Two Years At A Time, A Household You Must Actually Share, And A Divorce Clause That Keeps You Here If The Child Stays With You
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Slovakia on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
172 exceptions recorded across 63 countries · none match Slovakia to Latvia · Residency through marriage
The spouse of a Latvian citizen, of a Latvian non-citizen, or of a foreigner holding a permanent residence permit may ask for a temporary residence permit of up to two years under point 2 of article 27(1), and the point writes the condition into the grant: the permit is issued on condition that the spouses will live together and have a common household. Article 44(2) gives that spouse unrestricted employment rights, and the spouse of a citizen or non-citizen who holds only a temporary permit is still entitled under article 9(2) of the Veselības aprūpes finansēšanas likums to State-paid childbirth assistance even though the rest of the State-paid minimum is closed to temporary permit holders. The Act also plans for the marriage ending. Point 8 of article 27(1) gives a permit until the divorce judgment takes effect or the sworn notary issues the divorce certificate and the child's residence is determined, but no longer than a year, where the marriage is being dissolved and there is a child who is a Latvian citizen or non-citizen. Point 35(a) carries it further: where the marriage has been dissolved and the minor child of the foreigner and the former spouse - a Latvian citizen or non-citizen - has had their residence set with the foreigner, a two-year permit follows.
At a glance
- Permit length
- Up to 2 years
Article 27(1)(2) of the Imigrācijas likums.
- Condition written into the grant
- Living together and a common household
Article 27(1)(2), which states it as a condition of issue rather than as a later check.
- Work rights
- Unrestricted
Article 44(2) of the Imigrācijas likums, which covers the spouse and the spouse's child.
- On divorce, with a child who is a citizen or non-citizen
- Up to 1 year, then up to 2 more
Article 27(1)(8) runs to the divorce decision and no longer than a year; article 27(1)(35)(a) then gives up to two years where the child's residence is set with the foreigner.
- Healthcare on this permit
- State-paid childbirth assistance only
Article 9(2) of the Veselības aprūpes finansēšanas likums, for the spouse of a Latvian citizen or non-citizen holding a temporary residence permit.
- Towards permanent residence
- 5 continuous years
Article 31(1) of the Imigrācijas likums, which counts residence on any permit and asks for Latvian at A2 and a culture and history course.
Requirements
- Marriage to a Latvian citizen, a Latvian non-citizen, or a foreigner with a permanent residence permit
- Living together with a common household
- An izsaukums, except in the cases article 25(1) lists
- A valid health insurance policy and the funds set by Cabinet Regulation No. 225
Country-level policy
No other country in this corpus has anything like the Latvijas nepilsonis. It was created by a law of 12 April 1995 whose title states its subject matter exactly: On the Status of Those Former USSR Citizens Who Do Not Have the Citizenship of Latvia or That of Any Other State. Article 1(1) defines the subjects as former USSR citizens living in Latvia, and their children, who meet three conditions at once - registered in the territory of Latvia on 1 July 1992, or with their last registered residence in Latvia by that date, or with ten years of continuous residence to that date established by a court; who are not Latvian citizens; and who are not and have never been citizens of any other state. What it is not is stated twice, by two instruments. It is not Latvian citizenship: article 1(1)(2) of the 1995 law says so, and the Pilsonības likums treats the nepilsonis as a separate third thing from the citizen of another state and from the stateless person in both article 12(1)(1) and article 12(1)(6). It is not statelessness: article 3(2) of the Bezvalstnieku likums says a person who is a subject of the 1995 law cannot be recognised as stateless, and article 2(2) says a person who has lost non-citizen status is to be recognised as stateless if they have no other citizenship. So the answer to whether it is a nationality is no on the face of the statutes, and the statutes also deny the usual alternative. What the status does carry is the thing international law treats as the core of nationality: article 2(2)(2) gives the right not to be expelled from Latvia, save by law and with another state's consent, and forbids expulsion to a state where the person is persecuted and forbids collective expulsion. Latvian immigration, employment and healthcare law then treat the non-citizen alongside the citizen rather than alongside the foreigner. The status is also closing: a law of 17 October 2019 ends the granting of it to children born after 1 January 2020 and recognises those children as Latvian citizens instead.
