How to Check a Company in Qatar: CR Number, Trade License and Job Offer Scams

Job offers and business deals in Qatar are a favourite target for scammers, who copy real company names and logos. A short check takes ten minutes and can save you money and your passport details. This guide uses official statements where we could read them and labels everything else.

What a CR and a trade license are

A commercial registration, called a CR, is the company's legal record at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and lists its activities, partners and capital. A trade license, also called a commercial permit, is issued by the municipality and ties the business to a particular approved premises. This explanation comes from a Qatar Living guide, not from an official page, so treat it as a plain-language summary. Both are needed to run a business, and a company that cannot show them should make you pause.

Step by step: check the company

• **Ask for the documents.** A real company can show its CR and trade license. Look at the company name, the activity and the dates, and check that they match the name on your offer.
• **Use the Qatar Business Map.** The Ministry of Commerce and Industry launched the Qatar Business Map portal on 25 March 2022. The Qatar Tribune reported that it shows commercial establishments by region and the latest ones registered. The address is businessmap.moci.gov.qa. We could not load the portal's search pages, so we cannot say which searches the public can run.
• **Try the Qatar Chamber directory.** Search results we saw describe the Qatar Commercial and Industrial Directory at qatarcid.com as a place to look up member companies by name or CR number. We did not confirm it ourselves.
• **Check the QR code on official papers.** The same report says the Ministry added a QR code service so that the authorities can scan official documents and confirm that the commercial registration data is accurate. We could not confirm whether the public can use it.
• **Find the job on the company's own site.** Large employers post jobs only on their own career pages. QatarEnergy, for example, points candidates to careerportal.qatarenergy.qa and tells people to report fake offers to [email protected].
• **Check the email domain and phone number.** A job offer from a free email address, or from a domain that only looks like the company's, is a warning sign. Call the number on the company's official website, not the one in the message.
• **Check your contract and visa through official channels.** See our guide to checking your contract online.

Red flags in a job offer

Under Article 4 of Law No. 21 of 2015, an entry visa for work is given only on the basis of an employment contract made with the employer who brings the worker in. A promise of a visa with no contract is not how the system is meant to work. For who pays recruitment costs, see our recruitment fees guide, and for one well-known employer see Qatar Airways job scams.

If you have already paid or sent documents

• Stop sending money and documents.
• Keep every message, receipt, bank transfer and email address.
• If the scam used a real company's name, report it to that company through its official channel. QatarEnergy gives an email address for this on its page.
• If you are in Qatar and have a work problem with a real employer, see our labor complaint guide.
• If you are setting up your own business, see our business setup guide.

What we could not verify

• Which searches the public can run on the Qatar Business Map or the Qatar Chamber directory, because we could not load their search pages.
• Whether the public can scan the Ministry's QR code to verify a CR, or only the authorities.
• The format of a CR number and the exact difference between the CR and the trade license, beyond a secondary summary.
• Which Ministry of Labour or police channel is best for reporting a recruitment scam, since the Hukoomi portal was blocked to our tools.