How to find a job in Nepal

This is going to be a long message and I hope you will enjoy the information. This may give to you also a bit of a feeling how things work in Nepal.

If you want a job in Nepal and work for a Nepalese company, school, hospital or NGO you would not find many well paid jobs here. The NGO's have fixed budgets and staff etc.

Private Schools and hospitals take volunteers on pro deo base and would not pay a coin...it's tourist's and foreign visitors charity that makes volunteer work in that sector.Once their tourist visa expires they have to go.(next volunteer in line is usually already waiting in the queue)

Half of Nepal's youth and middle aged people are either unemployed or are self employed as farmers,helpers,shop keepers of tiny street corner shops, trekking guides, tea-shop owners, street vendors etc.

Sometimes you see an advertisement in the Kathmandu Post, The Himalayan & the Nepali Times (all visible online..find their links by visiting the BBC and go to: South Asia, Country profile, Nepal and you get a lot of info and a range of online-newspaper links, but to find ads you have to dig deeper...mainly in the Saturday or Sunday editions...it is not worth it...you are outside the country and the job is usually snatched away locally as soon as you discover it)

Their ads are usually about looking for foreign native speakers of say Japanese,French, English and German.

Most likely the advertiser is a large Nepalese company that want to send a marketing officer abroad and he/she needs language classes. Also parents of well off people (Business & Politicians) want a personal tutor for their studying kid.

All these jobs are paid so...so..la-la...if you understand what I mean. This will not be enough for making a permanent stay and living as a foreign expat.
Most of the expats I know are either send from outside by their business company, NGO or their Consulates and Embassies

Only about  25 % of the Expats are genuine foreign Investors who are self employed with their own business.

If you can not afford this ,then  you can go for the option "semi-elf employed" and in this group are many expats...they easily are the largest group in Nepal.

You have to find a Nepalese business partner in the trekking -and hospitality industry...which is actually surprising easy if you know where to look. Hotel owners are eager to attract a foreign "Manager" for their restaurant or Tourist Lodge.
What I report here does not apply so much for the Capital city of Kathmandu! Things are harder to get there without large financial input! It is mostly in the inner country side where it work very well.
Nowhere local business partners would  pay you for this "Manager" job.

They expect a partnership in form of financial participation. Let's say you rent their Hotel or Guesthouse for a period of one year or two and run it your style to attract for example trekkers and tourists from your own country and language zone.
Then make a bi-lingual signboard in what ever your language is that says for example "Willkommen ihr alten Trekking-Hasen....futtern wie bei Mutter".

In Pokhara , the tourist hub in the center of Nepal, one sees a kaleidoscope of strange sign board in French, Japanese,Hebrew,Hindi and so on.
All these lodges and restaurants are full with trekkers of their own kind and the owner of the establishment is happy to keep his foreign "Manager". Many expats m/f have started that way as tourists and stay now here for a very long time. Some are married with Nepalese and have kids.

The owner of the establishment is the one who has to fix the visa for his new partner,(work permit or business visa) as soon as he has rented it and paid forward for say a full year or even two,three or five years. ( Insist that a local lawyer office contract and terms of service are made. This costs  around 35 Dollar...four witnesses are required for such a "Home Contract")
The owner of the establishment knows best how to keep you, because he shares in the profit of course. This is negotiable between "rent plus between 25 % up to 45 % of profit if the establishment is at a busy spot or at a lesser visited area.

The annual rent of a medium size lodge could be anything between 3000 and 5000 US $ depending on the state of the art.
Summa summarum: The huge trekking and tourist industry in Nepal counts for the most expats in Nepal.

i don't know about its

@arunjirel -> Can you please introduce yourself?

Thank you,
Aurélie

hello
am doing here business i can help find the job in nepal.
email me
nasacargo1@gmail.com

Hi Nasa Cargo,

Can you please give some useful information on the forum so that everyone can benefit from it?

Thanks,
Christine

I read an article recently indicating that the Nepali government is not happy about foreigners coming here and doing things that aren't quite legal with Nepali and not paying taxes. The article stated that the government is going after these people and it isn't going to be nice. That means, if you get involved with a Nepali in an illegal contract it is you that will be 'hung out to dry.' I had a couch surfer come through who didn't pay the government for something and got deported. If you get deported everyone will see the stamp on your passport and the next country you go to, after you go directly to your home country, will see the stamp and you will be looked at in a negative way.

