Visas and sponsorship, explained

First: is the person you're hiring a domestic worker?

This article is about sponsoring domestic workers — the roles LMRA issues household permits for: housekeepers and maids, nannies, cooks, drivers, gardeners, and carers or nurses working in your home.

Many helpers on FindAnyHelper.com are not domestic workers, and none of this applies to them. A plumber, a private tutor, a personal trainer or an AC technician isn't someone you sponsor — you agree a job and a price, and that's the whole arrangement. They already have a permit; somebody else holds it.

The line that decides this is whether you are the employer, not whether the person lives in your house. A full-time nanny who goes home every evening is still a domestic worker and still needs a permit in your name — living out changes nothing. What changes it is being employed by somebody else, or being self-employed under a licence of their own.

A visa and a work permit are not the same thing

A visa is permission to be in Bahrain. A work permit is permission to work — issued by the Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA), and tied to one employer. They are different documents, and mixing them up is the most common confusion for first-time employers.

Someone can live in Bahrain legally and still have no right to work. A wife sponsored by her husband has residency, but working for you would need a work permit that an employer holds. When people say "she's on my visa," what they usually mean is: "I am her employer, and I hold her work permit and residency." That arrangement — you holding the permit — is what sponsorship means.

What you're taking on when you sponsor

You become the employer of record. You apply to LMRA for a domestic worker permit in your name, and the helper's residency hangs on that permit. Their work is for your household only — they cannot legally work for anyone else while you hold their permit, and you cannot lend them to friends or family.

LMRA doesn't grant this automatically. Under its rules for domestic employers you'll be asked to show income, and the application weighs whether your household genuinely needs the help — family size and circumstances count. A history of mistreating domestic staff, or relevant criminal convictions, disqualifies you.

One thing that is never yours: their passport. It stays with them.

There is no Bahraini statute that names passport retention and bans it outright, which is why the practice persists — but that does not make it lawful. LMRA states plainly that withholding a worker's passport is illegal, and keeping someone's document against their will has been prosecuted as breach of trust under Article 395 of the Penal Code. A bill to add an explicit fine was put to Parliament in 2026; the Services Committee recommended rejecting it and it went back to committee, so as things stand there is still no specific penalty on the books.

Worth knowing: LMRA's own three-way contract — the one you sign — says nothing at all about who keeps the passport. The silence is the problem. Keep it simple: it is their document, they keep it, and if they want it kept somewhere safe that is their choice to make, not yours.

Hiring from overseas, or someone already in Bahrain

From overseas, you can sponsor directly for some nationalities — you apply to LMRA for the domestic worker work permit, they complete a medical at an approved centre abroad, and they travel once that permit is issued. But some countries set their own rules on top. The Philippines does not allow families abroad to hire Filipino domestic workers directly, and the ban is stricter than most people expect: the Philippine rules list the narrow cases where direct hiring is allowed — diplomats, international organisations, senior officials, some skilled professionals, and workers hired by a relative — and then exclude household service workers from every one of them, the relative exemption included. A Philippine-licensed recruitment agency has to be in the chain, working with a Bahraini employment office accredited with the Philippine authorities. Bahrain routes Ethiopian domestic workers through employment offices too. If the person you want is from one of these countries, an agency isn't optional — these rules bind hiring from abroad, not someone already in Bahrain moving to you.

On salary: the standard contract used for Filipino household workers in Bahrain sets a basic monthly salary of BD 150, stated as USD 400. The Philippine authorities raised their declared minimum to USD 500 in 2025, then exempted the GCC after objections from Gulf states, and their own Secretary said it would not be enforced. Some Bahraini agencies apply USD 500 voluntarily and are publicly recognised for it. So BD 150 is what the contract will say, and more than that is a choice — one worth making if you want to keep someone. Confirm the current position with the Migrant Workers Office at the Philippine Embassy in Manama before you sign anything, because this has moved twice in two years.

Which nationalities you can actually sponsor directly

Bahrain's side is the easy part — LMRA lets a household apply for a domestic worker permit online, in person, or through an employment office, so an agency is optional here. The constraint comes from the worker's own country, and it varies enormously.

Checked September 2026. These rules move; confirm with the relevant embassy before you commit to anyone.

The short version: India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan are the three where sponsoring directly from abroad is genuinely available to a household. The Philippines, Ethiopia and Kenya need a licensed agency. Indonesia, Nepal, Uganda and Bangladesh are closed to you whichever route you try.

