A Saudi employer guide to recruiting Filipino workers through a Philippine recruitment agency.
The eight steps from your manpower requirement to deployment, and which side handles each one. Steps marked in both colours involve your company and ELB together. The final step is marked separately: Iqama and onboarding are Saudi-side employer responsibilities that follow deployment.
Work through the questions below to see which parts of the route are already in place, still outstanding, or need confirming with the authority that owns them. This planner does not give a deployment date — a date needs a review of your worksite, your visa position and your documents.
Built by ELB International Services Inc., a DMW-licensed Philippine recruitment agency (Licence No. DMW-020-LB-08202024-PL, land-based). This covers employer requirements for commercial worksites. It is not a job advertisement and does not cover household or domestic placement.
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Answer from your own records and from Qiwa. “Not sure” is a useful answer — it is recorded as needing confirmation rather than assumed.
Order varies by case. This is a dependency checklist, not a fixed sequence, and it does not state how long any item takes.
A deployment date needs a case review. ELB reviews the worksite, the visa position, the occupation and the documents, then gives a project-specific estimate for that requirement.
Ask ELB to review this requirementFour questions employers ask before committing to a date. Each answer holds whether or not the tool above is run.
A visa allocation is one input, not the whole route. It must be matched to a verified job order, and your company must be accredited with the Migrant Workers Office (MWO) holding jurisdiction over the worksite before recruitment can proceed. Where visas exist, send the visa category, the visa position as recorded in Qiwa or Enjaz, the number of persons and the unified number. MWO Riyadh’s published checklist asks for the visa details to show the position, the number of persons and the company name. Where the visa position differs from the actual job, treat it as a separate case with its own documents rather than discovering it at verification.
No — they are different authorities on different sides of the route. Qiwa is the Saudi Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development platform for Saudi-side employment matters: the establishment file, block visa quota, work permits and contract authentication. MWO accreditation is a Philippine process: your company is verified by the Migrant Workers Office covering the worksite, and a job order is approved. A valid Qiwa file does not make an unaccredited employer deployable, and neither step substitutes for the other. ELB coordinates the Philippine side; your company or its licensed Saudi partner handles the Saudi systems.
Several can, and reading them as strictly sequential overstates the calendar. Document preparation and attestation can proceed while accreditation is being filed; candidate sourcing can begin against the requirement once the job order is approved; medical and any trade testing can overlap where the candidate is already identified. The planner above lists dependencies rather than adding time, so it does not produce a single figure. What cannot be compressed is a step that depends on another’s output: a contract cannot be authenticated before the quota exists.
Three things. Nitaqat is one condition of Qiwa visa issuance, and not the only one. Where the band is Low Green, Red or unconfirmed, the planner returns the requirement instead of a plan, because the route does not open in that state. A worksite or occupation whose applicable requirements have not been confirmed cannot be modelled responsibly. And a requirement with no defined positions, headcount or terms has nothing to plan against.
Requirements are set by the authorities, not by ELB. References: MHRSD’s Visa Issuance Service conditions, and the requirements published by the MWO holding jurisdiction over the worksite — read from published pages on 8 October 2026. ELB confirms the current set for the specific employer and worksite before filing.
Outside a narrow set of exemptions, a Saudi employer hires Filipino workers through a DMW-licensed Philippine manpower agency, and the employer must itself be accredited with the Migrant Workers Office (MWO) covering its region before a job order can be processed.
A Saudi employer should first provide its company and manpower requirement details so the Philippine recruitment agency can confirm the applicable Saudi and Philippine employer-document, accreditation/job-order and visa workflow. Candidate sourcing and screening can then be coordinated around the approved requirement.
ELB International Services Inc. is licensed by the Department of Migrant Workers under License No. DMW-020-LB-08202024-PL for land-based recruitment, and is accredited with the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Manila, which keeps its own record of accredited Philippine agencies. The embassy does not issue a certificate, so the accreditation is confirmed against that record.
Work through this before sending a requirement. It covers sequencing and readiness — what you can settle, what ELB settles, and what depends on the worksite — not a second copy of the document list below.
The requirements published by MWO Riyadh apply to the office and category they cover; they are not a national list. ELB confirms the applicable set for your worksite before anything is filed.
Send the company name, Saudi city/worksite, positions, quantity, salary and benefits, experience/certification requirements, visa details if available, interview method and target deployment date.
