Serving Saudi Arabia & the GCC • 
Recruiting from Pakistan • Govt. Licensed OEP-0664-Rawalpindi
Before any money changes hands, one question settles most of the risk: is this a licensed recruitment agency? In Pakistan that is not a matter of reputation or office size. It is a fact you can check yourself, in about two minutes, on a government list.
Here are six checks that separate a licensed recruitment agency from an operator who merely looks like one, in the order that costs least to run, and what the law does if someone sends you abroad without them.
What this guide covers
- 1. Find them on the BEOE list
- 2. Confirm the licence is current, not just issued
- 3. Match the number to the name and the address
- 4. Cross-check at the Protectorate office
- 5. Ask who attends the Protector appearance with you
- 6. Get it in writing before money moves
Check 1 — Find the licensed recruitment agency on the BEOE list
The Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment publishes a searchable list of Overseas Employment Promoters. You can search it by company name or by licence number, and you can filter it to show active licences only.
If a company is not on that list, it is not a licensed recruitment agency. There is no second register, no pending category, and no regional exception. Anyone who tells you their licence is “in process” is telling you they cannot lawfully send you abroad today.
Check 2 — Confirm the licence is current
This is the check almost nobody runs, and it is the one that matters most. Under Rule 9(1) of the Emigration Rules 1979, a promoter’s licence is valid for a calendar year or part thereof and must be renewed at least one month before it expires.
A licence is therefore not a permanent qualification. It is an annual permission that can lapse. A framed certificate on an office wall proves what was true in some earlier year, not what is true today. Use the active filter on the BEOE list rather than trusting the frame.
Check 3 — Match the number to the name and address
Licence numbers carry the city of issue — ours is OEP-0664-Rawalpindi, and you are welcome to look it up. Check three things agree: the licence number, the registered company name, and the office address you are actually standing in. For a licensed recruitment agency all three match without explanation.
A common pattern is a real licence belonging to a real company, quoted by an unconnected office in another city. The number checks out; the premises do not. Matching all three closes that gap.
Check 4 — Cross-check at the Protectorate office
The Protectorate of Emigrants offices can confirm whether a promoter is genuine. This is worth doing when the amounts involved are significant, or when anything about the first three checks felt approximate.
Check 5 — Ask who attends the Protector appearance
Section 15 of the Emigration Ordinance 1979 requires you to appear in person before the Protector of Emigrants, together with the licensed agent, before you may leave for employment abroad. Your contract is examined and registered at that appearance.
So ask a direct question early: who from your office attends with me, and on what date? A licensed recruitment agency answers it immediately because it is routine work. An unlicensed operator cannot answer it at all, because they cannot attend. Our guide to the Protector of Emigrants stamp explains what happens there.
Check 6 — Get it in writing before money moves
Before paying anything, get in writing: the employer’s name, the job title, the wage, what the payment is for, and what happens to it if the visa does not issue. Keep the receipt and keep the messages.
This is not only prudence. It is the evidence any later complaint will rest on, and the deadlines for making one are short.
What the law does if you are sent without a Protector stamp
Section 17 of the Ordinance makes it an offence to cause an emigrant to leave Pakistan without appearing before the Protector, punishable by imprisonment of up to five years for a first offence and up to seven for a repeat offence.
Read that alongside Section 15 and the position is clear: the appearance is not paperwork that a well-connected agent can skip on your behalf. Anyone offering to skip it is offering to commit an offence, using your departure as the means.
If you have already paid someone
There are deadlines, and they are short. Rule 31 of the Emigration Rules 1979 provides that no complaint by an emigrant against an Overseas Employment Promoter shall be entertained after sixty days from the date of joining. Rule 31-B sets a six-month limit for the category it covers.
The practical consequence: raise it in writing immediately rather than waiting to see whether matters improve. Waiting is the single most common way a genuine complaint becomes one nobody can hear.
Frequently asked questions
Does a licensed recruitment agency guarantee a visa?
No, and anyone who guarantees one is telling you something untrue. A licence means the company may lawfully recruit and is accountable if it does so badly. Visa issue depends on the employer, the authorities and your own documents and medical.
Is an office with a signboard and staff enough proof?
No. Premises, staff and printed letterheads cost very little to arrange. The BEOE list costs nothing to check. Check the list.
What if the agent says the licence belongs to a partner company?
Then deal with the partner company directly, at its own registered address, and verify that licence. Recruitment through an unlicensed intermediary is exactly the arrangement the Protector stage is designed to detect, and it is detected at the end of the process, after you have paid.
Four things a licensed recruitment agency cannot do
Knowing the limits is as useful as knowing the credentials, because every one of these is offered by somebody.
It cannot operate on a lapsed licence. Rule 9(1) makes the licence annual. An expired licence is not a technicality to be sorted out later; on the day it expires the company may not lawfully recruit.
It cannot skip the Protector appearance. Section 15 requires you there in person with the agent, and Section 17 makes causing a departure without it a criminal offence. No licence grants an exemption.
It cannot place you outside the employer’s demand. Rule 20(1) obliges the promoter to recruit according to the qualifications laid down in the demand, and under Rule 21(1)(i) the Protector must be satisfied that each person meets them. A licensed recruitment agency that promises to put you in a role you are not qualified for is promising something the registration stage is built to catch.
It cannot guarantee an outcome it does not control. Embassy appointment capacity and medical results belong to nobody in the office. A licensed recruitment agency gives you a range and the assumptions behind it; a guarantee is a sales line, not a commitment anyone can keep.
Working with a licensed promoter
Al Abbasi Enterprises has been licensed as an Overseas Employment Promoter since 1988 under licence OEP-0664-Rawalpindi. You do not have to take that from us — search the number on the BEOE list before you contact anybody, including us.
See the countries we recruit for on our Saudi Arabia page, the full sequence on our process page, or contact our Rawalpindi office. We reply within one working day, in English, Arabic or Urdu.