On 15 September 2026 a wholly new Imigrācijas likums, adopted by the Saeima on 20 August 2026 and published in Latvijas Vēstnesis 167 of 1 September 2026, replaced the Act of 31 October 2002. Transitional provision 1 repeals the old Act outright, and transitional provision 2 repeals the separate law on EU long-term resident status, folding that status into article 24(1)(2) as the pastāvīgās uzturēšanās atļauja. The renumbering is total: the catalogue of temporary residence grounds moved from article 23 to article 27, permanent residence from a separate Act to article 31, employment from article 9 to articles 42 to 47. Three things the new Act brings are new in substance rather than in numbering. Article 12 creates a duty to declare a trip 48 hours before entry for nationals of every state outside ten named groups. Articles 48 and 49 create a compulsory early integration programme - a Latvian culture and history course and Latvian at A1 - for anyone whose temporary permits total 18 months or more, paid for by the foreigner; transitional provision 20 postpones article 48 to 31 December 2027. And article 27 simply does not contain the property and bank investor routes the old Act carried. The subordinate legislation has not caught up. Transitional provision 3 keeps thirty-six Cabinet regulations applicable until 1 December 2027 in so far as they do not conflict with the new Act, and those regulations still cite the repealed Act's article numbers on their face: Regulation No. 675 is issued under article 2.1(2) and Regulation No. 225 under article 4(1)(5) and 4.2(3), and the Act in force has neither article.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Slovakia
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«2) uz laiku līdz diviem gadiem, ja viņš ir Latvijas pilsoņa, Latvijas nepilsoņa vai pastāvīgās uzturēšanās atļauju Latvijas Republikā saņēmuša ārzemnieka laulātais. Šajā punktā minētajos gadījumos uzturēšanās atļauju izsniedz ar nosacījumu, ka laulātie dzīvos kopā un viņiem ir kopīga mājsaimniecība;»Our translation - not official
for a period of up to two years, if he is the spouse of a Latvian citizen, of a Latvian non-citizen or of a foreigner who has received a permanent residence permit in the Republic of Latvia. In the cases referred to in this point the residence permit is issued on condition that the spouses will live together and have a common household;
About this source
The systematisation service of Latvia's official publisher. The state joint-stock company Latvijas Vēstnesis issues the official gazette at vestnesis.lv and separately runs likumi.lv, where every instrument is kept as a series of point-in-time versions. An instrument is addressed by a numeric document id, as /ta/id/370622-imigracijas-likums or simply /ta/id/370622, and the slug is decorative: the bare id answers. Each page carries a version selector showing the redaction in force and the date range it covers - Attēlotā redakcija, 15.09.2026.-30.12.2027. Spēkā esošā - and, where an amendment has been adopted but has not yet taken effect, a future redaction with its own date. The page footer carries the act's identity card: issuing body, date adopted, date in force, and the Latvijas Vēstnesis issue and OP number of the official publication. A repealed instrument keeps its address and gains a banner naming its successor, which is how the replacement of the Imigrācijas likums on 15 September 2026 is discoverable at all. Firecrawl reads the site without a proxy or a warm-up.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **Nothing here is the official text.** Every page carries, in its own words, "Sistematizēti tiesību akti ir informatīvi. Pretrunu gadījumā vadās pēc oficiālās publikācijas" - systematised legal acts are informative, and in case of contradiction the official publication governs. The official publication is the gazette at vestnesis.lv, identified by issue number and OP number, and a point that turns on an exact wording should be checked there. **The hyperlinks in a consolidated text follow a name rather than an instrument, and they move silently.** Cabinet regulations issued under the Imigrācijas likums still cite the repealed 2002 Act's article numbers on their face, and likumi.lv now renders those references as links to the 2026 Act: Regulation No. 675 reads "Izdoti saskaņā ar Imigrācijas likuma 2.1 panta otro daļu" linking to an Act that has no article 2.1, and Regulation No. 225 does the same for articles 4(1)(5) and 4.2(3). Nothing on either page says the reference has moved. **A statute's body is served inside an HTML table and extracts with literal `<br>` between every paragraph and every numbered point.** A quotation that crosses one carries the tag, so quotations must be taken within a single point. **The version date is the date the redaction took effect, not a sweep date**, so the cut-off recorded from it says what has been incorporated and not when the editors last looked. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the sector average wages that Cabinet Regulation No. 225 point 5.3 measures a work visa against, which the Central Statistical Bureau publishes; the needy-person income level that Cabinet Regulation No. 675 measures a Union citizen's means against; the average payment-account fee that caps the basic account, which the Finance Latvia Association publishes quarterly; the list of states Latvia has a bilateral visa-waiver treaty or a driving-licence treaty with, which appears in no instrument read here; and the practice of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, which publishes at pmlp.gov.lv and is a different publisher.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«8) uz laiku līdz dienai, kad stājies spēkā tiesas spriedums par laulības šķiršanu un bērna dzīvesvietas noteikšanu, vai līdz dienai, kad zvērināts notārs taisījis laulības šķiršanas apliecību un noteikta bērna dzīvesvieta, bet ne ilgāk par gadu, ja laulību šķir un laulībā ir bērns, kas ir Latvijas pilsonis vai Latvijas nepilsonis;»Our translation - not official
