Work permits in Monaco: what an employer must do before the first day
Written by Élodie Marchal, Residence and relocation lead. Reviewed by Camille Perrin. Updated 20 September 2026. Contribution rates and ceilings read on the Caisses Sociales' own page on 19 September 2026.
Short answer
No foreigner may hold a private job in Monaco without a work permit, whatever his nationality, and no employer may put him to work without a prior written hiring authorisation. Loi n° 629 of 17 July 1957 starts the sequence earlier than most guides do: with the declared job offer and the priority candidates.
On this page
- Who needs a permit, and who does not
- Two documents, one form
- What to have in place before the first hire
- Premises that allow staff
- The hire, step by step
- The priority order of Article 5
- What a permit costs
- How long it takes
- What one employee costs in contributions
- Registering as an employer
- What the statute punishes
- The founder's own status
- Hiring someone who lives elsewhere
- Changes, and the way out
- What no official source publishes
- From our practice
- Sources
- Frequently asked questions
Who needs a work permit in Monaco, and who does not?
"Aucun étranger ne peut occuper un emploi privé à Monaco s'il n'est titulaire d'un permis de travail." No foreigner may hold a private job in Monaco without a work permit, and no job in a profession other than the one the permit names (Loi n° 629 of 17 July 1957, Art. 1). The duty is independent of the form and the length of the contract and of the amount and the kind of pay (Art. 1 al. 2): a two-month part-time post carries it as a permanent one does.
The employer's half is Art. 4: before the foreign worker enters service, the employer must obtain a written authorisation from the labour administration. Where the person hired is Monegasque, a written declaration on the first day replaces it. This page is the employer's file, written for a company that already holds its business authorisation. If you are here for your own move, or for the card the employee will need, Monaco residency is where those files live.
One claim circulates widely on English-language country guides: that EU and EEA nationals need no autorisation de travail in Monaco. The statute writes no nationality exception. Art. 1 says "Aucun étranger", Art. 4 covers every "travailleur de nationalité étrangère", and Monaco is outside the European Union, so free movement of workers does not reach it. French and Italian nationals hold permits like everyone else.
Two documents, one form: the permit, the hiring authorisation and the DAE
Two documents are issued, and one form asks for both. The distinction decides who is exposed if the sequence goes wrong: the permit belongs to the employee, the authorisation belongs to the employer.
| The document | Whose it is | What it fixes | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Permis de travail (work permit) | the employee's | the right to hold a private job in Monaco, in the profession the permit names, whatever the contract and the pay | Loi n° 629, Art. 1 |
| Autorisation d'embauchage (hiring authorisation) | the employer's | the right to put this worker to work, obtained in writing before the worker enters service | Loi n° 629, Art. 4 |
| DAE (Demande d'Autorisation d'Embauchage) | the form both parties sign | one request carrying both documents: the candidate signs online, then the employer, and the Direction du Travail validates | the Direction du Travail's published procedure |
Once every administrative agreement is obtained, the employee holds three things and not one: the work permit, registration with the Caisse de Compensation des Services Sociaux (CCSS) and registration with the Caisse Autonome des Retraites (CAR).
What a newly authorised company must have in place before its first hire
The employer number, the teleservice credentials and the transmission to France Travail all follow from that one appointment.
- The business authorisation and the RCI entry exist already: this page starts the day after them.
- The NIS, the statistical identification number, comes first: the certificate issues within 5 working days.
- The Direction du Travail and the Caisses Sociales both ask for that NIS at every counter.
- An appointment at the Service de l'Emploi, where the dossier employeur (employer file) is built.
- Affiliation to the social bodies from the first hire, once the activity is authorised.
- Premises that permit staff at all, which is the question the next section answers.
Can a company at the manager's home or in a business centre hire staff?
Step by step: how a hire runs under Loi n° 629
1. Declare the job offer. Every offer is declared to the Service de l'Emploi, online in the employer space on MonGuichet.mc or on paper (Art. 3). On the paper route, an acknowledgement is posted within 24 hours of the filing.
