How to officially register an employee in Uzbekistan

The sequence, start to finish

Everything below assumes an ordinary hire of an Uzbek citizen. Each step feeds the next — the order, the ЕНСТ record and the electronic labour book all reference the contract, so the contract comes first.

• 1. Agree terms and sign the employment contract — in writing, two copies, one for each side. What must be inside it is a separate topic; the short version: position, place of work, pay, start date, and the probation clause if you want one (it cannot be added later).
• 2. Issue the hiring order (приказ) based on the signed contract. The employee signs to confirm they have read it.
• 3. Register the contract in the ЕНСТ at my.mehnat.uz — within 5 working days of concluding it. This creates the entry in the employee’s electronic labour book.
• 4. Have the employee sign off on the internal labour rules (правила внутреннего трудового распорядка) and, if you have one, the collective agreement.
• 5. For specific categories — minors, food service, some production roles — a medical examination is required before work starts.

Documents to collect from the employee

The standard set is short. Asking for documents beyond what the law names — residence registration for locals, references, marital status — is not a lawful hiring condition.

• Passport or ID card (under 16: birth certificate)
• Diploma or qualification certificate — when the position actually requires one
• Labour book, but only for people who started working before 2020: paper blanks stopped being issued on 1 January 2020, and anyone hired since has an electronic record in the ЕНСТ instead. For a first job, there is simply nothing to ask for.
• ИНПС card (accumulative pension account number)
• Military registration document — for those liable for service
• For a second job (совместительство): a certificate from the main employer

The deadlines that actually bite

Two dates matter more than everything else. First: registration in the ЕНСТ within five working days of concluding the contract — this is the step inspections check first, because it is visible to the state in one click.

Second, and less obvious: the day you let someone start. Under the Labour Code, employment relations arise either when the contract is signed or when the person is actually allowed to start work with the employer’s knowledge — whichever happens first. “They’re just trying it out for a few days, we’ll sign later” is, legally, an unregistered employment relationship, with everything that follows from that.

If you want a trial period, it exists only as a written clause in the contract itself — read how probation works in Uzbekistan before you write one, because the limits are strict.

Mistakes that cost real money

• Letting someone work “before we sign” — the relationship already exists, but none of your protections (probation clause, agreed pay, agreed duties) are on paper.
• Missing the 5-working-day ЕНСТ window — the most easily detected violation of the whole process.
• Writing a probation clause into the order but not the contract — probation exists only if the contract says so.
• Demanding a paper labour book from someone whose whole career is post-2020 — it does not exist, and hiring cannot be conditioned on it.
• Paying a foreign employee in cash — foreign workers must be paid to a bank account, and they need a work permit before the relationship starts.

Before the paperwork: finding the person

The legal part of hiring is the fast part. Finding someone worth hiring is what takes weeks. If you are still at that stage: on Flexa you can post one job per month free, applications come with contact details and profiles, and salary benchmarks for common roles are open at flexa.jobs/salaries — useful for setting a number that gets responses before you commit it to a contract.