for a period until the day the court judgment on the dissolution of the marriage and on determining the child's place of residence takes effect, or until the day a sworn notary has drawn up the certificate of dissolution of the marriage and the child's place of residence has been determined, but no longer than a year, where the marriage is being dissolved and there is a child of the marriage who is a Latvian citizen or a Latvian non-citizen;
About this source
The systematisation service of Latvia's official publisher. The state joint-stock company Latvijas Vēstnesis issues the official gazette at vestnesis.lv and separately runs likumi.lv, where every instrument is kept as a series of point-in-time versions. An instrument is addressed by a numeric document id, as /ta/id/370622-imigracijas-likums or simply /ta/id/370622, and the slug is decorative: the bare id answers. Each page carries a version selector showing the redaction in force and the date range it covers - Attēlotā redakcija, 15.09.2026.-30.12.2027. Spēkā esošā - and, where an amendment has been adopted but has not yet taken effect, a future redaction with its own date. The page footer carries the act's identity card: issuing body, date adopted, date in force, and the Latvijas Vēstnesis issue and OP number of the official publication. A repealed instrument keeps its address and gains a banner naming its successor, which is how the replacement of the Imigrācijas likums on 15 September 2026 is discoverable at all. Firecrawl reads the site without a proxy or a warm-up.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **Nothing here is the official text.** Every page carries, in its own words, "Sistematizēti tiesību akti ir informatīvi. Pretrunu gadījumā vadās pēc oficiālās publikācijas" - systematised legal acts are informative, and in case of contradiction the official publication governs. The official publication is the gazette at vestnesis.lv, identified by issue number and OP number, and a point that turns on an exact wording should be checked there. **The hyperlinks in a consolidated text follow a name rather than an instrument, and they move silently.** Cabinet regulations issued under the Imigrācijas likums still cite the repealed 2002 Act's article numbers on their face, and likumi.lv now renders those references as links to the 2026 Act: Regulation No. 675 reads "Izdoti saskaņā ar Imigrācijas likuma 2.1 panta otro daļu" linking to an Act that has no article 2.1, and Regulation No. 225 does the same for articles 4(1)(5) and 4.2(3). Nothing on either page says the reference has moved. **A statute's body is served inside an HTML table and extracts with literal `<br>` between every paragraph and every numbered point.** A quotation that crosses one carries the tag, so quotations must be taken within a single point. **The version date is the date the redaction took effect, not a sweep date**, so the cut-off recorded from it says what has been incorporated and not when the editors last looked. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the sector average wages that Cabinet Regulation No. 225 point 5.3 measures a work visa against, which the Central Statistical Bureau publishes; the needy-person income level that Cabinet Regulation No. 675 measures a Union citizen's means against; the average payment-account fee that caps the basic account, which the Finance Latvia Association publishes quarterly; the list of states Latvia has a bilateral visa-waiver treaty or a driving-licence treaty with, which appears in no instrument read here; and the practice of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, which publishes at pmlp.gov.lv and is a different publisher.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«2) termiņuzturēšanās atļauju kā Latvijas pilsoņa, Latvijas nepilsoņa vai pastāvīgās uzturēšanās atļauju saņēmuša ārzemnieka laulātais vai laulātā bērns;»Our translation - not official
a temporary residence permit as the spouse, or the spouse's child, of a Latvian citizen, of a Latvian non-citizen or of a foreigner who has received a permanent residence permit;
About this source
The systematisation service of Latvia's official publisher. The state joint-stock company Latvijas Vēstnesis issues the official gazette at vestnesis.lv and separately runs likumi.lv, where every instrument is kept as a series of point-in-time versions. An instrument is addressed by a numeric document id, as /ta/id/370622-imigracijas-likums or simply /ta/id/370622, and the slug is decorative: the bare id answers. Each page carries a version selector showing the redaction in force and the date range it covers - Attēlotā redakcija, 15.09.2026.-30.12.2027. Spēkā esošā - and, where an amendment has been adopted but has not yet taken effect, a future redaction with its own date. The page footer carries the act's identity card: issuing body, date adopted, date in force, and the Latvijas Vēstnesis issue and OP number of the official publication. A repealed instrument keeps its address and gains a banner naming its successor, which is how the replacement of the Imigrācijas likums on 15 September 2026 is discoverable at all. Firecrawl reads the site without a proxy or a warm-up.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **Nothing here is the official text.** Every page carries, in its own words, "Sistematizēti tiesību akti ir informatīvi. Pretrunu gadījumā vadās pēc oficiālās publikācijas" - systematised legal acts are informative, and in case of contradiction the official publication governs. The official publication is the gazette at vestnesis.lv, identified by issue number and OP number, and a point that turns on an exact wording should be checked there. **The hyperlinks in a consolidated text follow a name rather than an instrument, and they move silently.