Albanian labour inspection of foreign workers: what the inspector checks

An inspector from the State Labour Inspectorate and Social Services checks four things on a foreign worker: the employment contract, the declared hours and pay, the residence document and the work permit. The institution's own figures for January to June 2026 show that of 2,177 foreign workers inspected, 62 were working without a permit.

Who inspects and what they look at

The State Labour Inspectorate and Social Services, known by its Albanian abbreviation ISHPSHSH, enforces labour legislation at employers in Albania. It publishes both the inspection procedure and the scope of control on inspektoriatipunes.gov.al, so an employer knows in advance what will be asked for.

For a worker holding foreign citizenship the check follows a predictable list. The inspector asks for the signed individual employment contract, the working time register, evidence that wages were paid, and the document granting the foreign national the right to reside and work, meaning the single permit or its equivalent. Where one of these is missing, the inspector records the gap in the report on the spot, during the visit, and does not wait for explanations sent later by email.

The item that costs most time in practice is not the permit but consistency between documents. A contract stating 40 hours a week, a time register showing 52 and a payroll declaring the minimum wage are three documents contradicting each other in front of the same inspector. The parallel housing duties are covered separately in foreign worker accommodation duties.

ISHPSHSH data for the first half of 2026 shows that manufacturing holds the largest number of inspected foreign workers. Garment plants, footwear plants and raw material processing are therefore the sector where the probability of a visit sits above the economy average.

The first half of 2026 in numbers

ISHPSHSH figures for January to June 2026, cited by the Albanian Centre for Quality Journalism in its 2026 reporting, give a measurable picture of what follows an inspection.

Two facts come out of that table. The first is that stopping the work is the immediate measure: where the inspector finds informal work, the work halts on the spot and resumes only once the employer regularises the relationship. Of 55 cases, 53 were formalised in exactly that way, so the stoppage worked as an enforcement tool rather than as a financial penalty.

The second is that a fine is not the usual outcome of a visit. Three fines against 21 warnings means the inspector uses the warning as a first step for irregularities that can be corrected within the deadline. But 1,950,000 lekë spread over three cases averages 650,000 lekë per case, and those fines sit alongside the separate penalties for employing foreign nationals without a permit, set out in fines for illegal employment.

Timeline and cost for the employer

The real cost of a failed inspection has three parts, and only one of them is the fine.

The first part is the work stoppage. It applies on the day of the visit and lasts until the paperwork is corrected. For a production line running fifteen operators, two days of stoppage cost more than the average fine quoted above.

The second part is referral to the General Directorate of Taxation. The two cases that took that route in 2026 do not close with the inspector's report: they open a tax audit into undeclared contributions, with its own deadlines and late payment interest.

The third part is the repair time. A single permit is not issued the same day, so a worker found without one cannot return to the line the next morning. The full application flow, with its documents and deadlines, is described in the single permit employer procedure, and the steps an international employer takes before the worker arrives are set out on the employers page.

The most reliable way through an inspection is the file assembled before it: contract, time register, payroll and permit, all carrying the same figures and the same dates. The inspector does not ask for documents an employer has no duty to keep; he asks that the mandatory ones say the same thing.