Metrash2 Stopped Working? The New Metrash App 2026: Registration, Activation Fixes, and the Digital QID Wallet

If Metrash2 stopped working on your phone, nothing is wrong with your phone. The Ministry of Interior discontinued Metrash2 entirely on 1 March 2025. It does not work at all any more, for anyone, and no amount of reinstalling, clearing cache or changing phones will bring it back.

The replacement is the official MOI app called simply Metrash, launched in December 2024 and now carrying more than 440 government services, roughly 100 more than the old app offered. To register you need two things: your QID number and a mobile SIM registered in your own name against that QID. That second requirement is the number one reason activation fails, and we cover the fix in detail below.

Feature	Metrash2 (old, discontinued)	Metrash (new, current)
Status	Switched off 1 March 2025; does not open or log in	Live and actively updated
Number of services	Around 340	440+, about 100 more
Digital QID wallet	No	Yes, a digital Qatar ID usable in place of the physical card
Login	Password and SMS	Password, SMS activation, plus biometric login (fingerprint or face)
Payments	Card payments	Card payments plus Apple Pay
Languages	Arabic and English	Six: Arabic, English, French, Spanish, Malayalam, Urdu
Minimum OS	Older devices supported	iOS 13 or later, Android 10 or later

One warning before anything else: because millions of residents still search for "Metrash2", spam and clone apps have moved into that gap. Download the new Metrash only from the official App Store or Google Play listings published by the Ministry of Interior, never from an APK link sent on social media or messaging groups. Our Metrash2 portal page documents the old app's shutdown, and the browser alternative remains portal.moi.gov.qa via the MOI Qatar portal.

Last verified: July 2026 against MOI Qatar public information.

The switchover was not sudden, but it was final. Understanding the dates explains why so many people were caught out.

Date	What happened
December 2024	The MOI launched the new Metrash app on the App Store and Google Play. For a few weeks it ran alongside Metrash2.
16 February 2025	The MOI published the formal discontinuation notice: Metrash2 would be withdrawn and all users should migrate to the new app.
1 March 2025	Metrash2 was switched off. Logins stopped working and the app was withdrawn. Every transaction since runs through the new Metrash app or the MOI web portal.

The two-week gap between the notice and the shutdown is why the confusion persists into 2026. Anyone who missed the February announcement came back to find Metrash2 dead with no in-app explanation. Search traffic for "metrash2 not working" remains enormous more than a year later, and that traffic is exactly what clone apps and phishing pages are farming. If you arrived here from one of those searches: stop troubleshooting the old app. It is gone. The rest of this guide gets you onto the real replacement.

Metrash is the official mobile application of Qatar's Ministry of Interior, the same ministry behind the MOI Qatar portal. It is not a third-party app, not a private service, and not a rebrand by another company. It is the MOI's own channel, and for residents it has effectively become the front door to the ministry.

The headline numbers: more than 440 services, roughly 100 more than Metrash2 carried at the end of its life. The technical baseline is modern: the app requires iOS 13 or later on iPhone and Android 10 or later, supports Apple Pay for government fee payments alongside cards, and offers biometric login so you do not need to type your password every time once the account is activated.

Language support is the quiet improvement that matters most for Qatar's actual population. Metrash2 ran in Arabic and English; the new app runs in six languages: Arabic, English, French, Spanish, Malayalam and Urdu. For hundreds of thousands of residents from Kerala and South Asia, doing an official government transaction in their first language is a genuine change, not a cosmetic one.

The other structural change is the digital QID wallet, which did not exist in Metrash2 at all and gets its own section below. Between the wallet, the expanded service count and biometric login, the new app is a real replacement rather than a reskin, which is also why the MOI required everyone to re-register rather than migrating accounts silently.

The full catalogue runs past 440 entries, but these are the services expats actually use, grouped the way you will meet them.