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the 24-hour acknowledgement on the paper route and the four clear days for the priority candidates. The rest are drawn as unmeasured
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and the diagram shows no total
Figure 1. From the declared job offer to the first day, in the order Loi n° 629 sets. Only two of the eight stages carry a published period: the 24-hour acknowledgement on the paper route and the four clear days for the priority candidates. The rest are drawn as unmeasured, and the diagram shows no total
2. Four clear days. Within four clear days (quatre jours francs) of the declaration, the service sends the candidate or the candidates. Failing a presentation in that period, Art. 3 lets the employer propose another candidate.
3. A reasoned response on each candidate sent. The published procedure makes it compulsory, "Vous devez obligatoirement faire un retour motivé sur toutes les candidatures proposées", after which the employer may propose its own. The statute says only "à défaut de présentation dans ce délai".
4. The priority order binds the authorisation, not the interview. Art. 5 ranks the people to whom it may be delivered; the next section prints the ranks and the text behind each.
5. File the DAE. Online, the candidate signs first and the employer second, and the stamp duty is paid online in an amount the procedure page does not state. On paper, two signatures in original and EUR 5 of droits de timbre.
6. Two prior opinions. A permit issues only "après avis du Directeur de la Sûreté Publique et avis du Directeur de l'Office de la médecine du travail" (Art. 2). No period is published for either.
7. Validation by the Direction du Travail. The statute still calls that authority the "direction de la main-d'œuvre et des emplois"; we read it as today's Direction du Travail and say so, the renaming text not having been located.
8. The first day. It cannot come before the written authorisation is in hand. For a Monegasque hire, the written declaration is made on that day itself.
One route sits outside the order. In an urgency the service recognises, and with its prior agreement, an employer may hire for a limited period without the procedure, and domestic staff fall under that same rule (Art. 3 al. 3-4). Neither the period nor the definition of urgency is published.
Who must be considered first: the priority order of Article 5
The order is statutory and it binds the authorisation, not the shortlist. Art. 5 opens "à défaut de travailleurs de nationalité monégasque": Monegasque nationals come first, which is the only point at which citizenship in Monaco touches a hiring file, and five ranks follow. The statute is narrower than the summaries of it, so the table names the text behind every line.
| Rank | Who it covers | Which text says so |
|---|---|---|
| First | workers of Monegasque nationality | Art. 5, opening words |
| 1° | foreign spouses not legally separated from, and children of, a Monegasque who has kept that nationality | Art. 5, 1° |
| 2° | partners under a contrat de vie commune (cohabitation contract) with a Monegasque | Art. 5, 2° |
| 3° | parents of a Monegasque child | Art. 5, 3° |
| 4° | foreigners domiciled in Monaco | Art. 5, 4° |
| 5° | foreigners domiciled in the border communes, authorised to work there, and having already worked in Monaco | Art. 5, 5°, the communes (Cap d'Ail, La Turbie, Beausoleil, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin) from the procedure page |
| Closing rule | where no Monegasque and no priority candidate was retained, the authorisation may go to a foreigner outside the list | Art. 5, last paragraph |
That closing rule is what makes the chosen candidate reachable, and the reasoned responses of step 3 are what the administration examines before it applies it.
What does a Monaco work permit cost?
One State charge is published, and it is small. The paper "Demande d'autorisation d'embauchage et de permis de travail" is filed accompanied by EUR 5 of stamp duty, by cheque or in cash, signed in original by both parties. The same EUR 5 applies to a renewal or a modification on the paper route, and to the hiring of domestic staff. Filed online, the duty is paid online, and no page we read states the amount.
Two things follow. No statute was found behind the EUR 5: the figure is the administration's own, published and dated on its procedure page, and this page prints it with that provenance rather than dressing it as law. Ranges of EUR 100 to 300 and EUR 100 to 500 circulate as Monegasque permit fees, and no official page carries either. Our own fees are on request and appear nowhere on this site.
How long does it take? The two periods the law publishes
Two clocks are published in the whole chain, and neither measures the decision. The examination of the DAE, the two opinions and the issue of the permit run for a length no official text states. What is published is this, with the one other clock the employer meets on the way.
- 24 hours: the acknowledgement of a job offer filed on paper, posted by the Service de l'Emploi.
