Where to file a foreign employment fraud complaint in Nepal and claim compensation
The Department of Foreign Employment registered 3,405 fraud complaints in FY 2082/83, settled 1,230 of them, and paid NPR 24 crore 67 lakh in compensation.
A worker defrauded in foreign employment has three doors: the Department of Foreign Employment, any local police office, and the Foreign Employment Tribunal once a case is filed. The department recovers the money and awards compensation, the tribunal decides the case. Filing late is the most common reason nothing is recovered.
Which office does what
The Department of Foreign Employment (dofe.gov.np) is the first door. A complaint is registered there against a licensed recruitment company, its agents, or an individual who took money and delivered no job, delivered different work or a different salary than promised, or never sent the worker at all. Since 2020, under a departmental notice, the worker no longer has to travel to Kathmandu: the complaint can be lodged at any local police office and is passed on to the department. The cost and the travel time from a village to the capital used to kill complaints before they were ever registered, and that is the obstacle this change removes.
The Foreign Employment Tribunal (fet.gov.np) is a separate court that hears only these cases. The contact details are published on the tribunal's own site: email fet@supremecourt.gov.np, registrar 01-5350173, case desk 01-5352734 and 01-5348292, offices in Kathmandu. The tribunal publishes its decisions, its daily and weekly cause lists, and its petition templates. Use the tribunal's template rather than a draft written by an agent: if the claimed amount and the schedule of documents do not follow the template, a hearing date is lost to a correction.
The third route is mediation. The Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security issued the Procedure on Mediation and Recommendation in Foreign Employment Fraud Complaints, 2080. It lets both sides sit down before or alongside prosecution and agree on repayment and compensation. Where agreement is reached, payment comes faster; where it is not, the file moves to prosecution and the complaint stays alive.
What the numbers show and how long it takes
Department of Foreign Employment figures for fiscal year 2082/83 record 3,405 fraud complaints registered, 1,230 of them settled, and NPR 24 crore 67 lakh 32 thousand 660 paid out to workers as compensation. The settlement rate is roughly one in three. That number is the honest framing: registering a complaint does not guarantee recovery, and not registering one guarantees nothing is recovered.
Enforcement is not confined to paper. Public reporting on the department records a single day in July 2026 on which it registered 19 new cases and issued arrest warrants against 56 people. The practical reading is that a complaint filed while the agent is still in the country carries a far better chance of arrest and repayment than one filed a year later.
| Stage | Where | What is filed | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registration | Department of Foreign Employment or any local police office | Application, receipts, contract, passport copy | Same day |
| Investigation and statements | Department of Foreign Employment | Both parties are summoned | Weeks |
| Mediation | Under the ministry procedure of 2080 | Agreed repayment and compensation | Short where agreed |
| Case | Foreign Employment Tribunal | Hearing on the cause list, then judgment | Months |
Building the file that survives
A complaint is only as strong as its paper. Take a receipt for every payment, and where no receipt is given, send the money by bank or digital wallet: the first question at the department's hearing is proof of payment. Keep the contract, the demand letter, copies of the visa or ticket, and the message history with the agent. Record the company name, licence number and office address; a complaint naming only an individual agent is much harder to pursue.
For employers on the destination side the same record keeping matters in reverse. A clean licence and receipt chain from Nepal protects the worker and it also protects the employer's own file if a placement is later questioned. The labour permit step that anchors the whole chain is set out in the Department of Foreign Employment permit guide, and the licence check that precedes it is in verifying a licensed Nepali recruiter.
Because the tribunal's cause lists and judgments are public, a worker can follow the progress of a case without going through an agent to ask. Limitation periods differ by the nature of the claim, so register the complaint from the day the fraud becomes clear and keep the registration number: without it, tracing the file later is slow, and at the tribunal that number is what ties a petition back to the department's investigation. Our own document checks on the Nepal corridor, stage by stage, are described on the employers page.
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