Residency and identity

• QID renewal, the single most used service. The step-by-step process, fees and timelines are in our QID renewal guide, and note that the grace period after expiry was cut sharply in 2026, as covered in our 14-day grace period explainer.
• Residence permit services for workers and dependents, including applications tied to family sponsorship. The wider process for bringing family over is in the Qatar family residence visa guide.
• The digital QID wallet, showing your digital Qatar ID with its expiry and residency validity.

Visas and travel

• Visa applications and extensions, including family visit visas and their extension, and family resident visa transactions.
• Exit permits for the categories that still require them; see the Qatar exit permit guide for who does and does not.

Traffic and vehicles

• Traffic fines: check and pay violations against your QID or plate.
• Driving licence renewal.
• Vehicle ownership transfer.

Certificates and reports

• Police clearance certificates, needed for many overseas job and immigration applications.
• Lost-document reports for a missing QID, licence or other official document, the first formal step before a replacement.

What Metrash does not do is answer questions about someone else's file or about applications not linked to your QID. For checking a visa status by passport number, for example for a family member awaiting approval, the web route in our MOI Qatar visa check guide is the right tool. And Metrash will show fines but not always explain the blocks behind them; if you suspect a travel ban rather than a simple fine, start with the Qatar travel ban check guide.

The feature that most distinguishes the new app from Metrash2 is the digital QID wallet. Inside the app you can display a digital version of your Qatar ID card, showing the same identity details as the physical card along with your card expiry date and residency validity.

The practical significance is that the digital QID can be used in place of the physical card. Instead of carrying the plastic card everywhere and risking a lost-document report and replacement fee, you can present the ID from the app. For day-to-day identification, the phone version does the job.

Two sensible caveats. First, a digital ID is only as available as your phone battery and the app itself, so the physical card is still worth keeping safe at home rather than discarding mentally. Second, individual businesses and institutions vary in how quickly they accept digital credentials in practice, so for high-stakes appointments such as bank account openings or transactions at a service centre like MOI Mesaimeer, carry the physical card until you have seen the digital one accepted for that purpose.

Beyond identification, the wallet doubles as your early-warning system. It shows expiry and residency validity on its face, so opening it monthly is the simplest way to avoid the lapsed-QID trap, especially with the post-expiry window now dramatically shorter per the 2026 grace period rules.

Registration on Metrash fails far more often at the preparation stage than at the app stage. Two requirements matter.

1. A valid QID

Metrash accounts are anchored to a Qatar ID number. You will enter your QID number and date of birth during sign-up, and the system verifies them against the MOI's records. If you do not have a QID, because you are a visitor, a tourist, or a new arrival whose residence permit is still in process, you cannot register; the section for visitors below covers your alternatives.

2. A SIM registered to your own QID

This is the one that catches people. The mobile number you register with must be a Qatari SIM that is registered in your name against your own QID with the telecom operator. The activation SMS is only useful to the MOI as proof of identity if the number provably belongs to you. A SIM bought by your employer, registered under a colleague's ID, handed down from a friend who left the country, or still registered to the shop that sold it will cause the registration to be rejected, typically with a message along the lines of "mobile number not registered".

If you are not sure whose QID your SIM sits on, resolve that with your operator, Ooredoo or Vodafone, before you even download the app. It takes a visit to a branch with your QID and saves the single most common failure loop in the whole process. The full fix is in the blocker section below.

You will also choose a password during sign-up. Pick one you can actually reproduce; a surprising share of "Metrash not working" complaints are simply failed password entries followed by lockouts.

With a valid QID and a correctly registered SIM in hand, registration is short.

1. Download the app from the official store only. Search for "Metrash" on the Apple App Store (iOS 13 or later) or Google Play (Android 10 or later) and confirm the publisher is the Ministry of Interior. Never install an APK file sent by link, however official it looks; clone apps are actively targeting Metrash searches.
2. Open the app and choose to register as a new user. Everyone starts fresh here; Metrash2 accounts were not carried over.
3. Enter your QID number and date of birth. These must match the MOI's records exactly.
4. Enter your mobile number, the one registered against your QID.
5. Set your password.
6. Wait for the SMS activation code and enter it in the app. The code is valid for 10 minutes; if it expires before you use it, request a fresh one rather than retrying the stale code.
7. Enable biometric login when offered. Fingerprint or face unlock makes every future login instant and removes the password-typo failure mode entirely.