- Four clear days: the period in which the service sends the priority candidates.
- The examination, the two opinions and the issue of the permit: no period published.
- Two market figures circulate and disagree with each other: three months [market: healyconsultants.com, accessed 8 September 2026] and four to eight weeks [market: remotepeople.com, accessed 19 September 2026].
- 5 working days: the NIS certificate, which the Direction du Travail and the Caisses Sociales both ask for first.
This page gives no total, in weeks or in months, because no official source supports one.
Hiring your first employee in Monaco?
Map the file for your first hire. We prepare and steer the authorisation, the premises and the employer's file. We do not run payrolls, file declarations, or promise a permit or a date.
What employing one person costs in contributions
The Caisses Sociales publish the rates and ceilings line by line, each with the date it took effect. Four lines matter to an ordinary hire, and they stop at four different ceilings. The CCSS line carries no employee column at all. One further line in the official table is omitted here, because that page does not say which employers it concerns.
| Line | Employer | Employee | Ceiling | In force from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CCSS (health, maternity, family benefits) | 13.15% + 0.25% OMT = 13.40%, or 13.45% with the 0.05% CGCS line | no employee line in the published table | EUR 9,800 a month, EUR 117,600 a year | 1 October 2025 |
| CAR (Caisse Autonome des Retraites, basic pension) | 8.33% (6.15 + 1.30 + 0.88) | 6.85% (6.15 + 0.70), total 15.18% | EUR 6,112 a month, EUR 73,344 a year | 1 October 2025 |
| Unemployment insurance, run with France Travail | 4.00% | 2.40%, total 6.40% | EUR 16,020 a month, EUR 192,240 a year, four French social security ceilings per employee, set by the UNEDIC board | 1 January 2026 |
| CMRC (Caisse Monégasque de Retraite Complémentaire, supplementary pension) | 60% of the line | 40% of the line | tranche A to EUR 3,971 at 7.87% + 2.15%; tranche B, to eight times that ceiling, at 21.59% + 2.70% | 1 October 2025 |
| One further line in the official table | not reproduced here | not reproduced here | not reproduced here | the page does not say which employers it concerns |
- CCSS to EUR 9,800 a month
- CAR to EUR 6,112
- unemployment insurance to EUR 16,020
- and the CMRC changing tranche at EUR 3,971. Each bar carries its own effective date, 1 October 2025 except unemployment insurance
- from 1 January 2026. No combined rate is drawn: the four lines stop in four different places
Figure 2. Four lines of cover, four different ceilings: CCSS to EUR 9,800 a month, CAR to EUR 6,112, unemployment insurance to EUR 16,020, and the CMRC changing tranche at EUR 3,971. Each bar carries its own effective date, 1 October 2025 except unemployment insurance, from 1 January 2026. No combined rate is drawn: the four lines stop in four different places
Added up on the slice of monthly pay below EUR 3,971, the published employer lines come to about 31.7%, or 31.8% with the CGCS line, and the employee lines to about 13.3%. That total is our arithmetic on the published lines and not an official rate: the Caisses Sociales publish none. It breaks three times, at EUR 3,971 where the CMRC moves to tranche B, at EUR 6,112 where the CAR stops, and at EUR 9,800 where the CCSS stops. Contributions fall due on the 10th of the following month, and late payment costs 1% interest a month plus a surcharge of 10%. Salaried administrators of a société anonyme monégasque are the table's one special case: their CCSS contributions run on a flat base equal to the ceiling.
Registering as an employer: who, when and through whom
1. Who. Every natural or legal person authorised to carry on a professional activity in Monaco and employing salaried staff in it affiliates to the CCSS and the CAR, and to the CMRC save the employers a ministerial order lists.
2. When. Once the authorisation has been issued, and from the first hire. No waiting for the first payslip, no threshold of headcount.
3. Through whom. The Service de l'Emploi is the interlocuteur unique, the single point of contact. It passes the file to the funds' Service du Contrôle des Employeurs, which registers the employer, issues the employer number and transmits the affiliation to France Travail.