"Employment office" is simply LMRA's official name for a licensed recruitment agency, and the reason to know the term is practical: LMRA publishes a register of the licensed ones, and checking a name against it takes a minute. A licensed office holds an LMRA licence, has lodged a financial guarantee you could claim against, and uses LMRA's standard three-way contract between you, the worker and the office. Somebody operating without that licence has none of those things, and neither do you. Check before you pay anyone.

If they're already in Bahrain and working for another family, you don't need an agency — but you should know that there is no such thing as a sponsorship transfer for a domestic worker. People say "transfer" and agencies sell it as one, but LMRA's own answer is different: the current employer cancels the existing permit, and you then apply for a new one in your name. Two separate steps, not one.

That matters in practice, because it means the current employer has to act first. LMRA's general transfer service — the one that lets other expatriate workers move employer — specifically excludes domestic workers; the resolution that created it says so in terms. There is no "NOC" form for this, and LMRA publishes no such document.

Cancelling a permit costs the current employer 5 BHD. Your new permit is priced as any new permit is.

There is a right that ought to sit here and, as far as we can establish, has no published route to use it. Article 25(a) of Law 19 of 2006 gives a foreign worker the right to move to another employer without their current employer's agreement, after one year. Domestic workers are not excluded from that Act. But the order setting out how the right is exercised is written for non-domestic workers, and LMRA publishes no procedure for a domestic worker to use it. Both the ILO and the US State Department describe LMRA approval as standing in for employer consent in these cases, and neither points to the legal instrument that does it. If this is what you are trying to do, ask LMRA directly and get the answer in writing.

An agency only has to be involved when they're currently sponsored by one, or when their home country's rules require it. Where an agency is involved, expect a fee, and get it in writing before anything is signed. (For the full cost comparison between the agency and direct routes, see our guide to what hiring actually costs — link Article 1.)

What it costs, and what LMRA asks for

LMRA's published fees for a domestic worker permit: for Bahraini employers and GCC residents, 86 BHD for one year or 118 BHD for two (a little less for employers over sixty). Expatriate resident employers pay the same permit fee, plus a 500 BHD financial guarantee — a refundable deposit lodged with the application and returned when the sponsorship ends. That makes the upfront outlay 586 BHD for one year or 618 for two, but 500 of it comes back. Renewals are cheaper: around 23.5 BHD for six months, 42 BHD for a year, 79 BHD for two. Converting someone from a visit visa costs 250 BHD extra.

Two details worth knowing. First, the government raised work permit fees across the board from 2026, rising each year to 2029 — but domestic worker permits were left out of the increases, so these figures are steadier than most. Second, the permit includes a healthcare fee — it registers the helper for government health services: primary care at public health centres, with a small consultation charge per visit (currently around 7 BHD for the uninsured) and hospital treatment billed separately. It is not health insurance. Day-to-day arrangements — who pays for a clinic visit, medicines — are still worth agreeing clearly before they start.

Expect to provide: the helper's passport (valid six months or more), your income proof, an employer undertaking form, and — for a helper coming from abroad — a medical certificate from a Wafid centre. Wafid is the GCC's network of approved medical examination centres in workers' home countries; the exam happens there before they travel, and if their country has no Wafid centre there's a form for using another provider. Straightforward applications are processed in a few working days.

Sponsorship doesn't end at the paperwork

The permit renews — six months, one year or two at a time — and keeping it valid is your job, not theirs. Pay the salary you agreed, on time, and keep a record that you did: domestic workers currently sit outside Bahrain's formal wage-protection system, which makes your own records the only ones that exist.

If things go wrong

If they stop coming to work, leave, or you part ways, update their status with LMRA rather than letting the permit drift — as the sponsor, an out-of-date permit is your problem before it's anyone else's. If they move to a new family, you cancel your permit and the new household applies for its own — through LMRA, not a handshake. And this is worth knowing even though nobody plans for it: if the registered employer passes away, LMRA has a one-day service for correcting the worker's status so they aren't left in limbo.

Why keeping status straight matters: employing someone without a valid permit carries fines of 1,000 to 2,000 BHD and possible imprisonment under Bahrain's labour market law — though since 2024 there's a settlement route for first offences. The cheapest version of this problem is the one you never have.

Where to check the current rules

Everything in this article changes from time to time, and LMRA is always the answer. The fees, forms and procedures are at lmra.gov.bh; the government services portal handles permit applications and medical bookings; and the register of licensed offices is published on LMRA's site as the List of Manpower Agencies (Supplying Domestic Employees) — lmra.gov.bh/en/page/show/338. If you'd rather ask in person, LMRA's customer service centre is in Sanabis. When this article and LMRA disagree, LMRA is right — and tell us, so we can fix it.