Lithuania

The ordinary work permit under article 44 of the Įstatymas dėl užsieniečių teisinės padėties is an employer's undertaking rather than the worker's application: the employer must commit to a full-time job of at least six months and to a wage meeting article 62(5), and the worker must have either a qualification or a year's relevant experience in the last three - or, failing both, an employer willing to pay at least the last published average monthly gross wage in the economy. The wage floor itself is comparative: it is the pay of a Lithuanian, EU or EFTA national doing the same job for the same employer, and where there is no such colleague it is the average gross wage for the relevant branch of economic activity. Two things then bite that most of Europe does not have. The permits issued on this ground are capped by an annual quota, which article 57-1(2) says may not exceed 1.4 per cent of the resident population published by the State Data Agency on 1 July of the previous year, and once the quota is exhausted the only way through is 1.2 times the average wage or a shortage occupation at the full average. The permit runs for the length of the job and no more than two years, and the worker may not start before it is issued.

Article 45(1) of the Įstatymas dėl užsieniečių teisinės padėties sets out three ways to reach a residence permit through a company, and they differ by capital and by headcount rather than by what the business does. The entry tier asks for a company that has been trading for at least six months on a business plan, whose equity is at least 28,000 euro of which at least 14,000 is the alien's own money or property, whose staff are paid at least two average monthly gross wages between them, and in which the alien is either the director or a shareholder holding shares with a nominal value of at least a third of the share capital. The second tier replaces the payroll test with five full-time jobs and raises the investment to 260,000 euro. The third asks for 500,000 euro of equity and ten full-time jobs paid at or above the average wage, and gives the permit to the director. Separately, article 45-1 creates a startup route that is assessed rather than priced: an institution authorised by the Minister of the Economy and Innovation must confirm the business has the potential and the applicant the qualifications, funding and business plan, no more than four aliens may be participants in one startup, and the permit runs two years and may be changed for three.

Lithuania has been inside Schengen since 21 December 2007 and inside the euro area since 1 January 2015, and its Aliens Act does not decide who needs a visa: article 11(1) applies Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 by name and gives the Government power to apply the exceptions the Regulation itself allows. What the Act does do, and what the Croatian and Czech Acts do not, is restate the measure in its own words: article 11(2) says a visa-exempt traveller may stay no longer than 90 days in any 180-day period across Lithuania and the other Schengen states, and it ties the same sentence to the ETIAS travel authorisation under Regulation (EU) 2018/1240. Article 11(10) then says the thing border officers everywhere mean and few statutes write down: holding a travel authorisation or a visa does not in itself confer a right to enter. The health insurance a visitor must carry is specified rather than left to a figure: article 6(1) of the Act requires emergency medical care and the cost of a medically-driven return home, including an escort, for the whole of the stay.

Article 40(1) of the Įstatymas dėl užsieniečių teisinės padėties is a closed list of the grounds on which a temporary residence permit may be issued. It runs from point 1 to point 16, with lettered insertions, and it contains no ground of means, savings, pension or passive income: the nearest things to it are the business routes of article 45, which ask for a company and a payroll, and the named-activity routes in the same article for a high-performance sportsperson, a performer, an accredited journalist and a cleric. Remote work appears in the Act exactly once, and in the opposite place from where a reader would look for it: article 58(17) says an alien has the right to work in Lithuania if he does not come to Lithuania and intends to work remotely under a contract with an undertaking operating here. That is a carve-out from the work-permit regime for somebody staying abroad, not a residence route for somebody arriving. The one group for whom an income is enough are the nationals of seven states named in article 40(1)(16) and article 49-5, who may be admitted for work or for any other lawful activity, self-employment included.

Lithuania has no residence permit for a retired person. The grounds in article 40(1) of the Įstatymas dėl užsieniečių teisinės padėties contain nothing resembling one, and the single place in the Act where a pension decides anything is article 43(1)(7), where the parents of an alien who already holds a permanent residence permit may be reunited with them if they are unfit for work by reason of old-age pension age or disability. Age does buy something, but later and elsewhere: under article 53(6) the state language and constitutional examinations are required of a person reaching permanent residence through five years of lawful residence, and under article 53(8) they are not required of anyone who has turned 65. The same relief runs through the citizenship law, where article 18(4) excuses applicants aged 65 from both examinations. So Lithuania asks less of an older applicant at the end of the road and offers no way onto it.

