MS
Maya S.
Book the appointment online before you arrive. The first free slot was five weeks out. Bring the lease, a bank statement and two photos — they keep the lease, so take a copy.
Where · Civil Registry, NicosiaCost · 70 euroTook · One morning
Land well, wherever you landed.
Moving somewhere new means starting over at everything. Which permit. Which bank will open an account without a local guarantor. How long a Lebanese licence is accepted for. LebEx is where the Lebanese people who already worked all of that out in your city wrote it down.
Your landing
Twelve things, and what people here did about each
A local number, somewhere to live, a bank account, residency, the right to work, a doctor, school and Arabic for the children, driving, the consulate, renewing a passport abroad, getting a document accepted back home, sending money. The twelve are the same everywhere. The answers are not — under each one is what somebody in your city actually did, where they went, what it cost and how long it took.
A local number
Almost every other step asks for one before it will start.
A bank account
Opening one without a local guarantor is the step that surprises people most.
Residency
Which permit, which queue, and what it costs.
Renewing a Lebanese passport
Renewing abroad takes longer than at home and has to be started earlier than feels sensible.
Still true?
Every answer says when anybody last checked
Fees change, offices move, and required documents quietly grow a third item. An answer nobody has confirmed in six months says so rather than sitting there looking current. Anybody who has just been through it can confirm it in one tap, and that is what moves the date.
Vouched for
Names, not stars
A vouch carries somebody's name and one line about what they actually used the place for. It can be withdrawn when a place changes hands and gets worse, which an average can never do. Somewhere one person you have messaged vouches for ranks above somewhere nine strangers did.
ZB
Zeitoun Bakery
Bakery · Sydney
Rana and Karim vouch for this
KL
Karam Legal
Immigration paperwork · Montréal
3 vouched
BC
Beit Coffee
Café · Lagos
Nobody has vouched for this yet
Ask
The people around you, not the internet
Questions, recommendations, what is on this weekend, and help when somebody needs it — from the city you are in. Help can be asked for without your name attached, because the people who need it most are the least able to ask in front of everybody.
NH
Nour H.
QuestionAsking the community
Anyone know somewhere that does proper kaak here? Not the sweet kind. The one you eat walking.
RK
Rami K.
RecommendationIkeja
The barber on Awolowo takes his time and has never once cut it shorter than I asked.
TA
Tony A.
EventSaturday, 10am
Arabic lessons for children, first session free. Bring them along and stay for coffee.
Messages
Private means private
One-to-one messages are encrypted on your phone and decrypted on theirs. Nobody in between can read them, and that includes us: the keys never leave your device, so there is nothing on our side to hand over or lose. Group and community chat is not end-to-end encrypted, by design, so that it can be moderated — and the app tells you which is which.
Did you land?
Just now. Passport queue is enormous.
Come straight to the house. Mum has been cooking since Thursday.
Encrypted on your phone, decrypted on theirs
You
Where you are from, and where you are now
Both, because in a diaspora both are the question people are actually asking. Your progress through the twelve steps is private to you. Your address book is never uploaded; people find you by username.
J
Joseph
What you have put in
7/12 landing steps · 3 answers · 2 places vouched for
Start with your city.
Free, and it works on any iPhone running iOS 26 or later. Nothing here is legal or immigration advice — it is what people did, with their names on it.