Here's another shocking fact that I heard from a reliable source: A non-Nepali cannot own a trekking company or guest house or any real estate, at all. They do not want us coming here and taking business from the local people. If you work as a trekking guide it needs to be from a foreign company, not a local trekking company.

I love Nepal and I love the Nepali people, but they have the 'home town advantage.' If you make an illegal contract (that is for something illegal) it is no good at all. Do not fall for it. You get deported and your Nepali 'friend' gets to keep the money you gave him to rent his guest house. It's a great deal for the Nepali but not so nice for the 'tourist.'

MadagascarNow wrote:

Here's another shocking fact that I heard from a reliable source: A non-Nepali cannot own a trekking company or guest house or any real estate, at all. They do not want us coming here and taking business from the local people. If you work as a trekking guide it needs to be from a foreign company, not a local trekking company.

The basic rule is that you cannot start a business or take a job that would ordinarily go to a Nepali person. So most jobs/businesses in tourism are out. A foreigner can own a guesthouse because they make the assumption that the average Nepali cannot afford to start one. I actually own one with an American friend of mine. I've been told from a local builder that a foreigner can buy a flat or apartment, but a whole house is out of the question.

please help me..

abishek dahal wrote:

please help me..

How?

I arrived in Nepal as a tourist and befriended a guesthouse owner.  I gave him tons of ideas for improving his place and helped out with renovations (I mean I actually painted, pulled weeds, mixed concrete, hammered, screwed, etc.)  He let me stay at his place for free in exchange.

I wanted to stay in Nepal & his lawyer friend recommended registering an export company.  I paid the lawyer about $1500 to register my company and provide me with a 1 year business visa.

I shipped a few packages of Nepali handicrafts abroad, using the help of another friend in exporting to help me obtain all the correct documentation to legally ship. 

My export business wasn't profitable.  My business visa expired, I left the country & returned on a tourist visa.

I was told by my lawyer that to continue on my export company's business visa, I'd need to renew the company license, and that tax people would actually come to inspect my office & ensure I was legit.  I didn't want to continue this venture, so I paid the taxes owed after the year and I believe I'll need to renew the company license if I want to continue exporting or another business visa.

I've been trying to find a computer related job in Kathmandu.  The legal process makes this very difficult.

I know of another foreigner who's worked for a Nepali travel company.  In applying for her work permit, they had to advertise the position in 3 different newspapers for (I think) 3 months...which costed around npr 60,000.  The company must pay the foreigner a minimum of npr 30,000/month and 30% is taxable.  Then they need a ream of documents from all over the damn place; the guy who was tasked with making it happen said it was virtually impossible.  I guess the officialdom really discourages hiring foreigners if there are Nepalis who are qualified for the same job.

Is that all worth a visa?  We'll see.  I want to stay/work in Nepal and I want it to do it legally.  I don't mind paying taxes.  But it's been a long, hard haul.  I'm always hearing things by word of mouth and the story is always changing.  Nothing is for sure.

I am, however, engaged to a wonderful Nepali girl.  We'll be registering our marriage in Nepal next year.  Her amako daiko chora (cousin) talked to someone in the Labour Dept. who claimed that foreigners who are married to Nepalis can approach the Labour Dept. directly and easily obtain a work visa.

Moral of the story: Nepal is a land of great spiritual significance and wisdom.  Know that everything in life is impermanent, and keep this mindset if you want to live/work in Nepal.  Otherwise you'll be miserable.

Everything I stated here is accurate to my experience—please help correct any misinfo.

Best luck to everyone!

Namaste

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. It really is difficult to get anything done here. In a country with such a high unemployment rate it is understandable that they would discourage foreigners from taking jobs.

Congratulations on finding a nice Nepali lady. I think they make great wives while the men folk lack what it takes to keep a Western woman happy,but this is only what the young women tourist friends tell me.

I like the idea of a resident visa, and I believe you are right about being able to work after you get married. It's the best value for a western man, but a woman has different laws and if the man dies his brother has a right to certain benefits-or so I hear. You are so right about Nepal's rules being a bit intermittent, arbitrary and no one tells you what you really need to know because Nepali are unable to give you anything that may look like bad news. Really hard to work with them for this reason. But they are lovely people when you get to meet the real ones that don't work in Thamel or in the tourism industry.