MWO Riyadh publishes the verification requirements for the skilled and semi-skilled category. The full list is set out below so you can prepare against the published set rather than a summary. ELB confirms the current version for your employer and worksite before anything is filed.
ELB can source Filipino workers, screen against the Saudi employer’s criteria, coordinate interviews and organize role-specific assessments where appropriate.
For ELB’s Saudi employer service overview, visit Saudi Arabia recruitment. Arabic information is also available from that page.
ELB publishes Saudi recruitment coverage across construction, engineering, oil and gas, healthcare, hospitality and skilled roles.
Send company details plus the positions, quantities, salary/benefits, qualifications, worksite, visa status and target deployment date.
No. Requirements can vary by employer, occupation and current Saudi and Philippine procedures, so the project-specific checklist should be confirmed before filing.
MWO Riyadh treats it as a separate case. It requires a job description, a visa undertaking, and a declaration of awareness signed by the worker. Raise the discrepancy with ELB before the documents are filed.
Yes. ELB International Services Inc. is licensed by the Department of Migrant Workers under License No. DMW-020-LB-08202024-PL for land-based recruitment, and is accredited with the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Manila, which keeps its own record of accredited Philippine agencies. The embassy does not issue a certificate, so the accreditation is confirmed against that record rather than by a document.
Your company or its licensed Saudi recruitment partner handles the Saudi-side steps: the block visa issued through the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, employment contract authentication, visa stamping, and the Iqama residence permit after arrival. ELB handles the Philippine side.
Saudi employers should give ELB the actual worksite or city, such as Riyadh, Jeddah or Dammam, together with the company, roles and headcount. Use the location to clarify the project and the appropriate review route; do not assume every Saudi worksite follows one office’s checklist.
For Saudi construction projects, separate engineers, electricians and welders by discipline, site duties and required experience. State whether the need is for installation, fabrication, maintenance or project supervision, and provide the interview or practical assessment criteria.
For industrial projects, describe the plant or project environment, work scope, welding processes or equipment, and the standards the employer expects candidates to demonstrate. Distinguish a shutdown requirement from continuing operations when proposing the interview and arrival schedule.
For service teams, specify the workplace, shift coverage and role boundaries: hotel and facilities staff, healthcare and care support, or warehouse and logistics workers. Ask ELB to review occupation-specific eligibility and assessment needs; a general manpower request does not establish professional licensing.
For skilled and semi-skilled company recruitment, MWO Riyadh’s published checklist links the manpower request to actual positions, visa categories, headcount and salary in SAR. It also calls for visa details and consistent company identification. Use its current checklist only where the office and category apply; ask ELB to confirm the full packet before signing.
Source: MWO Riyadh — Skilled and Semi-Skilled Category, list of requirements for verification. Items read from that page on 6 October 2026 and re-checked on 8 October 2026. MWO publishes the list; it can change, and the applicable set depends on the office and category, so ELB confirms the current version for the specific employer and worksite.
That last case is the one employers most often miss. Where the visa carries a different title from the work the person will actually do, MWO treats it as a separate requirement with its own three documents, so the discrepancy should be identified and documented before filing rather than discovered at verification.
If visas are available, summarize their categories and quantities alongside the roles you need. If workers are already selected, identify those roles separately from positions still requiring sourcing. Ask ELB to review discrepancies and remaining steps before agreeing arrival dates.
Prepare the job-order brief · Employer accreditation and job orders
Break a high-volume requirement into batches by occupation, worksite and target arrival. For each batch, identify the interview capacity, hiring decision-maker, offered terms and candidate assessment criteria. Tell ELB which candidates are selected and which roles need sourcing so the scope and quotation reflect the actual work.
Plan recruitment costs · Build the deployment milestone plan
Recruiting Filipino workers for Saudi Arabia splits into two halves. ELB handles the Philippine side: employer accreditation coordination, job order and documentation steps, candidate sourcing and screening, interview coordination, and pre-departure processing.
On the Saudi side, your company or its licensed Saudi recruitment partner handles the block visa issued through the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, employment contract authentication, visa stamping, and the Iqama residence permit after arrival. ELB does not operate those Saudi systems and does not act as a Saudi-licensed recruitment office.
Send your company, country, positions, headcount, compensation and target deployment date. ELB can review the requirement and identify the applicable next steps.
Request ManpowerBrowse employer guidesSend ELB the company, Saudi worksite, required roles, headcount and available visa categories and quantities. Identify selected workers separately from roles needing sourcing, and ask for a review of remaining steps before confirming travel.