25/04/2017
Nationals of other countries come to Slovakia for various reasons, including employment, doing business, attending university or accompanying a family member. If a foreign national desires to remain in Slovakia for one of the above reasons, that person must apply for temporary residence. A person who has been granted a temporary residence permit in Slovakia can enter and remain in the Slovak Republic during the entire period for which the permit was granted. A foreign national may only be granted a temporary residence permit for one specific purpose. What that means is that if that person obtained a temporary residence permit for employment, then that person is not allowed to conduct business as an independent business owner during that same period of time. In reality, this can cause problems, because a foreign national can be engaged by a large international corporation and at the same time they might offer independent translation services as a consultant. That would require a separate temporary residence permit for the translation consultancy. Essentially, a temporary residence permit in Slovakia qualifies and defines the specific activities that a foreign national can do here. The most frequent purposes for granting temporary residence permits in Slovakia are for employment and for conducting business. Temporary residence permits are granted usually for two years for employment and for one and half year for conducting business; the temporary permit may be extended repeatedly.
If a foreign national wants to work in Slovakia or if they are seconded here by their company, they must apply for a temporary residence permit for employment. Under the former legislation, employees from non-EU member countries had to submit two applications - one application for an employment permit, and after that was submitted another application for temporary residence. That type of duplication made the entire process take much longer and the filing deadlines were frequently missed as a result. Foreign nationals no longer have to submit two applications, as now there is only one application entitled βunified residence applicationβ, which can be filed directly at the immigration division of the police department.
Previously, it was required that prior to the temporary residence application, the prospective employer first had to report to the employment office that there was a position open; there is no change in the new legislation, so the employer is still required to do this. What did change, though, is the deadline has now been extended from 14 days to 30 days. That means that an application for a unified temporary residence permit cannot be submitted to the immigration authorities until 30 days after the employer has reported the available position to the employment office.
After submitting the application for unified residence permit, immigration authorities request the employment office to confirm that the new opening has been filled by that specific foreign national. Essentially, this means the immigration authorities will handle the entire process for the applicant to be granted the temporary permit.
One fundamental change the amendment has introduced is that the immigration authorities are obligated to accept incomplete applications for the unified temporary residence permit. That means the immigration authorities will accept applications from foreign nationals who submit only a passport and pays the administrative fee. All the other required documents should be submitted within following five days.