A note on the short code 92992: some legacy MOI activation flows involved sending an SMS to 92992 to trigger or complete activation. Whether that step still applies in the current version of the app is not something we can state with certainty; the mainstream 2026 flow is the in-app one described above, with the code arriving to you rather than you sending one. If the app itself instructs you to message a short code, follow the app; do not act on forwarded instructions from group chats.

Once the code is accepted, your account is live and the full service catalogue, digital QID wallet included, is available immediately.

If your registration fails, the odds heavily favour one cause: the SIM in your phone is not registered to your QID. This is the single most common Metrash activation problem, and it has nothing to do with the app itself.

Why it happens

Qatari SIMs are registered to a specific person's QID at the point of sale. In practice, plenty of the SIMs in circulation are not registered to the person actually using them: company SIMs issued under a PRO's or manager's ID, SIMs bought by a spouse or relative, numbers inherited from departing colleagues, and prepaid SIMs sold informally. The phone works fine for calls and data, so the mismatch stays invisible right up until a government system checks whose number it really is. Metrash checks.

The fix: transfer the SIM to your own name

1. Visit an Ooredoo or Vodafone branch, whichever operates your number, with your physical QID.
2. Request an ownership transfer of the number to your QID. If the current registered owner is reachable, their consent typically smooths the transfer; company numbers need the employer's cooperation.
3. Once the operator confirms the number is registered under your QID, retry the Metrash registration. It normally succeeds immediately once the records line up.

The family member carve-out

There is one important softening. A 2025 update to the app added the ability to enrol family members whose mobile numbers are not registered on their own QID. In practice this targets the classic household setup where every SIM in the family is registered under the sponsor's ID: dependents can now be brought into Metrash through that route rather than each needing a SIM transfer first. If you sponsor your family, look for the family member enrolment option inside your own activated account before sending your spouse to a telecom branch. For the residency side of sponsoring dependents, see the family residence visa guide.

If the transfer route stalls, for example because the registered owner has left Qatar and cannot consent, the telecom operator's escalation process is the path forward; the MOI cannot fix a telecom registration record from its side.

Beyond the SIM issue, a handful of failure modes account for almost everything else.

The OTP expired

The SMS activation code is valid for 10 minutes. If you were interrupted, or the SMS arrived late because of network congestion, the code you finally type may already be dead, and the app will reject it. The fix is simply to request a new code and enter it promptly. Do not keep hammering the old code; repeated failures can lock the attempt.

The SMS never arrives

Check that the number you typed is exactly the number in the phone, that the phone has signal, and that the SIM is active rather than suspended for non-payment. If the number is correct and registered to your QID but codes still do not arrive, the MOI helpline 2342000 is the right escalation.

Details do not match MOI records

The QID number and date of birth must match the ministry's records precisely. A transposed digit or a date entered in the wrong format will bounce. Copy the QID number directly from the physical card.

Unsupported device

The app requires iOS 13 or Android 10 as a minimum. On older devices it may not install at all, or may install from a mirror and misbehave, which is its own red flag. If your phone cannot run the official app, use the web portal instead and treat any "compatible" alternative download as hostile.

When nothing works

The MOI's general helpline on 2342000 handles Metrash account issues, and an in-person visit to a service centre such as MOI Mesaimeer can resolve record mismatches that no amount of retrying will. If the underlying problem is really a residency-status one, a lapsed permit, a pending transfer, that is a paperwork issue rather than an app issue, and our Qatar residency services can take it over.

