Employer registration on the Kurdistan Region labour portal

The Law Office of Ali Barakat, from Baghdad, al-Yarmouk, sets out the registration of an employer on the labour portal in the Kurdistan Region. The page identifies the nature of this path and its place among the duties of employment in the Region, without an operating manual for an electronic platform and without a list of steps that have not been read from the Region's own arrangements. It is informational coverage, and it does not mean that the office has a branch in the Region.

What does the portal mean in the employer's file?

The labour portal in the Kurdistan Region is a means organised by the Region's labour departments for registering employers who engage workers there, and for following their particulars in that framework. Registration on the portal is a dealing with the Region's institutions, not with the federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, and not with the Department of Employment and Loans defined in article 1 of Labour Law No. 37 of 2015. Confusing those names directs the file to a body other than the one that organises the matter at the place of work.

Registration on the portal is not registration of the employment contract in the Region. The contract is reviewed on its own path before the Region's labour departments, as explained on the page Registering an employment contract in the Kurdistan Region. Completing the employer's file on the portal does not take the place of registering each contract, and registering a particular contract does not take the place of the employer's presence in the register the portal organises, where the arrangements in force in the Region so require. The two are read together with social-security enrolment before the body that organises it in the Region, and with a work permit for a person who is not Iraqi if there is one, as set out on the page Federal and Kurdistan Region labour rules.

In the governorates not organised in a region, lodging the third copy of a written contract with the Department of Employment and Loans, presenting a work-permit application to the Department of Labour and Vocational Training, and enrolling the worker with the Department of Pension and Social Security for Workers are separate federal paths. An employer who operates in the Region and in another governorate completes, in each place, what the arrangements in force there require. The file is not reduced to a single registration on the portal.

What does the portal not take the place of?

The portal does not take the place of concluding an employment contract and fixing the wage, the hours and the term. It does not take the place of a work permit for a person who is not Iraqi: employing a foreign worker without a permit is forbidden in the federal framework under article 30 of the Labour Law, and the instructions in force before the Department of Labour and Vocational Training are Instructions No. 1 of 2026, as on the page Work permits. If the work is in the Region, that path, or what the Region organises within its limits, remains a duty independent of the portal account. Residence is a further duty before the General Directorate of Residence under Foreigners' Residence Law No. 76 of 2017, together with the procedures the Region organises for a residence card.

The employer reviews the particulars about the project and the workers that the Region's labour departments require, and keeps any notice or registration number issued by the portal with the file of contracts and social security. A change in the particulars of the project, or in the number of workers, is followed on the portal in the manner the Region organises, so that the register remains consistent with the facts of the employment.

If a dispute arises from an employment relationship in the Region, it is brought before the bodies the Region organises for labour cases, not before a Court of Labor in a governorate not organised in a region merely because the employer is, or is not, registered on the portal. Registration is evidence of an administrative dealing. It is not a decision on the merits of a wage, a termination or a gratuity.

Follow-up from Baghdad, al-Yarmouk

The portal file is read together with the employment contract, with the place where the work is performed, and with what the register establishes about the employer. If it is alleged that employment took place without registration where the Region's arrangements require it, the workers' rights are still claimed from their contract and from the texts that govern the relationship at the place of work. The absence of registration is not treated as a cause for extinguishing a wage, leave or social-security right the law confers. The office follows this distinction from Baghdad, al-Yarmouk, with no branch in the Region.

Legal basis and sources

1. Labour Law No. 37 of 2015 (Iraqi Official Gazette, issue 4386 of 9/11/2015)

Frequently asked questions

Related topics and articles

• 01Which labour and social-security rules apply in the governorates and in the Kurdistan Region?The reach of Labour Law 37/2015 and Law 18/2023 in the governorates not organised in a region, and how work is organised in the Kurdistan Region.
• 02Where is an employment contract registered in the Kurdistan Region?Registering an employment contract in the Kurdistan Region before the Region's labour departments, not the federal Department of Employment and Loans.
• 03End-of-service entitlements under Labour Law No. 37 of 2015The end-of-service gratuity under Labour Law 37/2015: the two-week formula, the statutory exceptions, and how it differs from benefits under Law 18/2023.
• 04What is reviewed in the employment contract, a non-Iraqi's work permit, and social-security enrolment?What is reviewed in an employment file: the written contract, a non-Iraqi's work permit, and social-security enrolment,.
• 05When a job ends in Iraq: who ends it, on what ground, and what followsA practical map of ending a private-sector employment contract in Iraq: what ends it automatically, when the employer or the worker may end it, barred grounds, and the challenge deadline.

Always check the text in force and its amendments in the official source.

To ask about your matter