Employment Visa & Work Permit Support with PROXPAT

What Employment Visa Support Covers

Official UAE guidance explains that private-sector employment involves a formal job offer, employment contract, work permit, and work visa/residence process. PROXPAT helps keep each stage aligned with the company and employee documents.

Sponsoring a spouse, children or parents is a separate process with its own salary, accommodation and attestation requirements — see our family visa services for the full breakdown.

Our Employment Visa Services

Employment Visa Process

1. 01

   Confirm Company Eligibility

   Review trade license, labour or free zone file, quota, role, salary, and employee profile.

2. 02

   Prepare Job Offer & Documents

   Collect passport, photo, education or professional documents where needed, and signed offer information.

3. 03

   Apply for Work Permit

   Coordinate MOHRE or free zone work permit steps based on company jurisdiction and employee location.

4. 04

   Issue Entry Permit

   Proceed with entry permit or status change where applicable after approval.

5. 05

   Complete Medical & Emirates ID

   Arrange medical fitness, biometrics, and Emirates ID application support.

6. 06

   Complete Residency & Records

   Track residence issuance, labour file updates, renewals, and post-approval compliance steps.

Documents Commonly Required

Requirements depend on company jurisdiction, profession, employee status, nationality, and authority rules.

Important Employment Visa Notes

• Work permit first: Employees must have the required work authorisation before legally starting work in the UAE.
• Employer role: For standard employment visas, the employer usually applies for the work permit and related visa process.
• Medical fitness: Residence visa applicants aged 18 and above must complete medical fitness testing.
• Contracts matter: UAE official guidance states that the worker must sign the job offer before initial work permit approval is applied for.
• Special professions: Regulated or specialised professions may require additional certificates, licences, or authority approvals.

Why Choose PROXPAT?

Employment Visa Coordination Risks

Employment visa processing depends on accurate coordination between the employer, employee, immigration file, work permit route, medical fitness, biometrics, Emirates ID, and final status updates. Delays often happen when passport details, job title, contract information, previous visa status, or supporting documents do not match across the file.

PROXPAT supports employers and employees with document review, authority coordination, and follow-up across medical and biometrics services, Emirates ID services, residency services, and wider immigration services. Final processing times and approvals remain subject to the relevant authorities.

What an Employment Visa Costs

Two figures decide the total: whether the employee is already in the UAE, and which MOHRE category your company sits in. Nothing else moves the number as much.

These figures are indicative and rounded. Government fees are set by MOHRE and the immigration authority and are revised from time to time without notice. The actual total depends on your company category, the emirate, the visa duration and the job classification. We confirm current figures against the authority before submitting, and you pay the authority's charge at cost. PROXPAT's service fee is separate — see our PRO service packages.

Why Your Company Category Changes the Price

MOHRE classifies mainland companies into categories based on its own criteria, including Emiratisation performance, workforce diversity and compliance history. The category sets the labour fees payable per work permit, and the gap is large enough to change a hiring budget.

MOHRE publishes the work permit fee for each category, and the spread is far wider than most employers realise:

A work permit application fee of AED 50 applies to all three. The gap between Category 1 and Category 3 is AED 3,200 per employee. Across ten hires that is AED 32,000 — on exactly the same permit, for exactly the same job. These are the federal fees; what you actually pay also depends on how the application is submitted.

Category is not fixed. It reflects how a company scores against MOHRE's criteria, including Emiratisation, workforce diversity and compliance history, which means it is something a company can work on rather than simply accept. If your labour fees look higher than expected, establishing where you sit is the first thing worth doing before a hiring round.

If your labour fees look higher than expected, this is almost always the reason. It is worth establishing where your company sits before planning a hiring round, because the category is something a company can work on rather than simply accept.

How Long Each Stage Takes

These assume a complete file, valid quota and an active establishment card, with no external approval needed for the job title. Processing times are set by the authority and vary with workload. They are a realistic guide, not a commitment.

Documents to Collect Before You Start

From the employee

Passport copy valid for the period the authority requires, photograph against a white background to the specified dimensions, current UAE visa page or entry stamp where they are already in the country, signed job offer, attested educational certificate where the role is classified as skilled, and a working mobile number and email address.

From the company

Trade licence, establishment card, and confirmation that quota is available for the job title. Where quota has run out or the title is not covered, a quota modification is needed first — and that is a separate approval with its own timeline.

What holds applications up

An educational certificate that has not been attested, a passport expiring inside the validity window the authority requires, a name spelled differently across the passport and the certificate, a lapsed establishment card, and quota that has been exhausted without anyone noticing. Each of these is avoidable and each costs a full cycle.

Renewal and Cancellation

Renewal

Employment visas run for a fixed term and are renewed before expiry. Renewal typically covers renewal typing, labour insurance and fees, a Tawjeeh session where it applies, medical, Emirates ID and stamping — running to roughly AED 5,200 to 5,700 in government fees, again with Category 3 at the upper end. Letting a visa lapse attracts fines that accrue daily and can block other transactions in the meantime.

Labour card renewal

Where only the labour card needs renewing rather than the full visa, government fees run to roughly AED 700 — typing, submission, insurance and labour fees.

