Applying for family iqama - we can only apply from country of origin?

Any help on this? Anyone else who experienced this too??

I have answered this many many many times.  Next time, use search.

No, this is not true.  As per procedure, you can apply for a Saudi visa from either country of origin or country of residence.

BUT ONLY if your company has designated a visa to the country consulate where you are applying from.  And this is kind of rare.  Because the way the process works in Saudi is that a company gets a quota of visas and then has to designate them to countries & professions e.g. 6 accountant visas to India, 4 sales visas to egypt etc.  They can't keep quota undesignated for long.   So essentially, your chance is only there if the company issues a quota at the time they KNOW that they are going to hire you and then can designate nationality/profession to UAE consulate.  In my case, for my work visa, it took a few months because they had to issue a new quota.

The other issue then happens for family.  So if you get your visa from country of origin and then try to get your family visa from another country, Saudi consulates habitually refuse this............they want both work and family visa to be applied from the same country.   So unless you have wasta or influence, this is the way it will work.