How to Verify a Recruitment Agency
6 min read · updated August 2026
Why ten minutes is a good trade
Chandigarh police recorded 232 unlicensed immigration consultancies and ₹74 crore in losses over four years. Kerala recorded roughly 1,300 job-scam complaints in a single year. Ernakulam rural police alone registered 172 visa-fraud cases in 2024.
The consistent detail across the case reports is not that victims were careless. It is that they never checked a register, because most people do not know the registers exist. Both of the ones below are free, public, and take a few minutes.
Register one: the Indian side
Recruiting Agents are licensed by the Ministry of External Affairs under the Emigration Act 1983. Registration requires a ₹50 lakh bank guarantee, which is precisely why unlicensed operators outnumber licensed ones — in the last detailed count, Punjab had 30 registered agents against a trade running to hundreds.
Where: mea.gov.in/ras and eMigrate. Some states publish their own lists on top — the Punjab NRI Affairs Department publishes district-wise registers of licensed travel agents and MEA-registered recruiting agents, which is one of the few state portals where you can check in a couple of minutes.
What a blank result means. If the operator is not there, they are not licensed to recruit you for work abroad. That is not a technicality — the whole apparatus of complaint and redress through the Protector of Emigrants runs on that licence.
Register two: the Czech side
Employment agencies in Czechia operate under a licence from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. The register is published as open data, updated daily.
Where: data.mpsv.cz/web/data/agentury-prace. The dataset lists the agency's identification data, its responsible representative, address and branches, which forms of mediation it is permitted to carry out, and the validity of the permit.
Separately, the company itself has an IČO — a business identification number — searchable in the Czech business register. Two different things: the IČO proves the company exists, the MPSV licence proves it may place workers.
Check the permitted forms of mediation and the validity dates, not just that a name appears. A lapsed permit is a common finding.
What a clean result does not prove
Registration is necessary, not sufficient, and it is worth being precise about the gap.
- It does not prove the job exists. One of the mandatory refusal grounds for a Czech employee card is fictitious employment, which exists as a ground because it happens.
- It does not prove the employer is sound. Czechia maintains a list of unreliable employers, and an application can be refused on the employer's record rather than yours.
- It does not prove the person you are talking to represents the agency. Impersonating a licensed agency is a documented pattern. Contact the agency through the number on the register or on its own site, not the number in the advert.
So run the register check, then run the second layer: ask for the employer's legal name and site address, and look at whether that employer has a real intake.
The structural test, which is faster than either register
There is one check that requires no lookup at all, and for the Indian corridor it is close to decisive.
The Czech embassy in New Delhi states that employee card applications are accepted only within the government economic-migration programmes, and that individual applicants cannot book an appointment directly. Programme places are allocated to employers, not to candidates.
Therefore: anyone offering you a personal appointment at the embassy, a fast-track slot, or a direct individual filing is describing something that does not exist. They do not need to be checked against a register. They have already told you.
The same logic covers the timing claim. The Ministry of the Interior decision is 60 to 90 days by statute. A promise of three or four weeks is either a lie or a plan to send you on a short-stay Schengen visa, on which working is illegal and the consequences fall on you.
Check us
Our Czech legal name, IČO and employment agency licence number are in the footer of every page on this site. Both numbers are searchable in the registers above.
If they are not there when you look, that is because this site is still in preparation and the operator details have not been filled in — in which case do not send anyone money, including us, until they are.
Nine warning signs → · What an agency may and may not charge →
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from one of these. Where a fact could not be verified, we left it out rather than estimating.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check if a recruitment agency is legitimate?
Two registers. In India, mea.gov.in/ras and eMigrate for licensed Recruiting Agents. In Czechia, data.mpsv.cz for employment agency licences. Both free, both public, both a few minutes.
The agency is registered. Is the job safe?
Registration proves the entity is licensed, not that the specific vacancy is real. Fictitious employment is a statutory refusal ground for an employee card because it happens. Ask for the employer's legal name and site address as a second layer.
What is the single fastest test?
Ask whether they will get you a personal appointment at the Czech embassy in Delhi. Individual applicants cannot book one — filing goes through employers inside a government programme. Anyone promising a personal slot has answered the question for you.
What if I find them on the register but the phone number is different?
Contact them through the number on the register or their own website. Impersonating a licensed agency is a documented pattern in this corridor.
Who do I complain to in India?
The Protector of Emigrants for your region, through eMigrate. Kerala and Punjab also run state-level channels. Report even late — the case reports show complaints typically arrive after the office has closed.
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