Cancellation

Cancellation runs in reverse: labour first with MOHRE, then immigration. Government fees come to roughly AED 400 in total. Both sides must be closed — leaving one open is the most common reason an employee is later blocked from a new visa, or an employer from a new work permit. See our visa cancellation services.

The Work Permit Types MOHRE Issues

There is no single "work permit". MOHRE issues a range of them, and the right one depends on what the person will actually do. Applying under the wrong type is a rejection, not a correction.

Contract types available

Under the current labour law a work permit can sit against full-time, part-time, temporary, flexible, remote or job-sharing employment. Companies frequently default to full-time out of habit when a flexible or part-time contract would fit the role better and cost less to administer.

Skill Levels and Which Certificate You Need

MOHRE classifies every profession into a skill level, and the level decides whether an academic certificate is required at all. This is the detail that most often surprises employers, because the requirement is not the same for every hire.

The certificate must clearly bear the employee's name. Note also how MOHRE defines skilled work: an employee earning less than AED 4,000 per month, or holding no degree, is not treated as skilled — which affects the permit category and, in turn, what documents the file needs.

Regulated professions need a licence too

Some professions require a professional licence from the competent authority before MOHRE will issue the permit. Doctors and nurses need theirs from the health authority; teachers and teaching assistants from the education authority in the relevant emirate; fitness trainers from the sports authority; advocates from the Ministry of Justice. Where this applies, the licence has to be in hand first — it is not something that can run in parallel.

An extra document for some nationalities

Employees who are nationals of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq or Iran must additionally provide a legible copy of both sides of their valid national identity card issued by their home country. This one is easy to miss and holds up otherwise complete files.

Conditions MOHRE Applies

These are the checks the application is measured against. Each one is a reason a permit is refused rather than merely delayed.

Quota. The establishment must have electronic quota available before a permit can be issued. Running out mid-hiring is common and needs a separate quota approval to fix.

Age. The employee must be 18 or older.

No active permit elsewhere. A candidate cannot hold a live work permit with another employer. Where they do, the previous one has to be cancelled first.

A clean licence. The establishment must hold a valid licence with no registered violations that suspend its operations.

Authorised signatory. The application has to be submitted by the establishment's authorised signatory, not by whoever happens to be handling it.

Matching occupation. For transfers in particular, the employee's occupation must be compatible with the establishment's licensed activities.

Two deadlines worth writing down

Ninety days to transfer. Where an employee is moving between employers, the new work permit application must be submitted within 90 days of the previous permit being cancelled. Miss it and the straightforward transfer route closes.

Six months to replace. If a recruitment falls through, the work permit can be replaced and the nationality changed — provided the profession and gender stay the same — within six months of issuance, up to twice, and on condition that the immigration authority cancels the entry permit for the worker being replaced. Employers who do not know this often write off the fee and start again.

Why the Same Permit Costs Two Different Amounts

Two companies can apply for an identical work permit, in the same category, on the same day, and pay different totals. It is not an error and nobody is overcharging — it comes down to where the application is submitted, and it is worth understanding before you compare quotes.

Through the Tasheel portal

Submitted online through MOHRE's own website or smart app, you pay the federal fees and nothing more. MOHRE states this plainly: apart from the federal fees, the service is free of charge through its digital channels. This is the cheaper route.

Over the counter at a Tasheel centre

Submitted in person at an approved service centre, the same federal fees apply, plus a business centre commission — capped by MOHRE at AED 72 per service within the permit package, which covers printing the job offer, the employment contract and the permit application. Typing charges, tax and collection charges sit on top. Published federal fees exclude tax and collection charges, which is exactly where the difference between a quoted figure and a final invoice usually comes from.

What that means in practice

The gap per transaction is modest — typically tens of dirhams rather than hundreds. Across a hiring round of ten or twenty people it adds up, but it is rarely the deciding factor on its own. The counter route still makes sense where a transaction needs a human to look at it, where documents have to be produced physically, or where an application has already generated a shortfall notice that is easier to resolve face to face.

How we handle it

We use whichever channel actually suits the transaction, and government fees are passed to you at what the authority charges — we add nothing to them. If a counter submission is going to cost more than the portal for your case, we will tell you why before doing it rather than after you see the invoice.

Commission caps, federal fees and channel availability are set by MOHRE and revised from time to time. Figures exclude tax and collection charges.

Where the Application Actually Goes

MOHRE accepts work permit applications through its own website and smart app, at approved service centres, and through Tawseel. Beyond the federal fees, applying through MOHRE's website or app is free of charge, and business centre commission is capped at AED 72 per service within the permit package. MOHRE's call centre is on 600590000, available 24/7.

We tell clients this openly because it is the honest position: you are not paying us for access to something restricted. You are paying because the file has to be right the first time, because quota, skill levels, professional licences and attestation all interact, and because chasing a shortfall notice across departments is a job. If your situation is simple and you have the time, doing it yourself through the app is a perfectly reasonable choice.

Fees, conditions, permit types and processing times on this page follow MOHRE's published service details and exclude tax and collection charges. They are set by the Ministry and revised from time to time — we confirm the current position before submitting.