A student's permit under article 46 of the Įstatymas dėl užsieniečių teisinės padėties is issued for the length of the studies and no more than two years at a time, extended by up to six months in the final year, and the whole run of permits on this ground is capped at eight years unless the student is in residency training or a doctorate. Renewal is conditional on progress rather than on enrolment: the permit may be changed where the student has earned at least 40 credits in the last academic year, or fewer with an excuse accepted under article 35(1-1). Work is allowed but rationed in the first two years - no more than 20 hours a week, outside the summer vacation and the practical placements the institution sets. The housing condition is relaxed for students alone: article 26(3-1) asks for 4 square metres a head instead of 7. The cost comes later. Under article 53(9), time lived here on a student permit counts only half towards the five years that lead to permanent residence, and the half-rate is lifted only for someone who finished their degree in Lithuania.

Two of the grounds in the Įstatymas dėl užsieniečių teisinės padėties turn on origin rather than on money or work, and they appear twice over: once in article 40(1) for a temporary permit and again in article 53(1) for a permanent one. A person of Lithuanian descent gets a five-year temporary permit under article 42 on producing a document proving that descent, and may equally be issued a permanent residence permit under article 53(1)(2) without living here first. The descent is defined in the citizenship law, not the aliens law: article 2(6) of the Pilietybės įstatymas makes a person of Lithuanian descent somebody whose parents or grandparents, or one of them, are or were Lithuanians, and who himself considers himself a Lithuanian and declares it in writing. Two generations, a self-declaration, and no further test. What makes this the shortest road in the corpus is what article 26(2) takes away: the health insurance, means, housing and travel-history conditions that every other applicant meets do not apply here, and under article 53(6) the state language and constitutional examinations attach only to the permits earned by five years of residence. A family member coming to live with such a person is issued a permanent residence permit too, under article 53(7).

Family reunification under article 43 of the Įstatymas dėl užsieniečių teisinės padėties does not depend on how long the marriage has lasted, and the Act sets no minimum. What it sets is a wait on the other side. Where the sponsor is a Lithuanian citizen or holds a permanent residence permit, the spouse's temporary permit is issued for two years and changed for four. Where the sponsor holds only a temporary residence permit, article 43(6) requires that the sponsor has lived in Lithuania for the last two years, holds a permit valid for at least another year, and has reasonable prospects of acquiring the right of permanent residence - a condition that falls away for a sponsor on the descent, Blue Card, intra-corporate, startup, researcher, business or seven-nationality grounds, and for a refugee. A registered partnership is treated the same as a marriage throughout. The application is tested for genuineness under article 43(4): the Migration Department must assess, in the manner the Minister of the Interior lays down, whether there is serious ground to believe the marriage or the partnership is one of convenience.

Chapter V of the Įstatymas dėl užsieniečių teisinės padėties carries the free movement right for nationals of EU member states and, through article 1(2-1), of EFTA states. The substance is Directive 2004/38: a worker or self-employed person, a person with sufficient resources and health insurance, a student on the same terms, or a family member of any of them. The threshold at which a certificate becomes necessary is written in a way the Directive is not: article 99(1) requires a certificate of the right of temporary residence from a national who has come to live in Lithuania for longer than three months in any half-year, which counts the time differently from the Directive's plain three months of residence. Permanent residence comes after five years, and article 104(1) adds two shortcuts that have nothing to do with time: an EU national who has the right to restore Lithuanian citizenship, or who is a person of Lithuanian descent, or who came to live here as the family member of a Lithuanian citizen, acquires the right of permanent residence outright. An absence of more than six months in a year may be a ground for refusing it, with excuses listed in article 104(5).

Naturalisation under article 18(1) of the Pilietybės įstatymas asks for ten years of lawful permanent residence, the right of permanent residence at both ends of the process, the state language examination, the examination on the basics of the Constitution, a lawful source of subsistence, and the renunciation of any other citizenship. Marriage to a Lithuanian citizen shortens the residence to seven years lived together, and nothing else: article 19(1) keeps both examinations and the renunciation. The ten years are not ten calendar years of presence - article 2(18) counts a year as lawful continuous residence if the person spent at least six months of it in Lithuania. The renunciation is not the legislature's choice. Article 12 of the Constitution says that, except in separate cases provided by law, nobody may be at once a citizen of Lithuania and of another state, and article 26(1) of the Pilietybės įstatymas enforces it from the other end: a Lithuanian citizen who acquires another citizenship loses Lithuanian citizenship on the day he acquires it, unless he falls inside one of the exceptions in article 7, and he must report the acquisition in writing within two months. The exceptions are historical rather than practical: birth, deportation or emigration before 11 March 1990 and descent from such a person, automatic acquisition by marriage, adoption, refugee status, and exceptional service to the state.

