Bahrain issues IBANs for All Incoming Migrant Workers 

Bahrain’s Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) recently announced that, in coordination with the Central Bank of Bahrain and private sector banks, every migrant worker arriving in the country through Bahrain International Airport will now receive International Bank Account Numbers (IBANs).

According to LMRAs CEO, Nibras Talib, the "initiative aims to provide additional facilities to help employers comply with paying workers’ wages electronically, ensuring the documentation of payment records, reducing wage payment-related legal disputes, and expediting litigation processes."

As per the LMRA announcement, migrant workers will receive a step-by-step guide on how to activate the bank account linked to the IBAN issued to them, should they choose to do so.

In 2022, Bahrain launched the final phase of its Wage Protection System (WPS) which requires all workers in the private sector to receive their wages through bank transfers. However, the WPS has seen low enrolment rates and this move is aimed at increasing it.

Bahrain is the only Gulf country where the government collects end-of-service contributions from employers of migrant workers and disburses them directly to the workers via online bank transfers. Ensuring that all migrant workers have bank accounts will facilitate this process.

While this new initiative will improve the functionality of the WPS, the system itself primarily serves as a transparency measure to document whether employers have paid their workers, particularly in wage theft cases brought to labour courts. Workers in Bahrain remain vulnerable due to the lengthy and resource-intensive process of filing labour cases and the lack of mechanisms for quickly settling unpaid wages.

Importantly, domestic workers in Bahrain are still excluded from the WPS, with their enrolment dependent on the voluntary participation of their employers.