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Oman Work Visa Requirements for Filipinos: Who Applies, Who Pays, and What to Check Before You Sign

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By iStart Editorial Team·Published September 6, 2026

Oman Work Visa Requirements for Filipinos: Who Applies, Who Pays, and What to Check Before You Sign

Someone has quoted you a price for "processing your Oman work visa." Start there. In Oman — as across the Gulf — a worker does not buy a work visa. An employer applies for one.

Your employer applies for the Oman work visa, not you

Oman's government puts it plainly: the service lets the employer issue a visa to a foreigner coming to work in the Sultanate of Oman, "based on their request and under their responsibility." The Royal Oman Police (ROP) issues it on the employer's application, and that employer is your sponsor.

Before it exists, your sponsor needs a work permit from Oman's Ministry of Labour, and the profession on the permit must match the profession on the visa application — the mechanism Saudi Arabia runs too. An offer that cannot name that profession is not yet a job.

The visa sits downstream: an employer decided this person was worth applying for, and worth the cost. Sponsorship is not bought — it is something you become worth.

What the work visa is, and what it asks for

The Royal Oman Police documents the Work Visa as valid two years from the passport stamp, and as multiple-entry. The applicant must be at least 21, and a late-renewal fine applies. What the Royal Oman Police list requires:

  • two 6×4 cm photographs;
  • a passport valid at least six months;
  • the labour permit from the labour ministry;
  • a Ministry of Health-attested medical certificate — the ROP's list of nationalities that need one names the Philippines;
  • approval from the relevant organisations, for certain occupations;
  • a release letter from a previous employer, if you worked in Oman in the past two years.

The profession on that permit decides the level you enter on and the ladder above it — so the certificate you hold before applying matters more than the form.

Who pays: the honest answer to "how much is the Oman work visa?"

Oman's government publishes the work visa fee as 20 Omani Rial — the charge for issuing it, not the cost of a deployment, and not the worker's bill. Fees change; confirm the current figure on the government's page.

Under the Department of Migrant Workers' 2023 Rules for landbased overseas Filipino workers, recruitment and placement costs are the employer's responsibility: the visa including the stamping fee; the work permit and residence permit; round-trip airfare; airport-to-jobsite transport; the DMW processing fee; the OWWA membership fee; and any additional trade test. So: how much is a two-year Oman work visa? The visa and the permit are your foreign employer's cost, and a worker asked to fund them is being asked for something the rules do not allow.

Your side is documentation costs — passport, NBI or police clearance, PSA birth certificate, transcript and diploma certified by CHED and authenticated by the DFA, a PRC licence authenticated by the DFA, a TESDA certificate of competency, and DOH-prescribed medical examinations — plus PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG and SSS membership. No other fee, in any amount, form or purpose, may be charged to the worker — except the placement fee below.

A card grouping the recruitment costs the Philippine rules put on the employer, the documents that are the worker's own cost, and the placement-fee question the article leaves open.

The placement fee: the cap, the exceptions, the receipt

Under those same Rules, a placement fee may be charged, capped at one month's basic salary specified in the DMW-approved contract. Two exceptions sit above that cap: domestic workers may not be charged one at all, and neither may workers bound for countries whose own system — by law, policy or practice — does not allow a recruitment or placement fee. It is payable only after the contract is signed, and the agency must issue a BIR-registered receipt with the date, purpose and exact amount.

Oman's own Labour Law prohibits collecting any amounts from the recruited worker in exchange for his employment; the Philippine rule bars a placement fee where the destination's system does not allow one. How that resolves for your contract is not ours to decide. Either way: ask the agency to put in writing which rule applies, check the agency's licence before money changes hands, and keep the receipt. Money asked for before a signed contract is the warning sign.

A Filipino applicant sitting alone in a recruitment office waiting area, reading the printed receipt he was given before filing it with his own documents.

What Omani law puts on your side

From Oman's Labour Law, Royal Decree 53/2023. These are not favours.

  • Your passport is yours. The employer may not retain a worker's passport or personal documents except with the worker's written consent — that clause is in the law, so know you are being asked.
  • Your contract is written, one copy yours. In Arabic, two copies, one per party, or another language with an approved Arabic copy attached.
  • Forced labour is prohibited, in any form.
  • Your permit is tied to your sponsor. Moving employers runs through a notification to the Ministry and a permit — a process, not an impossibility.

Oman's Ministry of Foreign Affairs lists the Philippines among the countries exempt from an entry visa for 14 days — a stay that, on the Ministry's own page updated 16 January 2026, "cannot be extended or transferred to any type of residence visa." Visa-free entry is not permission to work, and it does not become one.

Before you sign

  • Confirm the agency's licence before any money changes hands.
  • Check the profession on the work permit matches your offer.
  • Get the DMW-approved contract, read it, keep your copy.
  • Ask in writing which placement-fee rule applies to you.
  • Get a BIR-registered receipt for anything you pay.
  • Keep your passport in your own hands.
  • Check the DMW's current advisories for Oman before you pay or sign.

The Questions Filipinos Ask Us Most

What are the requirements for a work visa in Oman? A Ministry of Labour work permit, then the Royal Oman Police visa your employer applies for: passport, photographs, the medical certificate Filipinos are listed for, minimum age 21.

Can Filipino citizens apply for an Oman visa? You can hold one; your employer is the applicant.

How much is a two-year Oman work visa? Oman publishes the fee as 20 Omani Rial; under the Philippine rules the visa and permits are the employer's cost.

Is Oman giving work visas now? Oman's work visa is a live government service your employer applies for. Philippine deployment rules move by DMW advisory — check the current ones.

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