Gov’t Extends Expat Fees Deadline to End of August

The Ministry of Homeland Security and Technology announced last night an extension of the deadline for settling expatriate-related fees until the end of August.

In the announcement last night, the Ministry confirmed that the deadline for repayment has now been extended to 31 August.

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On 24 July, the Ministry published a list of companies that had failed to pay their expatriate fees, including work permits and quota fees. At that time, the Ministry had set a deadline of 12 August for the overdue payments and associated fines to be cleared.

As of 15 August, the Ministry reported that only 20 companies had settled their outstanding payments. While some companies had made substantial payments, many still had remaining dues and therefore remained on the ‘blacklist’.

However, they issued a warning that strict action would be taken against companies that fail to comply by the new deadline. These companies will be suspended from using the expatriate system starting 1 September, which will prevent them from accessing any services related to expatriates, such as the issuance of work permits and work visas.

The Ministry initially disclosed that the companies listed on 24 July had overdue payments and fines exceeding MVR 100,000. According to the Ministry, 1,026 companies owe a total of MVR 636 million in unpaid fees, with some of the country’s most prominent businesses included in this list. Of these, 123 companies owe more than MVR 1 million each to the state, with some companies accruing debts exceeding MVR 26 million.

Within three weeks of publishing the list, the Ministry successfully recovered MVR 182,954,572 in overdue payments.