4. The one exception read. No affiliation for an employer authorised to work in Monaco occasionally whose staff are usually employed and declared in France or Italy and are posted to Monaco under the Franco-Monegasque or Italo-Monegasque social security conventions, within their duration limits.
5. When money is short. File the salary declarations anyway, unaccompanied by payment if need be: they condition the employees' benefits. Ask the recovery service for a plan before the due date, not after it.
An employer with no business authorisation faces more than the statutory sanctions: the funds proceed to reassessment and forced recovery of the contributions.
What an employer risks by hiring before the authorisation arrives
Art. 10 of Loi n° 629 is the article no country guide on this subject quotes. For a breach of Arts. 1, 3 or 4, no permit, an undeclared job offer, or a worker put to work without the prior written authorisation, it carries six to eighteen months' imprisonment and the fine of chiffre 4 of Art. 26 of the Code pénal, "ou de l'une de ces deux peines seulement", or one of those two penalties only. On a repeat, one to three years and double the fine. A contractual clause contrary to the law is void and of no effect, even in an extended collective agreement (Art. 9).
| The breach | Imprisonment | Fine | On a repeat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arts. 1, 3 and 4: no work permit, an undeclared job offer, no prior written hiring authorisation | six to eighteen months | the chiffre 4 band of Code pénal Art. 26, EUR 18,000 to 90,000 | one to three years and double the fine |
| Every other breach of the law, the redundancy order among them | six days to one month | the chiffre 1 band, EUR 1,000 to 2,250 | one to six months and the chiffre 2 fine |
Can the founder or the manager be an employee of the company?
Hiring someone who does not live in Monaco yet
Monaco counted 65,117 employees, private and public, at 31 December 2025, and, in IMSEE's 2025 census report, close to nine employees in ten do not live in the Principality (PDF, French). Hiring someone who commutes is the norm, not the exception. For the employee who does move in, what daily life in Monaco is like for a foreign resident is a subject of its own.
Where the candidate is not European, holds no residence title from the Alpes-Maritimes prefecture authorising work, and is to settle in the Principality, the procedure page tells the employer to contact the Head of the Service de l'Emploi directly. The visa is France's: the French visa portal asks for a long-stay visa supported by an "Employment contract for foreign worker endorsed by the Employment Service", the endorsement first, and treats a contract of three to six months as supporting a temporary long-stay visa.
For the residence card that follows, the Monegasque authorities ask for an attestation of the Service de l'Emploi authorising work, "selon le cas" a promise of hire, a hiring-authorisation request, or the permit with the last payslip. No single official text we could read fixes the order of those three files, and the card itself, its types and its renewals, belongs to the residence guide.
When the job changes, and when it ends
Breaches here fall under the lighter ladder of Art. 10, six days to one month and EUR 1,000 to 2,250, or one of the two penalties only.
- Any change of employer, of trade or of profession needs a new permit application, not an amendment.
- Starting or ending telework is a modification request to the Service de l'Emploi.
- Six triggers of a renewal or modification: qualification, contract type, contract length, working time, telework, civil status.
- After each, a new permit issues, with the same EUR 5 of stamp duty on the paper route.
- Redundancies follow Art. 6 in reverse: foreigners living outside Monaco and the border communes first, Monegasques last.
- Seniority carries a bonus of one year per dependent child after two years' service, capped at five years.
- A worker made redundant keeps a six-month re-hiring priority in the same professional category: registered letter, four days to accept, and it cannot defeat the Art. 5 order.
What no official source publishes about working in Monaco
Residents pay no income tax, French nationals under the 1963 convention excepted. What an employee who commutes from France or Italy pays is a matter of French or Italian law, outside every source used here.
- No minimum wage in any official source we read, and no act number to offer for one.
- No legal working week either: the "39 hours" that circulates is not sourced here.
- No average or median salary: IMSEE publishes the private-sector figures as an image and in a PDF of 2022. What a salary buys is the subject of the cost of living guide.
- No processing time for the file, beyond the two periods of section 8.
- No validity period in Loi n° 629: the statute lists the events that trigger a new permit instead.
- No figure for the online stamp duty: the procedure page says only that it is paid online.
