Recruitment and visa fees: who the law says pays, and when a request for money is fraud

Labour law in Saudi Arabia and the UAE puts recruitment, residence-permit and work-permit fees on the employer. A practical guide to what you may legitimately pay at home, and what nobody may charge you for a job.

The most common way an Egyptian worker heading to the Gulf is robbed is not a bad contract after arrival — it is a sum paid before travelling to someone who promises a job. The law in Saudi Arabia and the UAE says recruitment, visa and residence-permit fees fall on the employer, not on you. Anyone asking you for those fees in the name of "processing" or "a visa" is asking you to pay what is already someone else's bill.

In Saudi Arabia: Article 40

Article 40 of the Labour Law — published on the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development site — is explicit:

The employer bears the recruitment fees of the non-Saudi worker.
The employer bears the fees for the residence permit and the work permit, their renewal, and fines caused by delay the employer is responsible for.
The employer bears the fees for a change of occupation and for exit/re-entry.
The employer bears the worker's return ticket to his country when the relationship between the parties ends.

One paragraph settles the argument that opens in every WhatsApp group: the visa, the iqama, the work permit and the return ticket at the end of the contract are not the worker's to pay.

When do you pay the return ticket?

Paragraph 2 of the same article carves out only two cases: if you are found unfit for work, or if you wish to return without a legitimate reason. Outside those two, the return ticket is the employer's. That is why the accredited medical examination before travel matters: anyone who travels knowing they may fail it risks having to pay their own way home.

A transfer of sponsorship has its own rule in paragraph 3: the fees are borne by the new employer you move to, not by you and not by the old one.

In the UAE: Article 6 — including the indirect route

Paragraph 4 of Article 6 of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 prohibits the employer from charging the worker the fees and costs of recruitment and employment, or collecting them from him, whether directly or indirectly.

"Indirectly" is the word that collapses the tricks. A salary deduction labelled "visa cost", a paper you sign saying "the advance will be recovered from your first three months", or a clause that makes you repay residence-permit fees if you resign within a year — all of these pass on the same cost the law forbids. The ban is not on the name given to the charge. It is on the money leaving your pocket.

What you may actually pay — at home

Gulf law governs what happens there. What happens in Egypt or in your own country before you travel is a different matter, and some of it is legitimate:

Issuing and renewing your passport: that is yours, in your country.
Attesting certificates with your foreign ministry or the embassy, where the occupation requires it: a government fee at home, not a "job fee".
The medical examination at an accredited centre named by the employer or the receiving state: confirm the centre's name from an official source, not from a paper a broker sends.

What is not legitimate: a sum "to confirm the visa", or "to speed the file", or "the office's share", or "insurance against refusal". Neither the Saudi Labour Law nor UAE labour law names these things and puts them on the worker.

A licensed office and an office selling air

In Saudi Arabia, recruitment may only be practised with a licence from the Ministry (Article 30 and what follows from it). In the UAE the same activity is licensed by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (Article 6(3)). An office that cannot give you its licence number and the name of the hiring company in writing is not an office — it is a person promising something they do not hold.

A practical rule before you send a riyal: ask for the establishment's name as it appears on the commercial register, the city, the job title, and the pay. Then look the establishment up in official sources. If they refuse to name the company "until the deposit is transferred", you already have the answer.

How fraud arrives dressed as a contract

Some contracts state the salary correctly and then add a small clause: "the worker bears residence-permit and renewal fees". That clause collides with Article 40 in Saudi Arabia and Article 6 in the UAE. Its presence on a paper you signed does not make it valid — both countries' laws void terms that cut back a right the law grants. Proving that later is longer and more expensive than refusing to sign now.

Some offers call the salary "all-inclusive", then after you arrive the outbound ticket has been deducted from the first month, or the "advance" you paid in Cairo is topped up by deductions from the Riyadh wage. Ask for the offer to state: who pays the outbound ticket, who pays the residence permit, and that the salary reaches your account in full by bank transfer.

What to check before you transfer any money

Do you have a written offer naming the company as it appears on the register, not a loose trading name?
Is the pay written as a figure, split into basic and allowances where those exist?
Were you asked for money before you knew the company's name? If so, stop.
Did the office give you a licence number you can check with the authority?
Were you asked to pay residence-permit, visa, or "job insurance" fees? The law does not put those on you.
Is all contact on WhatsApp with no papers? A serious employer issues a document.

If you have already paid

Keep every receipt, transfer and message. Money you paid at home to an unlicensed person is first a matter for the authorities there — report it, and do not rely on a promise to "refund you after the visa". In the receiving country, a deduction from your wage for residence-permit or recruitment fees is a labour complaint against the employer, separate from the case against the broker.

Finally: this is general information on the texts in force when it was written, not advice on your case. Read Article 40 on the Saudi ministry site, and Article 6 of Decree-Law 33 of 2021 through the UAE ministry's channels, before you treat this page as a reason to pay or to file a complaint.

Rules and fees change and differ by country and employer. Always check with the official authorities before paying or signing anything.