Recruitment fee structure Nepal, employer side

The Nepal recruitment fee is one of the most regulated fee structures in the cross-border labour market, and one of the most misread by first-time European buyers. The Foreign Employment Act 2064 places the worker-paid-fee floor at zero for in-scope destinations under the Free Visa Free Ticket policy. The Werklist commercial model places the recruitment fee on the employer side under IRIS-aligned international ethical-recruitment standards. The result is a fee structure with a clean audit trail, four invoice gates, and a replacement guarantee that runs against the original fee rather than against a second sourcing charge. This article walks the fee structure end to end for the procurement lead and the HR director scoping a Nepali corridor.

The principle, Employer Pays, statute-aligned

Under Section 25 of the Foreign Employment Act 2064 and the executive directive that reactivated the Free Visa Free Ticket policy in May 2024, Nepali workers deployed under the policy pay nothing toward documentation, attestation, visa, ticket, medical fit-test, or pre-departure orientation. The employer bears the visa cost and the one-way air ticket as statute requirements. Croatia is in scope. The recruitment fee structure that Werklist invoices is the commercial layer on top of these statute pass-throughs: the recruitment fee itself sits on the employer side, where IRIS, ILO General Principles, and the Foreign Employment Promotion Board (FEPB) require it to sit.

This is not a marketing position. It is the legal and operational baseline that DOFE attests against during Job Order verification. A corridor that extracts fees from workers is a corridor that fails DOFE attestation, generates Tribunal proceedings under the Act, and triggers blacklist of the recruiting agency. The reason Werklist publishes the fee structure rather than negotiating it as a confidential commercial item is the same reason: the audit trail has to be visible to the worker, the employer, the regulator, and the buyer's CSR team.

For the regulator overview, see DOFE permit, complete employer guide. For the full corridor cost picture, see Cost of hiring Nepali workers in the EU.

The four-stage milestone ladder, what each gate triggers

The Werklist recruitment fee invoices in four gates against the corridor mobilisation. Each gate is tied to an externally verifiable artefact; each gate has a single trigger.

Gate 1, Roster shortlist delivered. Triggered when the employer signs off on the candidate shortlist after the video interview round. The first invoice covers in-country sourcing, candidate screening across the named regions of Nepal, layered vetting (police clearance, DAO certificate, employment-history verification, two named referees), trade-test administration where applicable, and the recorded interview package shared with the employer.

Gate 2, DOFE Job Order verified + signed demand letter. Triggered when DOFE Maharajgunj returns the attested Job Order. The second invoice covers the document preparation, Chamber of Commerce attestation, Nepal Embassy verification (New Delhi route for Croatia), DOFE submission, file tracking through the verification window, and any re-submission handling.

Gate 3, MUP jedinstvena dozvola issued. Triggered when the Croatian single permit (residence and work) is in hand. The third invoice covers the destination-side HZZ coordination, MUP filing support, destination-partner liaison, and visa-stamping coordination through the Croatian Embassy New Delhi.

Gate 4, Worker landed and inducted on site. Triggered after the 30-day on-site survey confirms the placement is held. The fourth and final invoice covers airport reception, residence registration within the statutory 8-day window, site induction, and the first 30 days of pastoral care including the on-site survey.

No upfront retainer sits outside this ladder beyond the corridor brief. The brief is delivered against a fixed scoping window and a fixed scoping deliverable: corridor-fit assessment, mobilisation window, and per-head cost band quoted against the actual file.

What the fee covers, and what sits outside

The Werklist fee covers the agency's work end to end across the mobilisation: sourcing, vetting, trade-test administration, demand-letter preparation, all attestation handling, all DOFE submission and tracking, all destination-side coordination, pre-departure orientation, airport-to-onboarding reception, the first 30 days of pastoral care. The fee also covers the replacement deployment under the 90-day replacement guarantee, with no second sourcing fee.