- No expansion of OMT, CGCS or C.C.P.B.: the contribution table prints them bare, and so do we.
- Nothing read on who insures accidents at work, or at what cost.
- Nothing official either way on whether an employer of record may operate in Monaco, while every activity there needs its own authorisation under Loi n° 1.144.
From our practice
Two things stop a first hire, and neither is the contract. The premises come first: a seat at the gérant's home or a shared business-centre formula forbids employees outright, so the move and the amended authorisation are decided before a candidate is approached. The second is the pair of steps before the contract, the declared job offer and the reasoned responses, which founders have rarely heard of and which the whole sequence hangs from.
We are not the Direction du Travail, the Service de l'Emploi or the Caisses Sociales, and not an expert-comptable. We prepare and steer files; we neither run payrolls nor file declarations.
Élodie Marchal, Residence and relocation lead, nine years. Reviewed by Camille Perrin. Updated 20 September 2026.
Sources
No English page of the Monegasque government is used or linked anywhere on this page: every English government page compared so far differs from its French original. France-visas is France's own portal, read in English, and is attributed as such. Ordonnance Souveraine n° 993 is cited by number and article and not linked, its address not being in this page's source list.
- Loi n° 629 of 17 July 1957, Arts. 1 to 10: the permit, the two opinions, the declared offer and the four clear days, the hiring authorisation, the priority order, the redundancy order, the void clause, the penalties. Read 19 September 2026.
- Code pénal, Art. 26: the fine bands of chiffre 1 and chiffre 4. Read 19 September 2026.
- Direction du Travail, recruiting staff (French page, dated 16 March 2026): the declaration, the 24-hour acknowledgement, the four clear days, the reasoned responses, the DAE and the EUR 5, the border communes. Read 19 September 2026.
- Caisses Sociales de Monaco, employer contributions: rates, ceilings, due date, late penalties, the salaried SAM administrator. Read 19 September 2026.
- Caisses Sociales de Monaco, employer affiliation: who affiliates and when, the single point of contact, the posted-worker exception, forced recovery. Read 19 September 2026.
- France-visas, Monaco: the long-stay visa and the endorsed contract. France's own portal, read in English on 19 September 2026.
- Renewing or modifying an employment contract (French page, dated 30 June 2026): the six triggers and the EUR 5. Accessed 6 September 2026.
- IMSEE, employment: 65,117 employees at 31 December 2025. Read 19 September 2026.
- IMSEE, 2025 census report (PDF, French): close to nine employees in ten do not live in Monaco. Read 19 September 2026.
- Business centres, the authorised formulas (French page): the staff rule, 9 sqm and 25 sqm. Accessed 6 September 2026.
- Loi n° 1.144 of 26 July 1991, Art. 5: a change of premises needs a new authorisation. Read 19 September 2026.
Planning the move for the people you hire
Answered with the article
+ Does every foreign employee need a work permit in Monaco, including French, Italian and other EU nationals?
Yes. Art. 1 of Loi n° 629 writes "Aucun étranger", no foreigner, and Art. 4 covers every "travailleur de nationalité étrangère". The statute makes no exception by nationality, and the obligation does not depend on the form or the length of the contract or on the pay. Monaco is outside the European Union, so free movement of workers does not reach it.
+ What does an employer risk by putting someone to work before the authorisation arrives?
Art. 10 of Loi n° 629: for a breach of Arts. 1, 3 or 4, six to eighteen months' imprisonment and the fine of chiffre 4 of Art. 26 of the Code pénal, EUR 18,000 to 90,000, or one of those two penalties only. On a repeat, one to three years and double the fine. Other breaches of the law carry six days to one month and EUR 1,000 to 2,250.
+ Who applies, the employer or the employee?
The employer, and two steps before any contract is signed. The job offer is declared to the Service de l'Emploi, the priority candidates come back within four clear days, and a reasoned response is due on each of them. The DAE is then signed by the candidate and by the employer, and the employer obtains the written authorisation before the worker enters service.
+ What is the difference between the hiring authorisation and the work permit?
