The one word in that sentence that changes the answer
Read it again: ten per cent of the total number of Egyptian labour. On that reading a company with 100 Egyptians may hold 10 work permits, and you are the eleventh head in a workforce of 110. Other published summaries of the same quota say ten per cent of the total workforce, which would give that same company only 9 permits. Sadany and Partners, writing in Arabic on 4 November 2025, puts the base at "10% of the total workforce at the facility".
The difference is one job, and it may be yours. We could not open the Ministry of Labour's own pages at manpower.gov.eg or labour.gov.eg on 20 September 2026, so we will not tell you which reading the counter at the Labour Directorate uses. Ask your employer to show you the headcount calculation the Directorate accepted, in writing, before you resign from anything.
Sources: law firm summary of Decree 279 of 2025 published on Mondaq; Sadany and Partners, Arabic note on recruiting foreign labour, 4 November 2025. Neither is an official government publication. Both checked 20 September 2026.
The question to ask before you ask about salary: which law is the company registered under?
There are two foreign worker quotas running in Egypt at the same time, and they are not the same size.
An ordinary company sits under Decree 279 of 2025 and the flat ten per cent above. To go past it, the employer applies to an Exceptions Committee and pays for the privilege: the quota exemption fee is EGP 10,000 in the first year, rising by EGP 3,000 a year, capped at EGP 100,000.
A company established under the Investment Law is on a different footing. Article 8 of Investment Law 72 of 2017 says an investment project "shall have the right to appoint foreign workers in the amount of 10% maximum of the total number of workers in the Project", and that ceiling rises to 20 per cent where qualified national workers are not available, subject to training obligations. Strategic projects of special importance identified by the Supreme Council may go beyond even that, provided they run training programmes for Egyptians. Establishments in free zones are carved out of the Decree 279 quota altogether: their numbers are set by a joint committee of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones.
The new Labour Law makes the split explicit. Article 73 allows the Minister of Labour, in coordination with the minister responsible for investment, to write separate rules for granting work permits to foreigners under the Investment Law.
So the useful question in a first conversation is not "do you sponsor". It is: is this entity registered under the Investment Law or in a free zone, and where does it currently sit against its quota? A company at 9 of 10 will string you along for months. A free zone entity with committee-set numbers may be able to move next week.
Investment Law 72 of 2017, Article 8, English text via the UNCTAD Investment Laws Navigator; Labour Law 14 of 2025, Article 73, English translation published by Andersen Egypt, May 2025; Decree 279 of 2025 as summarised by law firms. Checked 20 September 2026.
What the permit costs, and who pays nothing
Decree 279 sets a fee ladder that climbs the longer you stay. The figures below come from a law firm summary of the decree published on Mondaq, not from a government fee schedule we were able to open.
