What Should You Consider before Sending Staff Abroad? Let’s Talk about Foreign Contracts of Service

Before posting an employee to work outside Kenya, whether to a regional office, a client site, or a project abroad, an employer must document the engagement appropriately – through a foreign contract of service.  

Beyond legitimate foreign assignments, this area of law has become increasingly relevant given the plight of Kenyan workers shipped abroad under the guise of “promised prosperity”. Crafty agents broker deals between unsuspecting workers and foreign employers, leaving these workers with little to no protection from exploitation once they land in their destination countries. 

 

What is a foreign contract of service? 

A foreign contract of service is not expressly defined under the Employment Act, 2007 (the Act), but was defined in the repealed Act as an employment contract made in Kenya but performed either wholly or partly outside the country. The Employment and Labour Relations Court (ELRC) has affirmed this definition (see Kamurasi v Absa Bank Kenya PLC & another [2023] KEELRC 3229 (KLR)). 

The employer can be a Kenya-based organisation, or a foreign one hiring a Kenyan to work at its offices abroad. Either way, one or both parties must be Kenyan. It is the location where the contract is performed that makes it foreign. 

This definition puts these contracts outside the ordinary rules for standard local employment contracts entirely. Instead, they are governed by a dedicated set of provisions under Part XI of the Act designed specifically to manage the risks of working in another jurisdiction and to protect Kenyan citizens from exploitation.  

Why a separate track, you may ask? The answer is simple. Once someone is working abroad, they are harder to protect. Kenyan labour officers cannot easily monitor conditions on the ground in another country, so the law front-loads the protections by requiring scrutiny and sign-off before the employee leaves, rather than relying on enforcement after the fact. 

So, here is what you need to get right before anyone boards a flight. 

 

The Core Requirements 

1. Prescribed form and attestation – A foreign contract of service must be in the prescribed form (per the Sixth Schedule of the Employment (General) Rules, 2014) and attested by a labour officer before it takes effect.  
2. What the labour officer verifies – Before attesting the contract, the labour officer must be satisfied that:(i) the contract is in the prescribed form;

   (ii) the employee understands what they are signing and freely consents to it (without being induced or coerced);

   (iii) the terms of the contract comply with the Act;

   (iv) the employee is medically fit for the work involved; and

   (v) the employee is not already bound under another existing contract of service.

3. Security bonds: 

• Where the employer does not reside or carry on business in Kenya, it must give a security bond, with one or more sureties resident in Kenya, guaranteeing that the employer will meet its obligations under the contract.  

• If the employer resides in Kenya, the labour officer has the discretion to require a security bond. 

• If the employer has an authorised agent resident in Kenya, the Cabinet Secretary for Labour and Social Protection may require the agent to issue the security bond and be personally liable for it. 

 

The security bond protects the employee by providing recourse if the employer defaults on its obligations.

4. It is a criminal offence to induce an employee into an informal foreign contract or to fail to formalise one – Agents who broker foreign jobs for unsuspecting Kenyan workers, acting as middlemen in these transitions abroad, should take note: their days are numbered. 

 

Sending someone to work outside Kenya without going through the prescribed process, including verification and attestation by the labour officer, is a criminal offence carrying a fine of up to Kshs. 200,000, or imprisonment for up to six months, or both. 

 

What happens if you fail to formalise? 

Aside from constituting a criminal offence, failing to follow the prescribed process can also render a foreign contract illegal and unenforceable, as the ELRC has made clear. In Kihu v Optisafe (K) Ltd [2024] KEELRC 527 (KLR), the court declined to enforce the contract in favour of the employee since she had knowingly gone along with the non-compliant arrangement.  

But it is not that simple. In Geoffrey Gitau Wainoga v Goal South Sudan [2019] KEELRC 1294 (KLR), the ELRC held that if foreign contracts of service were to be declared null, void, and unenforceable in every instance, employees would be left exposed in a disproportionate manner. It held that the statutory provisions on concluding foreign contracts of service are carefully designed to protect innocent citizens and therefore, in appropriate cases, it should be possible to enforce such contracts at the instance of the disadvantaged employee, and it did. 

Therefore, unenforceability tends to cut against the employer, not the employee. But as Kihu shows, that protection is not automatic; it can hinge on whether the employee also knowingly went along with skirting the law. 

In practice, an employer who fails to obtain attestation can end up bound by statutory obligations without the benefit of enforceable contract terms in return. 

There is also the reputational and operational risk to consider. If an unattested foreign posting later runs into a dispute on non-payment, unsafe conditions, wrongful termination abroad, among others, it becomes far harder to defend without the appropriate paper trail. 

 

So, what should you do before posting anyone abroad? 

1. Confirm the posting genuinely qualifies as a foreign contract of service (made in Kenya, performed wholly or partly outside it). 
2. Draft the contract in the prescribed form. Do not adapt a standard local employment contract and assume it will do. We shall dissect the mandatory provisions of a foreign contract of service in our next article. 
3. Obtain attestation from a labour officer before the employee departs, not after. 
4. If your organisation does not reside or do business in Kenya, budget for the security bond requirement. 
5. Keep the attested documentation on file. This will be your evidence of compliance if a dispute ever arises. 

 

Conclusion 

Foreign postings tend to happen on tight timelines, for example, where a client urgently needs someone on the ground, or where a regional office needs immediate coverage. This is exactly when compliance steps get rushed or skipped. That is a risky place to cut corners, given the criminal liability attached to non-compliance and the enforceability issues that follow. 

If your organisation is planning to send employees to work outside Kenya, our team can help you structure compliant foreign contracts of service from the outset and avoid the risk of adverse enforcement action. Get in touch with us at info@hrfleek.com to book a consultation.