Going abroad for work from Nepal: what it really costs, and the scams

Before a young man from a hill district flies to Doha, the family often does the same arithmetic in reverse. They borrow against land, sell a buffalo or two, take a cooperative loan at a punishing rate, and hand an agent somewhere between Rs 3 and Rs 5 lakh to "arrange everything." The job pays maybe Rs 45,000 a month. The first year of that salary, sometimes the second, goes straight to clearing what it cost to leave.

Here is the part nobody tells them on the way out. Legally, that Gulf job should have cost about Rs 18,000 out of pocket. Almost the entire bill they paid was overcharging, and overcharging is not a grey area. It is the single most common fraud in Nepali labour migration.

What it should cost: the legal bill

For the seven destinations under the free-visa, free-ticket policy, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and Malaysia, the employer bears the visa and the air ticket. The worker pays a small, capped stack:

That totals around Rs 18,000. The Rs 10,000 service-charge cap is still current and was under fresh enforcement in April 2026, with DoFE questioning returnees at the airport about what they were charged. A few of these figures move year to year, the medical fee was briefly raised in late 2025 then reverted to Rs 6,500, so confirm the current numbers at DoFE before you pay.

What it actually costs

Now the real bill. DoFE's own director general has stated workers pay Rs 130,000 to Rs 700,000 for Gulf and Malaysia jobs. An Amnesty International survey of returnees found an average of about Rs 137,000 paid, with nearly two-thirds paying illegal amounts. Before the 2015 cap, the legal ceilings were already Rs 70,000 for the Gulf and Rs 80,000 for Malaysia; the cap cut the legal burden by roughly 80%, but the actual amounts barely followed it down.

Malaysia is supposed to be the cleanest case. A 2018 Nepal-Malaysia agreement made it zero-cost, with the employer paying recruitment, airfare, the levy, and insurance. In practice the promise is widely broken: as of April 2025, Nepalis were reportedly paying up to RM 10,000, roughly Rs 3 to 5.5 lakh, for security-guard jobs, and the agreement itself has lapsed pending renewal.

The payback math

Whether the cost is survivable depends on the wage. These are the Nepal-mandated or statutory monthly minimums, converted at mid-2026 NRB reference rates (about Rs 151 to the dollar; the Gulf currencies are dollar-pegged and stable):

Run the two scenarios. At the legal cost of Rs 18,000, you recover the cost of leaving in under a month. At the real cost of Rs 130,000 to 700,000, payback stretches to roughly 3 to 17 months of wages before you save a single rupee, and that is the money the family was counting on. This is the same migration that sends home about Rs 1.72 trillion a year, close to 29% of GDP per NRB, so the stakes for the household are not abstract. The salary itself, by the way, is not taxed in Nepal, as the foreign income and remittance tax post explains, and the cheapest legal way to send it back is in the remittance channels post — with the cheapest way for the family to receive it covering where the hidden exchange-rate margin eats the most.

Where the money really disappears: the scams

Overcharging is the big one, but it travels with a family of related frauds. DoFE has halted 584 manpower companies for false promises, and the patterns repeat:

• Overcharging above the cap. The Rs 10,000 limit exists; agents routinely ignore it. More than 75% of all complaints are this.
• The visit or "Aazad" visa sold as a work visa. Nepali workers in Qatar paid up to Rs 200,000 and arrived to no job and no legal right to work. A visit visa is not a work permit.
• Fake or non-existent jobs. Three people were arrested over a Rs 4.8 million fake-job scam, taking money for Brunei and European jobs that did not exist, then going silent.
• Social-media lures. DoFE and the EPS Korea branch have warned of fake Facebook, TikTok, and WhatsApp pages impersonating official channels to harvest fees.
• Document forgery, sometimes with insider help. The CIAA has filed graft cases over bribes of Rs 50,000 a head to push work permits through on forged papers.

The losses are not small. In one ten-month stretch of FY 2022/23, DoFE logged 925 complaints over about Rs 760 million, with only 135 settled. In the year to mid-2025, a fresh surge produced 500-plus complaints and over Rs 1 billion in losses, and DoFE published a list of 352 accused. If this reads like the recruitment math behind an MLM scheme, that is because the psychology is the same: a large upfront payment against a promise that pays off for the person collecting, not the person paying.

Your defences, straight from the law

The Foreign Employment Act 2064 hands a worker more leverage than most realise. Use it before you pay, not after.

1. Verify the licence. Check the agency on DoFE's public list at foreignjob.dofe.gov.np. A licence is mandatory under Section 10. No licence, no deal.
2. Verify the demand letter (माग पत्र). Under Section 15 the agency must get DoFE approval before recruiting or advertising for a foreign job. A genuine vacancy is tied to a DoFE-attested demand letter; ask to see it.
3. Never surrender your passport before selection. No provision lets an agency hold your passport as collateral. DoFE has told agencies plainly not to hoard original passports.
4. Pay only against a receipt, through a bank. The Act requires payment into the agency's account with a receipt issued. Cash with no paper is how overcharging hides.
5. Keep the clock in mind. You can file a complaint within one year of returning (Section 60). Refunds are drawn from the agency's mandatory Rs 30 lakh security deposit, and an overcharge brings your money back plus a Rs 100,000 fine on the agency. Serious offences go to the Foreign Employment Tribunal, with appeal to the Supreme Court.

The complaint hotlines are Hello Sarkar 1111 and the Foreign Employment Call Centre 1141.

If the worst happens

A migrant worker carries two payouts if they die abroad. The mandatory term-life insurance pays the family Rs 10 lakh for death or permanent disability, and the Welfare Fund pays a separate Rs 10 lakh compensation, raised from Rs 7 lakh in 2023, plus funeral support and body repatriation. The family can claim both. Knowing this matters, because grieving families are routinely told only one exists, or none.

What you actually need to know

• The legal cost is about Rs 18,000; anything near a lakh is overcharging. Know the capped stack before you walk into an agency, and you immediately know whether you are being robbed.
• Verify two things and most scams collapse. A valid DoFE licence and a DoFE-approved demand letter. No licence or no demand letter is the end of the conversation.
• Document everything and report within a year. Receipts, the licence number, the demand letter. The Rs 30 lakh security deposit and the Tribunal only help the worker who can prove what they paid.

Helping a family member weigh a foreign-job offer, or trying to recover money from an agent who overcharged? Email parjanya57@gmail.com.

This post is part of the Nepal Money Basics guide — the big-ticket decisions section.