Funny but it's all 'hearsay' about what we can or cannot do. Maybe they amended the rule about owning a guest house since you bought yours. Or maybe the guy who works for the immigration office just told me wrong. He was actually trying to get me to invest in his organic farm co-op at the time. They do that. There is no stigma or guilt surrounding lying or cheating foreigners. That's why I blog and that's why I wrote my eBook about surviving Nepal. They are both listed here on expat-blog.

The Nepali do not like you to put things in writing to make it legal, so if you take their advice you can lose a lot of money. Foreigners really need to make sure they do things properly, but Nepali are used to not having a lot of oversight. The point is to really watch yourself and do things right. Your Nepali friend will not get into trouble and will actually 'inherit' the business after you get deported. It happens and it is very expensive-even by Western standards.

Hearsay indeed.  It's so hard to get a straight story on most things here.  The system is just too corrupt and dysfunctional.  Most people I hear about or talk to who managed to eke out an existence in Nepal just "made it happen" in their own special way.

I've been chatting up some experts on the subject this morning & I'm quite certain that to get a work permit/visa in Nepal you must go through the process I described earlier (company must advertise the position in the newspaper & prove that you somehow have special talents that can not be found in Nepal).  I saw the permit package being prepared for a doctor by a local hospital (it was a stack of papers about an inch thick with cut out newspaper clippings of the job postings).

I also learned that it is (probably) NOT so easy to get a work permit if you are married to a Nepali and have a marriage visa.  The guy who told me earlier that I could easily get a work permit after marriage has changed his tune and now says that it might be possible for a female foreigner who marries a Nepali guy, but that a male foreigner would be forbidden to work if he stayed in Nepal on a marriage visa.  I am totally confused on this.

In fact I should probably stop posting on this thread.  My intention was to help people by sharing my experience but I've probably only propagated my confusion.

I'll sum it up like this:

If your foreign employer sends you to Nepal & handles the permit/visa, or if a Nepali company can manage the expensive, time consuming and face-palm inducing process of obtaining a permit/visa, then wow you are lucky!  High-five the nearest baba and go have a lassi. 

If you have enough money to invest (I am 50% positive that legally you're required to invest USD 50,000), you can partner with a Nepali and obtain a business visa.  Just make sure that this money is money you can comfortably lose.

If you want to do otherwise, you're going to have to deal with people who are engaging in trickery, bribes & grey area tactics that could keep you here for a while but might end up screwing you.  Proceed at your own risk.

I guess the government needs to regulate immigrant workers to keep jobs open for the locals.  Certainly with a strict process in place for obtaining work permits, they're weeding out transients and unqualified candidates...right?  I dunno.  What do people think?

There is so much confusion about this subject. I just spoke with a Nepali international lawyer who confirmed for me that if you are married to a Nepali, male or female, it would be impossible to get a work permit for the same reason as it would be for a Nepali-you don't need one.

These so called experts and cheaters, con men, touts and just greedy, lying bastards. You can always tell they are lying because they are smiling and so kind to you. They care so much for you, well let's face it, you just met your soul mate who is going to make all your problems go away. This is how you know they are up to no good. Since when does a total stranger befriend you like they do?

They will do nothing for you except take your money and then when you complain to the authorities they will tell on you for volunteering without the proper visa! It is against the law to work here, even for free.

Do not listen to the free-lance men standing around at the immigration office!!!!

Check out my website and eBook to escape these tricks and have a great time in Nepal.

UnconventionalTourist.com
FrugalTravelsNepal.blogspot.com

So when you say "you don't need" a work permit, does that mean that after obtaining a marriage visa you're allowed to work in Nepal? 

Great website BTW.  I think I'll have to grab a copy of your book if I'm planning to stay here long term. 

Just an update on my situation—I will need to present the tax clearance form for my company at the immigration office in order to extend my current tourist visa.  I was there this morning & they had a lot of questions about why I'd gone from a business visa to a tourist visa.  I explained that I was in the process of closing my company & needed to stay on as a tourist to complete the procedure.  They were fine with that but asked to see all the company documentation & tax info.

Whew.  Tomorrow is Saturday ))))