Metrash is a residents' app. Because registration is anchored to a QID, visitors, tourists and new arrivals whose QID has not yet been issued cannot register, and no in-app workaround changes that.

The correct alternative is the MOI's web-based e-services at portal.moi.gov.qa, reachable through our MOI Qatar portal page. The web portal exposes the services a non-resident actually needs without requiring a Metrash account, including visa status enquiries by passport number, walked through in the MOI visa check guide. Qatar's broader government services portal, Hukoomi, links through to the same e-services and adds ministries beyond the MOI.

For new arrivals the sequence is: your employer processes your residence permit, your QID is issued, you get a SIM registered against that new QID, and then you register on Metrash. Trying to register on day two in the country with a QID application still in flight just produces failed attempts. In the meantime, if your entry visa is ticking down while paperwork moves, keep an eye on the maths with the Qatar overstay fine calculator so a processing delay does not quietly become an overstay fine.

Once your account is live, three five-minute tasks extract most of the app's protective value immediately.

1. Open the digital QID wallet

Confirm your digital Qatar ID displays correctly and that the details match your physical card. From now on this is your always-available ID; familiarise yourself with where it lives in the app before the day you actually need it at a counter.

2. Check your residency validity and expiry dates

The wallet shows your QID expiry and residency validity. Look at the actual dates rather than assuming HR has it handled. If expiry is inside the next three months, start the renewal conversation now; the process is in the QID renewal guide and the shortened post-expiry window in the grace period explainer is exactly why early beats late. While you are at it, glance at any traffic fines sitting on your file; they are cheaper settled early and they surface at the worst moments otherwise.

3. Enrol your family members

If you sponsor dependents, use the family enrolment feature, including the 2025 provision for family members whose SIMs are not registered on their own QID, so that their renewals, visit visa extensions and documents are manageable from your phone. A dependent invisible to Metrash is a dependent whose expiry dates nobody is watching.

One more habit worth forming: check the app before any job move. Sponsorship transfers now run without the old NOC requirement in most cases, as covered in the changing jobs without NOC guide, and Metrash is where the residency side of a transfer becomes visible to you.

This deserves its own section because the risk is real and growing. Metrash2's shutdown created one of the highest-volume orphaned search terms in Qatar. When an official app disappears but demand for its name does not, impersonators fill the vacuum, and a fake government app is about the worst thing you can install: it asks for exactly the credentials, QID number, date of birth, phone number, that make identity fraud possible.

The rules

• Install only from the App Store or Google Play, and check the developer name is the Ministry of Interior before tapping install.
• Never sideload an APK of Metrash from a link, a Telegram channel, a forum, or a "helpful" website, whatever it promises about working on old phones or restoring Metrash2.
• Anything still calling itself Metrash2 is fake by definition. The real Metrash2 was withdrawn on 1 March 2025. Any app, site or download claiming to be a working Metrash2 in 2026 is an impersonation.
• Type portal URLs yourself. For the web route, go to portal.moi.gov.qa directly or via our verified MOI portal page rather than clicking search ads, which clones also buy.
• Never give your Metrash password or an SMS code to anyone. No MOI employee, and no legitimate service agent, needs your activation code read out over the phone.

If you suspect you have already installed a fake, uninstall it, change any password you entered into it, and monitor your file through the genuine app or portal. Reports of impersonation attempts can be raised with the MOI on 2342000.

Most Metrash problems dissolve once the SIM registration is fixed and the official app is installed. But the app is only the window; what it shows is your residency file, and that is where the harder problems live. An expired QID, a stalled family visa, an exit permit question or a fine you do not recognise are paperwork problems wearing an app costume.

Wathim handles Qatar residency work end to end: QID renewals, family sponsorship, transfers and fine settlement, with the running around done for you. If your Metrash account is finally open and what it shows you is a problem, contact us and we will map the fix for your specific situation.

Related reading: the QID renewal guide, the exit permit guide, and the travel ban check guide. Every Qatar service and portal is indexed on the Qatar hub.