** Cabinet regulations issued under the Imigrācijas likums still cite the repealed 2002 Act's article numbers on their face, and likumi.lv now renders those references as links to the 2026 Act: Regulation No. 675 reads "Izdoti saskaņā ar Imigrācijas likuma 2.1 panta otro daļu" linking to an Act that has no article 2.1, and Regulation No. 225 does the same for articles 4(1)(5) and 4.2(3). Nothing on either page says the reference has moved. **A statute's body is served inside an HTML table and extracts with literal `<br>` between every paragraph and every numbered point.** A quotation that crosses one carries the tag, so quotations must be taken within a single point. **The version date is the date the redaction took effect, not a sweep date**, so the cut-off recorded from it says what has been incorporated and not when the editors last looked. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the sector average wages that Cabinet Regulation No. 225 point 5.3 measures a work visa against, which the Central Statistical Bureau publishes; the needy-person income level that Cabinet Regulation No. 675 measures a Union citizen's means against; the average payment-account fee that caps the basic account, which the Finance Latvia Association publishes quarterly; the list of states Latvia has a bilateral visa-waiver treaty or a driving-licence treaty with, which appears in no instrument read here; and the practice of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, which publishes at pmlp.gov.lv and is a different publisher.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«(2) Latvijas pilsoņa vai Latvijas nepilsoņa laulātajam, kuram ir termiņuzturēšanās atļauja, bet kurš nav šā likuma 11\. pantā minētā persona, ir tiesības saņemt valsts apmaksātu dzemdību palīdzību.»Our translation - not official
The spouse of a Latvian citizen or of a Latvian non-citizen who holds a temporary residence permit but who is not a person referred to in article 11 of this Act is entitled to receive State-paid childbirth assistance.
About this source
The systematisation service of Latvia's official publisher. The state joint-stock company Latvijas Vēstnesis issues the official gazette at vestnesis.lv and separately runs likumi.lv, where every instrument is kept as a series of point-in-time versions. An instrument is addressed by a numeric document id, as /ta/id/370622-imigracijas-likums or simply /ta/id/370622, and the slug is decorative: the bare id answers. Each page carries a version selector showing the redaction in force and the date range it covers - Attēlotā redakcija, 15.09.2026.-30.12.2027. Spēkā esošā - and, where an amendment has been adopted but has not yet taken effect, a future redaction with its own date. The page footer carries the act's identity card: issuing body, date adopted, date in force, and the Latvijas Vēstnesis issue and OP number of the official publication. A repealed instrument keeps its address and gains a banner naming its successor, which is how the replacement of the Imigrācijas likums on 15 September 2026 is discoverable at all. Firecrawl reads the site without a proxy or a warm-up.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **Nothing here is the official text.** Every page carries, in its own words, "Sistematizēti tiesību akti ir informatīvi. Pretrunu gadījumā vadās pēc oficiālās publikācijas" - systematised legal acts are informative, and in case of contradiction the official publication governs. The official publication is the gazette at vestnesis.lv, identified by issue number and OP number, and a point that turns on an exact wording should be checked there. **The hyperlinks in a consolidated text follow a name rather than an instrument, and they move silently.** Cabinet regulations issued under the Imigrācijas likums still cite the repealed 2002 Act's article numbers on their face, and likumi.lv now renders those references as links to the 2026 Act: Regulation No. 675 reads "Izdoti saskaņā ar Imigrācijas likuma 2.1 panta otro daļu" linking to an Act that has no article 2.1, and Regulation No. 225 does the same for articles 4(1)(5) and 4.2(3). Nothing on either page says the reference has moved. **A statute's body is served inside an HTML table and extracts with literal `<br>` between every paragraph and every numbered point.** A quotation that crosses one carries the tag, so quotations must be taken within a single point. **The version date is the date the redaction took effect, not a sweep date**, so the cut-off recorded from it says what has been incorporated and not when the editors last looked. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the sector average wages that Cabinet Regulation No. 225 point 5.3 measures a work visa against, which the Central Statistical Bureau publishes; the needy-person income level that Cabinet Regulation No. 675 measures a Union citizen's means against; the average payment-account fee that caps the basic account, which the Finance Latvia Association publishes quarterly; the list of states Latvia has a bilateral visa-waiver treaty or a driving-licence treaty with, which appears in no instrument read here; and the practice of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, which publishes at pmlp.gov.lv and is a different publisher.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
A civil obligation outliving the permitted stay is no ground on its own: article 14 of the Imigrācijas likums says so in terms, which is why a property purchase, a loan or a contract does not by itself support a residence application here.