What sits outside the recruitment fee invoices and on the employer's own cost line:

• Statute pass-throughs. DOFE Job Order verification fee, DOFE individual labour permit issuance fee, Foreign Employment Welfare Fund contribution, foreign employment insurance two-year premium (~USD 90), mandatory medical fit-test, Nepal Police clearance, biometric enrollment, PDOS contribution. These invoice at actual cost with DOFE receipts attached.
• Destination-side regulator fees. HZZ labour-market test filing, MUP jedinstvena dozvola application and issuance, Croatian Embassy New Delhi visa-D stamping, MUP residence registration. Pass-through at actual cost.
• Travel. One-way air ticket Kathmandu → Zagreb or Kathmandu → Split. Pass-through at actual cost.
• Accommodation. Compliant housing under NN 133/20 § 79, the employer's facility-management line, not the recruitment line.
• Salary and statutory contributions. The Croatian gross-to-net stack, pension, health contribution, personal income tax, city surtax. The employer's payroll function runs this.
• Day-31 onwards pastoral care. Werklist's first-30-day pastoral care is covered in the fee; beyond Day 30, the employer's standard HR function runs the file unless a separate ongoing-support arrangement is agreed.

Volume, how the fee band moves above 20 workers

The per-head fee band sits at one level for corridor briefs in the 5-20 worker range and at a different level above 20 workers in a single mobilisation. The variable that drives the volume movement is the cost-amortisation of the corridor administration: the DOFE submission, attestation, and destination-side coordination scale sub-linearly with headcount. A 30-worker brief does not cost three times as much as a 10-worker brief on the recruitment-side admin; the per-head fee reflects that.

Volume above 50 workers in a single mobilisation typically runs against a corridor-specific brief with a dedicated corridor lead and a project-mobilisation timeline. The fee structure remains four-gate, but the gate triggers are scaled to the headcount and the mobilisation runs in phased cohorts. See Nepali construction crew mobilisation for the structure on 50+ crew briefs.

What the fee does not bend on, and why

Three structural fee positions do not flex on the Nepal corridor. The replacement guarantee is included. A worker who absconds, fails destination-side trade verification, or is medically repatriated in the first 90 days is replaced under the original Job Order with no second sourcing fee. The structural reason: a replacement-as-extra-fee model creates an incentive to push marginal candidates through Gate 1. The included-replacement model aligns Werklist's interest with the buyer's 12-month retention.

The worker pays zero. Statute requires it on the Nepal side; IRIS alignment requires it on the international ethical-recruitment side. The recruitment fee receipt issued to the employer is the audit-trail artefact that excludes the corridor from any debt-bondage finding. CSR-team buyers should ask for it.

The fee invoices at the gate the deliverable lands. If DOFE refuses to attest, Gate 2 does not trigger. If MUP refuses the dozvola, Gate 3 does not trigger. If the worker does not land, Gate 4 does not trigger. The four-gate ladder is the structural answer to "what if you cannot deliver", the employer pays for the part Werklist delivered, not for the part Werklist did not.

The dispute channel, what happens when something goes wrong

Three dispute channels run against the recruitment fee structure. Commercial dispute, invoice timing, scope-of-work coverage, replacement-guarantee triggering. Handled directly between the employer's procurement and Werklist's corridor lead, with the Kathmandu branch director as escalation. DOFE dispute, contract substitution, fee extraction, worker-protection breach. Filed through the Foreign Employment Tribunal under the Foreign Employment Act 2064; Werklist's licence is on the line. Worker dispute, accommodation breach, contract-term breach, wage delay. Filed through the worker's first channel (Werklist's destination-side pastoral care) and escalated to DOFE-channel arbitration where unresolved.

The three-touchpoint post-deployment survey, pre-departure in Kathmandu, on-site at 30 days, and at contract-end, is the data trail that surfaces disputes before they escalate. The survey report is available to the buyer's CSR team on request.

How Werklist runs the fee structure

Werklist's Kathmandu branch holds the DOFE recruitment licence under the Nepal Foreign Employment Act 2064 and invoices the four-gate ladder for every Nepal corridor brief. The fee structure is published on the corridor brief, not negotiated as a confidential commercial item. Send the brief, headcount, trade, destination, target start date, to /contact-companies. One business day to the corridor fit and the fee band.