Decline in Work Permits for Foreign Nationals

Work permits were issued, extended or renewed for 11,787 foreign nationals living in Iran in the last Iranian year (March 2016-17), registering a 7% decrease compared with the previous year, figures released by the Statistical Center of Iran and the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare announced.

The Ministry of Cooperatives issues work permits for specific occupations under the conditions that there is no educated or specialist Iranian to do that job, the foreigner has sufficient expertise for executing that work and that the expertise be used to train Iranian workforce so they could replace the foreign worker. A total of 2,367 foreigners, who had spent 10 consecutive years in Iran or had an Iranian spouse, were granted work permits during the same period.