The first two days: four things in order
The order is: suspend work, preserve evidence, verify the record, brief management and counsel. First, stop the employee's work. This is not an on-the-spot dismissal. It is a written notice that he should not report for duty while documents are checked. Letting him continue before the position is confirmed moves the company from "unaware" to "aware."
Second, preserve the evidence. Gather the copies on file, the onboarding papers, emails and chats about the visa processing, payment records, and the identity of whoever handled it and through which firm or individual. Nobody should delete anything or "re-do" the onboarding file. Do not hold the employee's original passport or cards, because withholding another person's documents is a legal problem of its own. Photograph them and let him keep them.
Third, verify. Through proper channels or an accredited firm, check with the authorities whether any valid employment permit and work visa exist under this person's name. In many of these cases the employee is a victim too, having believed that the company's administrator or an agent had arranged everything; see told your visa is fake after using an agent. Fourth, report the facts to the head of the company and have a lawyer review them before anything is said outside.
Write down the date and time of each of these four steps as you take them. A simple log showing that the company acted within hours of learning the truth is one of the most useful documents it can hold later. Keep the log factual and free of opinion about who is to blame.
Find out how the fake document got in: three sources, three levels of blame
The source of the document shapes how much responsibility falls on the company, so establish it before deciding anything. In the first pattern, the employee brought it. He said he already had a work visa and supplied a copy that was forged or belonged to another employer. The company's failure then lies in not verifying at onboarding and in not obtaining authorisation under its own name. Work authorisation is tied to a specific employer, so even a genuine visa held under another company does not permit work for you.
In the second pattern, a middleman engaged by the company produced it. An administrator, to save effort or time, handed the processing to an unaccredited individual who took the money and returned a forgery. The employee is usually a victim here, and the company has to face the fact that its own staff chose the channel. How responsibility divides is discussed in when company HR used a fixer.
In the third pattern, someone inside the company took part, for instance a handler who knew or profited. That is no longer a compliance lapse. It is an internal matter with possible criminal dimensions, and the handler must be kept away from the inquiry while management and counsel take over. In all three, resist announcing whose fault it is. Fix the facts first and characterise them later.
Interview the people involved separately and ask each to write a short account in their own words. Compare the accounts with the payment records before drawing any conclusion about which pattern you are dealing with here.
What the company may be exposed to
Broadly three layers: employment compliance, sponsorship and reporting duties, and case-specific administrative or criminal liability, all subject to what the authorities and courts decide. On the labour side, the core issue is a foreign national working for the company without valid authorisation. On the immigration side, it is the employer's sponsorship and reporting obligations for its foreign staff. Payroll, withholding tax and social contributions leave a record that shows the person did work there and for how long.
Management usually asks whether not knowing is a defence. Lack of knowledge is a factual claim that needs support: what checks were made at onboarding, who handled the matter, what was paid, and how quickly the company acted on discovery. Conduct after discovery weighs heavily. Stopping work promptly, verifying and correcting is one situation. Continuing to employ, concealing or destroying records is an entirely different one.
Think also about knock-on effects: whether future applications for other foreign staff will be examined more closely, whether applications already pending are affected, and whether an inspection may follow. There is no uniform answer. If inspectors do arrive, see what to do in an immigration raid. Consult a licensed lawyer on the specific case. This article is not legal advice.
None of this can be reduced to a formula, which is why the facts you fix in the first two days carry so much weight in every conversation that follows, whether with a regulator, an inspector or your own counsel. Decide early who in the company is authorised to speak about the matter, and ask everyone else to refer questions to that person.
Dealing with the employee: no confiscation, no private deal, no delay
Treat the employment relationship and the immigration status as two separate matters and document both. On status, he currently holds no valid authorisation to work and so cannot continue. The next question is whether the company is willing and able to apply for him properly. That depends on whether his present stay is lawful, whether he has overstayed and whether there is any adverse record. Whether and how it can be done is for the authorities under their current practice, and the company should promise him nothing.
On employment, his treatment during suspension, whether the contract ends and by what procedure must follow due process under labour law. "His papers were fake" does not allow anyone to tell him verbally to leave. If the forgery came through the company's own channel, he may have claims against the company, which belongs in the decision.
Three things not to do. Do not keep his passport or cards as leverage until the matter is resolved. Do not have him sign a statement accepting all responsibility and treat the matter as closed; such papers carry limited weight and mainly show the company knew. Do not suggest he leave the country for a while or carry on under some other status. If he needs independent advice, he should find his own lawyer or accredited firm.
Communicate with him in writing, in a language he reads comfortably, and keep the tone factual. He is likely to be frightened, and a frightened person who feels cornered makes choices that help nobody, including the company. Give him a named contact for questions.
Auditing everyone: building a document register for foreign staff
If one person's papers are bad, assume that others processed through the same channel in the same period need checking. The audit covers every foreign national in the company, including seconded managers, consultants and people nominally under an affiliate who in fact work in your office. Start with those handled by the same individual or intermediary and then widen to everyone.
The register should hold at least: name, passport number and passport expiry; the employment permit's employer name, position and validity; the work visa's type, employer name and validity; the ACR I-Card number and validity; whether the annual report was done and the proof; who handled each document, through which firm, and whether the Official Receipt is on file; and the date and method of the last verification. Employer name and position are the columns most often skipped. A genuine document issued for another company or another position is still unusable.
Do not verify from photocopies. Examine originals, Official Receipts and orders, and confirm the record through official channels or an accredited firm. For checking a visa or card yourself, see how to verify a visa or ACR card. Then set expiry reminders and make it a rule of onboarding that no foreign hire starts work until verification is complete. Keep the register in the company's hands, never solely with an outside handler.
Assign one named person to own the register and a second to review it each quarter, and record both names on the document itself so that responsibility does not evaporate when someone leaves the company or changes role.
Preventing a repeat, and where Yixing fits
Turn visa processing from "admin finds someone" into a process with records and a second pair of eyes. Four rules do most of the work. Engage only firms accredited by the Bureau of Immigration and the labour department, and keep the engagement contract. Book government fees against Official Receipts and refuse package prices without receipts. Separate the handler from the reviewer, with finance seeing the filing acknowledgment before paying. Run a full document review once a year, aligned with the annual report period.
A fast-growing company with many foreign staff should move expiry tracking into its HR system so it no longer depends on one administrator's memory. When staff change, the handover list must include each foreign employee's document status and anything in progress.
Yixing can carry out a full check of a company's foreign staff documents, set up the register and reminders, and process employment permits and work visas through proper channels for those who need them, through our visa and HR service. Yixing is a private consultancy registered with the Philippine SEC (CS202009551), accredited by the Bureau of Immigration (BI Accreditation No. CA-202624381-1, valid to 2027-06-30) and by DOLE. We are not part of any government office, we do not handle criminal or liability matters, and we do not promise approvals.
If your company prefers to keep processing in-house, the same service can be limited to an annual independent review of the register, which is often enough to catch a problem while it is still small. Either way, the register stays yours and the decisions stay with your management.
Frequently Asked Questions
We found an employee's work visa is fake. Must we dismiss him immediately?
The company did not know. Is it still liable?
Can we hold his passport until this is sorted out?
He has a genuine work visa under another company. Can he work for us?
If one person has a problem, should we check all foreign staff?
What should the document register contain?
Can we get him a genuine visa now?
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