Article 25(1)(3) removes the need for an izsaukums where the foreigner has divorced or is divorcing, or the spouse has died, and a minor child who is a Latvian citizen or non-citizen is in the foreigner's care.
Latvia treats the Latvian non-citizen exactly as it treats the citizen for this purpose: both appear in the same breath in article 27(1)(2), in article 44(2) and in article 9(2) of the health financing law. See the country policy on non-citizens.
- consolidatesImigrācijas likums (2026)
Likumi.lv - VSIA "Latvijas Vēstnesis" · consolidated to 2026-09-15
About this source
The systematisation service of Latvia's official publisher. The state joint-stock company Latvijas Vēstnesis issues the official gazette at vestnesis.lv and separately runs likumi.lv, where every instrument is kept as a series of point-in-time versions. An instrument is addressed by a numeric document id, as /ta/id/370622-imigracijas-likums or simply /ta/id/370622, and the slug is decorative: the bare id answers. Each page carries a version selector showing the redaction in force and the date range it covers - Attēlotā redakcija, 15.09.2026.-30.12.2027. Spēkā esošā - and, where an amendment has been adopted but has not yet taken effect, a future redaction with its own date. The page footer carries the act's identity card: issuing body, date adopted, date in force, and the Latvijas Vēstnesis issue and OP number of the official publication. A repealed instrument keeps its address and gains a banner naming its successor, which is how the replacement of the Imigrācijas likums on 15 September 2026 is discoverable at all. Firecrawl reads the site without a proxy or a warm-up.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **Nothing here is the official text.** Every page carries, in its own words, "Sistematizēti tiesību akti ir informatīvi. Pretrunu gadījumā vadās pēc oficiālās publikācijas" - systematised legal acts are informative, and in case of contradiction the official publication governs. The official publication is the gazette at vestnesis.lv, identified by issue number and OP number, and a point that turns on an exact wording should be checked there. **The hyperlinks in a consolidated text follow a name rather than an instrument, and they move silently.** Cabinet regulations issued under the Imigrācijas likums still cite the repealed 2002 Act's article numbers on their face, and likumi.lv now renders those references as links to the 2026 Act: Regulation No. 675 reads "Izdoti saskaņā ar Imigrācijas likuma 2.1 panta otro daļu" linking to an Act that has no article 2.1, and Regulation No. 225 does the same for articles 4(1)(5) and 4.2(3). Nothing on either page says the reference has moved. **A statute's body is served inside an HTML table and extracts with literal `<br>` between every paragraph and every numbered point.** A quotation that crosses one carries the tag, so quotations must be taken within a single point. **The version date is the date the redaction took effect, not a sweep date**, so the cut-off recorded from it says what has been incorporated and not when the editors last looked. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the sector average wages that Cabinet Regulation No. 225 point 5.3 measures a work visa against, which the Central Statistical Bureau publishes; the needy-person income level that Cabinet Regulation No. 675 measures a Union citizen's means against; the average payment-account fee that caps the basic account, which the Finance Latvia Association publishes quarterly; the list of states Latvia has a bilateral visa-waiver treaty or a driving-licence treaty with, which appears in no instrument read here; and the practice of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, which publishes at pmlp.gov.lv and is a different publisher.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source