 000 000 LBP |
| Rent, 2 bedrooms | $ 608 · estimate | $ 1 014 · estimate |
| Basket | $ 18,0 | $ 37,8 |
| Life expectancy | 72.42 | 77.94 |
| Homicides/100k | 9.46 | 2.64 |
| Natural hazards, 0–10 | 5.7 | 3.9 |
How the two sets of routes differ
Long-stay routes in this reference: Iraq — 29, Lebanon — 48. Types present in both: work, study, family and investment. Iraq adds: talent. Lebanon adds: repatriation.
Fees, thresholds and deadlines
Iraq: the fee is 100,000 IQD wherever it is published. Routes with a published decision deadline: 3; the shortest is 1 days. 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.
Iraq in brief
Iraq scores very low on governance and very high on water-related hazards. On the World Bank scale, which runs roughly from −2.5 to +2.5, political stability is −2.06 — eighth from the bottom among the 173 countries with data — rule of law is −1.36, control of corruption −1.21, and government effectiveness −1.10. Life expectancy is 72.42 years, health spending 333.29 dollars per person per year, basic water access reaches 98.41 percent of the population, and the mean PM2.5 concentration is 49.47 micrograms per cubic metre. Road deaths run at 21.5 per 100,000. Unemployment is 15.48 percent, and 32.01 percent among young people. Overall natural hazard is 5.7 out of 10 on INFORM: flooding 9.6, drought 7.5, earthquakes 5.1, coastal hazards 4.6, with no cyclone or tsunami exposure at all. The immigration framework is published as Law No. 76 of 2017 and was translated into English by the Ministry of Justice itself. One feature defines it: **there is no permanent status in the country**. An ordinary residence card is issued for no more than one year and renewed year by year as many times as the grounds persist; the maximum is a three-year renewable card, granted only on six enumerated grounds, among them 15 years of continuous residence, six years under a contract with the government, scientific and cultural service, study at a religious seminary, and business or investment. Marriage to a citizen leads to that same three-year card, not to a separate family status. There are eleven visa categories, each with precise periods, and two of them — visiting and tourist — expressly forbid working anywhere in the country, whether paid or unpaid. Duties fall on the receiving side too, on short clocks: an employer notifies the authority within 48 hours of hiring a worker and of that worker's departure, a hotel within two days of arrival and departure, and whoever brings a foreigner in to work must post financial guarantees or a return ticket. What is not in this data: the law sets no standard for deciding an application — it fixes only the appeal periods (15 days to object, 30 to answer) and counts the waiting time as legitimate residence. City populations are not given: no official source separating the city from the governorate could be found.
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
Iraq or… Taiwan · South Korea · Japan · Thailand · Kazakhstan · Uzbekistan · Malaysia · Azerbaijan
Lebanon or… Philippines · Bangladesh · Kuwait · Mongolia · Oman · People's Republic of China · Sri Lanka · Singapore
More on each: Iraq · 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.