The autorisation d'embauchage is the employer's: a prior written authorisation under Art. 4, obtained before the worker enters service. The permis de travail is the employee's, under Art. 1, and it is valid for the profession it names. One form, the DAE, carries both requests, signed online by the candidate and then by the employer and validated by the Direction du Travail.
+ What must a newly authorised company do before it hires its first employee?
Obtain the NIS, which issues within 5 working days and which the Direction du Travail and the Caisses Sociales both ask for. Book the Service de l'Emploi appointment and open the dossier employeur. Affiliate to the CCSS and the CAR from the first hire. And check the premises: a home seat and every shared business-centre formula exclude employees.
+ In what order must an employer consider candidates, and can it still hire the person it has chosen?
Monegasque nationals first, then the five ranks of Art. 5: spouses and children of a Monegasque, partners under a contrat de vie commune, parents of a Monegasque child, foreigners domiciled in Monaco, and foreigners in the border communes authorised to work there. Where no priority candidate was retained, and after the reasoned responses, the authorisation may be delivered to someone outside the list.
+ How long does the Employment Service have to send priority candidates?
Four clear days from the declaration of the job offer, under Art. 3. On the paper route, an acknowledgement of the offer is posted within 24 hours of the filing. Those two are the only periods published in the whole sequence, and the statute lets the employer propose another candidate where nobody is presented within the four days.
+ How much does it cost to get a Monaco work permit?
The Direction du Travail's procedure page states EUR 5 of stamp duty for the paper application, by cheque or in cash, and the same EUR 5 on a renewal or a modification. Filed online, the duty is paid online and no page we read states the amount. The ranges of EUR 100 to 300 and EUR 100 to 500 that circulate have no official source behind them.
+ How long does a Monaco work permit take?
No official period exists for the examination of the file, the two prior opinions or the issue of the permit. Two periods are published, the four clear days and the 24-hour acknowledgement, and neither measures the decision. Two market figures circulate, three months and four to eight weeks, and they disagree with each other. This page gives no total.
+ What social contributions does an employer pay, and what is deducted from the employee's pay?
From 1 October 2025: CCSS 13.40% employer only, to a ceiling of EUR 9,800 a month; CAR 8.33% employer and 6.85% employee, to EUR 6,112; CMRC split 60% employer and 40% employee, tranche A to EUR 3,971. Unemployment insurance, from 1 January 2026, is 4.00% and 2.40% to EUR 16,020. Contributions fall due on the 10th of the following month.
+ Can a company domiciled at the manager's home or in a shared business-centre formula hire staff?
No. The condition of a seat at the gérant's home is that the company employs nobody, and every shared business-centre formula is sold without the hiring of staff. Only the Bureau exclusif formula allows employees, from 9 sqm, or 25 sqm for a SAM, increasing with headcount. Moving to larger premises needs a new business authorisation.
+ Can a US citizen, or another non-European, work in Monaco, and which visa is needed?
Yes, on the same permit as anyone else: the statute has no nationality exception in either direction. Where the person will settle in Monaco, the employer contacts the Head of the Service de l'Emploi, and France's visa portal asks for a long-stay visa with a contract endorsed by the Employment Service. The order of the files is not fixed by any text we could read.
+ Can the founder or the manager be an employee of his or her own company?
A gérant associé is self-employed, not an employee: he joins CAMTI and CARTI within one month of the start of the activity or of the RCI entry. Ordonnance Souveraine n° 993, Art. 2, says "Seuls les gérants associés" of an SNC, SCS or SARL. A SAM director may instead be salaried, his CCSS contributions computed on a flat base equal to the ceiling.
+ What happens when an employee changes post, moves to telework or leaves?
A change of employer, trade or profession needs a new permit. Qualification, contract type, contract length, working time, telework and civil status each trigger a renewal or modification, after which a new permit issues, with EUR 5 on the paper route. On the way out, Art. 6 reverses the priority order and Art. 7 gives a six-month re-hiring priority. ---
Start your Monaco file
Tell us the activity, where it will be carried on and who will run it. One of us reads it and comes back with the questions the authorisation file will ask. Our fees are on request.
The authorisation is personal and non-transferable, and it names the activity and the premises. Nothing on this site is sold ready to trade.
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