Country guide · Bahrain

Getting a job in Bahrain, 2026

Bahrain's Flexi Permit, the self-sponsorship route that made the country unusual in the Gulf, was cancelled by government order on 5 October 2022, but self-sponsorship itself survived it as the LMRA's Registered Worker Permit, which you can only get from inside Bahrain with a terminated permit. Bahrain is also the Gulf state where your right to change employer without the current one's consent sits in the statute that created the regulator, and where, once you have passed twelve months on your permit, your employer's silence counts as approval. Inside: the twelve month transfer rule and the three month trap at the end of a permit, the monthly levy your employer pays for you, Bahrainisation by activity code, the 4.2 per cent gratuity scheme, family income thresholds, the five year engineering licence floor, and why nobody official will tell you whether to put a photograph on your CV.

Country guidePublished 20 September 2026·Every figure checked 20 September 2026·18 min read

No consent

Employer permission to move to a new employer, not required by Article 25

LMRA Law 19/2006 as amended, 20 Sep 2026

BHD 7.5

Monthly LMRA levy your employer pays for you, BHD 12.5 from the sixth worker

LMRA fees, updated 31 Dec 2025

5 years

Post-qualification practice a non-Bahraini engineer needs before CRPEP licenses them

Law 51/2014 Article 8, via CRPEP

BHD 400

Net monthly income on your SIO record before you may sponsor a spouse or child

LMRA dependants permit, 10 Sep 2026

Section 01

The right to leave, the levy, and what replaced the Flexi Permit

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Bahrain is the Gulf state where your right to leave one employer for another is written into the law that created the labour regulator, not into a policy that can quietly be withdrawn.

Article 25 of the Labour Market Regulatory Authority Law No. 19 of 2006, as amended by Law No. 15 of 2011, states that "a foreign worker shall have, without the consent of Employer, the right to transfer to any other employer". The LMRA prints that sentence on its own page about transfers. LMRA, Transfer of foreign worker to another employer, page updated 14 Oct 2025, checked 20 Sep 2026

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Section 02

Permits, transfers, family and getting paid

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Section 03

Licences, conditions, the CV, and what changed

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