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Global Mobility · Work permits and visas

The permit route decides the start date. So it goes first.

Before anyone can be employed, paid or productive, they need the right to work — and the route that grants it determines everything downstream: when they start, what the contract can say, and what the employer becomes responsible for. We assess the route per role and per nationality, then run it from our office in the market.

Markets

Angola · Mozambique · South Africa · India

Handled by

Our own teams, in person

Covers

Work and residence permits, legalisation

Chain

Permit → employment → payroll

What is included

What we carry for you

Route assessment

Which permit category the role and the nationality actually qualify for, and what each one demands of the employer — assessed before a contract is signed, not after it is rejected.

Document legalisation

Certified translation, apostille or consular legalisation of degrees, criminal records and civil documents issued abroad. This is where remote applications most often stall.

Filing and follow-through

Submission with the competent authority, and the physical follow-up at the counter that these processes still require in most of our markets.

Dependants and family

Accompanying spouse and children, their residence status and the documents each one needs.

Renewals and changes

Extensions, changes of employer or role, and the timing that keeps a permit from lapsing between contracts.

Employer obligations

What the permit creates on your side: quotas where they apply, reporting duties, local-hire ratios and the record-keeping an inspection will ask for.

How it works

How a mandate runs

Step 01

Assess

The role, the nationality and the destination decide the route. We say which category applies and what it will require from the employee and from the employer.

Step 02

Assemble

The document set is listed in full at the start, with what has to be translated, apostilled or legalised, and where each document is issued.

Step 03

File

Submission and follow-up with the authority, by our team in the market, with status reported to one contact on your side.

Step 04

Maintain

Start date confirmed, obligations registered in a calendar, renewals raised before they become urgent.

The position

Why the permit and the employer cannot be separated

A work permit is granted to a person to work for a specific employer, in a specific role, in a specific place. Change any of the three and the permit usually has to change with it. That is why splitting immigration from employment across two providers produces the most common failure we are asked to repair: a permit granted against a job description that does not match the contract the person actually signed.

It also explains the sequence. The contract terms — role title, remuneration, duration, place of work — have to be settled before the application, because the application quotes them. Where we act as Employer of Record as well, the two are drafted together and the mismatch cannot arise.

Local hires need paperwork too

Mobility is not only about expatriates. Local employees carry identity, tax and social-security registrations that have to be right before day one, and an employer that starts paying someone without them acquires the exposure. The same discipline applies.

Regulatory positions, contribution rates and processing sequences change and differ by activity. We confirm the current position for your case before you commit.

What we hold

  • Our own teams in Luanda, Maputo, Johannesburg and Noida
  • The document set stated in full at the start
  • Employment terms and permit terms drafted together
  • Renewals tracked on a calendar, not by memory

Common questions

What clients ask

Can someone start working while the permit is pending?

Only where the route expressly allows it, and the conditions differ by market and by category. We tell you at assessment whether a lawful bridge exists for your case; where it does not, we say so, because employing someone without the right to work exposes the employer far more than the employee.

Do you handle the visa if we are not the employer?

Yes. Where you employ through your own entity, we act on the immigration file alone and hand you the employer-side obligations the permit creates. Where you have no entity, our Employer of Record becomes the sponsoring employer.

What usually delays a permit?

Documents issued abroad that arrive without the right legalisation, and job descriptions that do not match the category applied for. Both are avoidable at assessment, which is why we do that first and in writing.

Do quotas apply to foreign staff?

In several of our markets there are local-hire ratios or sector conditions that govern how many foreign nationals an employer may hold. They change, and they depend on the activity and the size of the workforce, so we confirm the current position for your case rather than publish a figure.

Tell us who has to be working, where, and by when.

One person or forty, expatriate or local. We come back with the route, the document set and the sequence — and we say plainly if the date you have in mind is not achievable.