LMRA Mina Salman Branch

No. The LMRA Mina Salman branch operates Sunday to Thursday only, from 07:30 to 15:30, with cashiers closing fifteen minutes earlier. Friday and Saturday are the official Bahrain weekend and the counter is fully shut, including for emergency renewals. If you have a permit expiring on a Friday or Saturday, file the renewal on Thursday at the latest because the late-renewal penalty clock starts the moment the permit lapses regardless of the weekend. Some online services on Bahrain.bh remain available around the clock if the transaction does not require counter verification.

The counter does not close for individual prayer times during normal months; staff rotate so that the queue continues to move. During Ramadan, hours change to roughly 08:30 to 13:30 and the cashier closes earlier. The branch pauses for the Dhuhr congregational prayer on the Friday before any major Islamic holiday only by exception. Tokens already issued before any short pause are honoured when service resumes, so do not discard your printed token if you see a brief lull in calls; check the digital display for the current number.

Bring the worker's original passport and CPR card if one has been issued. For employer-side transactions, the PRO must carry their own CPR plus an authorisation letter on company letterhead or a notarised power of attorney. Photocopies are not accepted as a substitute for the original passport at the work-permit counter; the verification officer physically scans the document. Dependants attending for biometric capture must bring their original passport and, where applicable, the attested marriage or birth certificate that established the dependency.

An expired permit triggers an automatic late-renewal penalty calculated per month overdue, plus accumulating LMRA monthly fees that the employer must still pay during the lapse. The Mina Salman counter will process the renewal but only after the cashier collects the total amount including penalties. If the permit has been expired for more than 30 days, you may need to file a fresh issuance rather than a renewal, which doubles the paperwork. Departure within the grace period (typically 30 days from expiry) is allowed but re-entry under a fresh permit is then required.

Commercial work-permit holders sponsored by a Bahraini company pay BHD 5 per month in LMRA fees plus the SEHATI BHD 5 monthly contribution, billed upfront in 12 or 24 month blocks. Registered (flexi) workers without a fixed employer pay BHD 195 per year plus BHD 5 admin. Domestic workers in private households pay roughly BHD 172 for one year including health cover. Dependants of expatriate residents pay BHD 60 per year per dependant. Each category has its own counter at Mina Salman, signposted in Arabic and English.

For routine renewals and payments, no — a PRO with proper authorisation can act for the employer. For new work-permit issuance the worker must attend in person for biometric capture, but the sponsor can be represented. For sponsorship transfers between commercial employers both the releasing and the receiving sponsor (or their authorised representatives) must attend together to sign the transfer form at the counter, and the worker must also be present to consent. Domestic-employer transactions require the Bahraini household head to attend personally because of identity-verification rules.

The physical CPR card is issued by iGA, not LMRA, so it is not delivered from Mina Salman. Once your work-permit is approved here and the residence stamp is generated, the iGA system queues the card for printing. Most expatriate CPRs are now collected from an iGA Identity Card Service Centre such as Isa Town or Seef Mall after an SMS notification, although in some renewal cases the card is dispatched via Bahrain Post to the address on file. The LMRA permit card itself is printed at this branch and handed to you the same day.

LMRA regulates the labour-market side: work permits, employer fees, flexi permits and the labour-market quota. NPRA, under the Ministry of Interior, regulates the immigration side: passports, residence stickers, visit visas and entry permits for direct family members above 24 who are not covered by an LMRA dependant permit. A standard expatriate worker is processed primarily through LMRA and the residence sticker is issued automatically. You only deal with NPRA for visit visas, entry permits for parents, residence for adult children above 24, and certain special-permit cases. Many customers confuse the two and queue at the wrong office.

Work-permit renewals where no biometric is due, monthly LMRA fee payments, SEHATI top-ups, dependant renewals, work-permit cancellations, and most amendment requests are fully online through Bahrain.bh, the LMRA Expat eServices portal at expatservices.bahrain.bh, and the employer portal at portal.lmra.gov.bh. New domestic permits and new commercial issuances usually still need a counter visit because of the photo and contract verification. The Bahrain.bh tracker shows real-time status of any submitted application so you can avoid coming in unless the case is flagged.

Yes, all counter officers at Mina Salman are bilingual in Arabic and English, and the digital signage and tokens are bilingual. Many staff also speak Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam or Tagalog because of the customer profile, although this is informal rather than a posted language service. For Bengali, Nepali, Tamil or other languages, bringing a friend or PRO who can translate is recommended for complex transactions such as sponsorship transfer. Written documents must still be submitted in Arabic or English; an LMRA-approved translation office (several are near the branch) can certify translations from any major language.

Ramadan hours typically shrink to 08:30-13:30 and the entire five-hour window is busy because of the shortened day. The first ninety minutes after opening are heaviest as PROs front-load the day's filings. Aim to arrive at 12:00 if you can: by then the morning rush has cleared and the cashier is processing the last cohort. Avoid the final thirty minutes because tokens issued after 13:00 are not always called before the counter closes. The branch usually publishes the exact Ramadan schedule on lmra.gov.bh and on its social channels a week before the month starts.

No. GCC nationals do not require LMRA work permits to work in Bahrain and therefore have no business at the Mina Salman labour counters. A GCC national working in Bahrain is registered through the GOSI/SIO social-insurance system and identifies with their home-country national ID; the Bahraini employer files a notification, not a permit. If you are a GCC national who came to Mina Salman by mistake, the reception desk will redirect you to the iGA Identity Card centre for any CPR-related step or to NPRA for visit-visa formalities for non-GCC family members.

Yes from about 09:00 to 13:00 on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday — the heaviest filing days. The LMRA on-site lot is small and the overflow spills onto service roads where parking is technically free but enforcement officers do issue tickets for vehicles blocking access lanes. If you can, take a taxi or use ride-hailing apps such as Careem; the drop-off bay is directly outside the main entrance and the savings on time and stress usually justify the BHD 3-5 cost. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons are noticeably easier for drivers.