Apartment & Vehicle Leasing - Expat

For renting apartments, you would need to have a residence visa initially.  They can also lock the deal based on a company letter while your visa is in process and then you have to provide them with a copy. Once you have the apartment (i.e. an address), you can apply for the CPR.  Make sure you clear this with the landlord before i.e. he/she needs to provide you with municipality letter or have the address in their system enabling you to apply for CPR.  Sometimes they don't bother after renting it out.

For renting a car, you would need to have a driving licence and passport if you don't have a residence visa.  Otherwise residence visa and driving licence or CPR & driving licence.  All of it works.   Driving licence of other GCC countries is readily accepted.  Once you get your CPR, you can go and convert your licence to a Bahrain one.  Insurance is covered by the provider.

For leasing a car through a bank, you need to have residence visa, CPR, bank account, driving and a letter from the employer (sometimes they have to mandate your salary to that bank for a loan).  Car insurance is usually a yearly payment.

Oh Wow, XTang, that was a killer reply! Thank you so much!