How to Check an Overseas Job Agency in Pakistan
We counted the register. Nearly half the recruiting licences ever issued are cancelled, surrendered, expired or invalid. Five free checks.
Pakistan has issued 5,274 overseas recruiting licences. Only 2,817 of them are active. The rest have been cancelled, surrendered, expired or declared invalid, and an agency showing you a licence number is not showing you a working licence.
The Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment publishes every one of them with its current status, free, and almost nobody checks before handing over money.
We read the licence lists on beoe.gov.pk on 8 September 2026 and counted each status category.
What the register actually shows
| Status | Licences |
|---|---|
| Active | 2,817 |
| Cancelled | 1,247 |
| Surrendered | 836 |
| Expired | 338 |
| Invalid | 4 |
| Total issued | 5,274 |
Those five categories add to 5,242 against a stated total of 5,274, a gap of 32 we cannot explain from the published filters. We are reporting both numbers rather than quietly picking one.
Why the licence number proves nothing
A licence number looks like 4932/RWP or 0779/KAR. Four digits, a slash, and a three letter city code.
Nearly half of the numbers ever issued now sit in a category that is not active. A cancelled agency still knows its old number. A surrendered licence still appears on old letterheads, old stamps and old advertisements.
So the number is the search key, not the answer. What you are checking is the status against it.
Each record carries the licence number, the proprietor's name, the licence title, the status, the expiry date, the head office address with telephone numbers, and any branch offices. Some entries also show how many permissions the agency currently has available.
Even active is not the end of the check
An active licence carries an expiry date, and those dates are published alongside the status. A licence valid today can be weeks from lapsing.
There is a second thing to look at, and it is the part nobody mentions. The Bureau publishes its enforcement actions as dated notices, and they are current.
In the first days of September 2026 alone, the notices included complaints under process against several named promoters, final personal hearing notices, a notice about the surrender of a licence, a personal hearing notice, one licence cancellation, and one licence restoration.
Read that last pair together. A licence can be cancelled and later restored. So a status you checked months ago is not a status you know today, and an agency under an active complaint can still show a valid licence.
The two blacklists people never see
The Bureau maintains two separate blacklists, and neither is about the Pakistani agency.
One is a list of blacklisted foreign employers. The other is a list of blacklisted technical trade centres, meaning the places that issue the trade tests and certificates a worker needs.
That matters because the fraud does not always sit with the agency. A licensed promoter can place you with an employer the Bureau has blacklisted, or send you for a trade test at a centre whose certificates are not recognised.
Check the employer name and the test centre, not only the agency.
The five checks, in order
- Ask for the licence number and search it on the Bureau's list of overseas employment promoters.
- Read the status, and confirm it says valid rather than cancelled, surrendered, expired or invalid.
- Check the expiry date on that same record.
- Look through the Bureau's recent notices for the agency name, because complaints and hearings are published while in process.
- Check the foreign employer against the blacklisted foreign employers list, and the trade test centre against the blacklisted technical trade centres list.
Do all five before any money changes hands, not after. Every one of them is free and takes minutes.
Protection is a legal step, not a formality
A worker going abroad for employment is meant to be registered with the Protectorate of Emigrants. The Bureau runs protectorate offices, publishes a finder for them, and operates an online e-protector registration for direct emigrants.
That registration is what makes you a protected emigrant rather than someone who simply travelled. It is tied to the insurance arrangements, and the Bureau separately publishes a page of pending insurance claims.
The Bureau also states that it launched a QR based cashless fee payment mechanism with National Bank of Pakistan in July 2026, which matters for a simple reason. If a fee is being collected in cash with no receipt, that is not how the published process works.
Our guide to renewing a passport covers the document you will need first, and our guide to the tax on foreign domestic worker visas covers a related cost people are not told about.
Where the money usually comes from
Most families do not have the agency fee sitting in a bank account. They borrow it, and often not from a bank.
That is worth pausing on, because the law changed and few people know. Our guide to private money lending on interest in Punjab covers an Act that makes the practice an offence carrying three to ten years, extinguishes the obligation to pay interest, and requires interest already paid to be treated as payment towards the principal.
A family that borrows privately to pay an unlicensed agency can lose twice. Checking the licence is free. The loan is not.
If something has already gone wrong, the Bureau publishes a complaints route and there is a separate grievance cell for overseas Pakistanis. Our guide to the Pakistan Citizen Portal covers the general federal complaint channel.
Common questions
How do I check if a recruiting agency is licensed in Pakistan?
Search the licence number on the Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment's list of overseas employment promoters and read the status.
How many licensed agencies are there?
The register showed 2,817 active licences out of 5,274 issued when we counted on 8 September 2026.
What does a licence number look like?
Four digits, a slash and a three letter city code, such as 4932/RWP.
Can a cancelled licence come back?
Yes. The Bureau's notices in early September 2026 included both a cancellation and a restoration, so status should be checked fresh.
Does a licensed agency mean the job is safe?
Not by itself. The Bureau separately blacklists foreign employers and technical trade centres, so those need checking too.
What is emigrant protection?
Registration with the Protectorate of Emigrants, which the Bureau administers and which is tied to the insurance arrangements for workers going abroad.
Last checked and sources
Last checked 8 September 2026. We read the Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment site at beoe.gov.pk on that date. The licence totals are as published by the Bureau's own list of overseas employment promoters under each status filter, which reported 2,817 active, 1,247 cancelled, 836 surrendered, 338 expired, 4 invalid and a total of 5,274 licences. Those five categories sum to 5,242, which is 32 short of the stated total, and we could not account for the difference from the published filters, so both figures are given. The record fields, licence number, proprietor name, licence title, status, expiry date, head office with telephone numbers and branch offices, together with the display of available permissions on some entries, are as shown in the list. The existence of separate blacklists of foreign employers and of technical trade centres is as published on the Bureau's blacklists page. The enforcement notices described, complaints under process against named promoters, final personal hearing notices, a notice concerning surrender of a licence, a personal hearing notice, a licence cancellation and a licence restoration, all carried dates in the first days of September 2026 on the Bureau's own notice listing; we have deliberately not reproduced any agency name, because these notices change and only the Bureau's page is current. The Protectorate of Emigrants, the protectorate office finder, online e-protector registration for direct emigrants, the pending insurance claims page, the complaints route and the grievance cell for overseas Pakistanis are all sections published on the same site. The QR based cashless fee payment mechanism launched with National Bank of Pakistan is dated 15 July 2026 in the Bureau's own notice. We did not verify any individual agency, and nothing here is an endorsement or an allegation about any named business. Check the register yourself before paying anything. Nothing here is legal advice.
About the author
Author
Shahid joined us in 2024 as an author. He is a senior contributor to Pakistan's leading technology websites. He writes detailed articles, mostly covering his expertise in the latest tech, mobiles, apps, gadgets, and step-by-step guides. His ideology is to help people understand the latest trends and explain complex methods through very easy-to-understand guides.
