How to verify a recruitment agency licence before applying to Europe

The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) publishes a Licensed Recruitment Agencies search showing an agency's full name, address, licence number and status. Three things must be in place: a valid licence, an approved employer accreditation, and an approved job order. If any of the three is missing, the deployment is illegal recruitment under RA 10022.

The three checks in the DMW register

The DMW search returns a status: Valid, Suspended or Cancelled, Delisted. Read the status, not merely the presence of the name. A suspended agency still appears in the register and still cannot recruit while the suspension stands. Compare the registered address and licence number against what the office or the paperwork shows. A mismatch between the register and the office a worker actually visited is a question to ask before handing over any document.

A licence alone is not enough. The DMW requires the European principal to hold an approved accreditation, and the specific role to sit under an approved job order. The licence authorises the agency to operate. The accreditation approves one named employer. The job order approves one position, one headcount and one salary. A licensed agency offering work with an unaccredited principal is still conducting illegal recruitment.

The practical step: ask for the principal's registered name and the job order number, and check both with the DMW before paying anything or surrendering a passport. An agency that will not give those two details has already answered the question. The employer side of that paperwork is described in the DMW job order process.

What RA 10022 sets as the penalty

Republic Act 10022 of 2010, amending RA 8042, fixes the sentences. Recruitment carried out by a non licensee is punished with imprisonment of 12 years and 1 day to 20 years and a fine of PHP 1,000,000 to PHP 2,000,000. Where the conduct amounts to economic sabotage, meaning large scale with three or more victims, or committed by a syndicate of three or more persons, the penalty is life imprisonment and a fine of PHP 2,000,000 to PHP 5,000,000.

The three victim line is what separates ordinary illegal recruitment from economic sabotage, which is why complaints filed jointly by applicants with the same experience change the shape of the case. Keep the receipts, the chat records, the contract copies and the name of whoever took the money.

Which European corridors are open in 2026

Not every destination is open for every occupation in a given year, and the Migrant Workers Office holds the list. MWO Prague reports that accreditation opened in 2026 for Czechia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, while accreditation for massage therapists remains suspended. An offer for a massage therapist post in Czechia this year therefore cannot become a lawful deployment, however good the contract looks.

So the first question is narrow: does the MWO covering this destination currently accredit this occupation. If the answer is no, the offer is not delayed, it is not lawful. The verification of the contract that follows accreditation is set out in DMW contract verification, and the recruiter side failures that trigger DMW sanctions are collected in recruitment violation prevention.

For European employers, the same register is the fastest way to confirm that a Manila partner holds a valid licence and an accreditation issued in the employer's own name. The employers page sets out how that chain is checked before a job order is signed.