Jordan issues regulation on work permit fees

Executive summary

On 2 September 2019, the Jordanian Council of Ministers issued regulation to address the issue of illegal workers in Jordan which impacts any local or foreign employer that hires non-Jordanians to undertake work activities across all industries. The regulation re-categorizes the types of foreign workers that require work permits and introduces a general increase in application fees.

A new penalty for failure to comply with work permit requirements will also be imposed on noncompliant employers. The regulation is effective for applications submitted on or after 19 September 2019.

Detailed discussion

Work permit issuance and renewal fees

Employers were previously only required to pay nominal fees in order to obtain work permits for their foreign workers. The regulation includes revised government fees for work permit issuance as well as renewal applications for different categories of workers. It also applies to employers that have failed to apply for work permits for their foreign workers; such employers would be required to rectify their noncompliance and pay the application fees for each year a work permit was not issued. 

• The date of the worker’s first entry into Jordan
• The date of a previous work permit’s expiration
• The date a worker turns 18, if the worker was younger than 18 years of age when they first entered Jordan 

Other fees

The new regulation imposes a fee of JOD10 (USD14) for any of the following applications:

• Exit and re-entry permit
• Final exit documents
• Work permit replacement
• No objection document for a refund of social security contributions of foreign workers 

The regulation also imposes a fee of JOD100 (USD141) on an employer or sponsor for cancelling a filed work permit application that is being processed and replacing it with an application for another worker.

Penalty for noncompliance

Failure to renew a work permit within 90 days from expiry will result in a penalty of 50% of the work permit application fee imposed on the employer.

Next steps

The increase in work permit application fees will impact employer costs for sending foreign nationals to Jordan. The Ministry of Labor is expected to issue further instructions to clarify the implementation procedures and methods for the Regulation. Employers should review the status of their foreign workforce and file the necessary work permit applications to comply with the new requirements.