Article 4(1) of the Gyventojų pajamų mokesčio įstatymas makes a person a permanent resident of Lithuania on any one of five tests: a permanent place of residence here during the tax period; a centre of personal, social or economic interests here rather than abroad; 183 days or more in the tax period, continuously or not; 280 days or more across two consecutive tax periods with at least 90 in one of them; or Lithuanian citizenship with pay or living costs met from the Lithuanian state or municipal budgets. Diplomats and certain foreign-paid workers are carved out by article 4(2). The part worth knowing before arriving is article 4(4). A person who has been a permanent resident for at least three consecutive tax periods and then leaves finally for a target territory - a blacklisted jurisdiction - stays a Lithuanian tax resident for the whole year of departure and the two years after it, if significant commercial interests tie him to Lithuania. Significant means owning a personal undertaking here or more than 25 per cent of a Lithuanian entity's shares, or drawing more than 30 per cent of the period's income from Lithuanian sources. Rates are progressive on the annual total, measured in multiples of the average wage used for social insurance contributions: 20 per cent up to 36, 25 per cent between 36 and 60, and 32 per cent above 60.

Article 6(1) of the Sveikatos draudimo įstatymas lists who is covered by compulsory health insurance, and the line it draws is not the line a reader expects. Citizens and aliens permanently resident in Lithuania are covered outright. An alien holding a temporary residence permit is covered only if he works in Lithuania, or worked here for at least six months and is registered with the Employment Service as unemployed. Spouses, registered partners and minor family members of either group are covered under article 6(1)(8), so a non-working spouse of a worker is inside. A student, or a business owner who is not drawing pay, or anyone else with a temporary permit who does not work, is outside - and cannot simply buy in, because the self-payment rate in article 17(11), 6.98 per cent of the monthly minimum wage, is available to persons who are inside the article 6 list to begin with. That is why article 26(1)(2) of the Įstatymas dėl užsieniečių teisinės padėties makes a document confirming private health insurance a condition of every residence permit for anyone not covered by the compulsory scheme, and why article 6-1 of that Act specifies what the private cover must pay for.

Lithuania's implementation of the Union's payment accounts directive is article 71 and following of the Mokėjimų įstatymas, and it is written as a duty on the bank rather than as an aspiration. Consumers lawfully resident may apply to any credit institution operating in Lithuania that offers the basic payment account service, and institutions offering the full range of services listed in article 72(1) are obliged to offer it; the Bank of Lithuania keeps and publishes the list of those institutions. The institution must decide within ten working days of receiving the application and all necessary information. Two things qualify the right. Article 71(4) lets the institution ask the applicant to justify his professional, economic, social or personal links with Lithuania, and to produce documents proving them - a question a newly arrived person may not be able to answer. Article 71(6) obliges the institution to refuse where opening the account would breach the money laundering and terrorist financing prevention law. The price is capped rather than free: the maximum monthly fee is recalculated every three years by the Bank of Lithuania and may not exceed 0.108 per cent of the minimum monthly wage in force on 1 July of the preceding year, halved again for consumers receiving state cash social assistance.

Article 13(9) of the Saugaus eismo automobilių keliais įstatymas settles two different questions in one paragraph. A licence issued in an EU member state or an EFTA country needs no Lithuanian licence at all, with no time limit stated. A national or international licence issued by a contracting party to the Paris Convention of 1926, the Geneva Convention of 1949 or the Vienna Convention of 1968, and meeting those conventions' requirements, is valid in Lithuania while the holder is not a permanent resident of Lithuania, and once he becomes one, for no more than six months from acquiring that status. The clock therefore starts not on arrival and not on the permit, but on a status the road safety act does not itself define - nuolatinis Lietuvos Respublikos gyventojas, which is the same phrase the income tax act uses in article 4 for a tax resident. The paragraph also refuses recognition in three cases: the holder is under the Lithuanian minimum age, the licence was issued to someone whose right to drive was taken away and not recovered under article 24, or the licence is restricted, suspended or withdrawn in the issuing state. A Lithuanian licence itself is issued for no more than ten years, and for the lorry and bus categories the right to drive lasts no more than five.

Lithuania does not decide this. Personal property imported by someone transferring their normal residence from a third country into the customs territory enters free of import duties on conditions set by a directly applicable Union regulation: six months' possession and, for durable goods, use at the former residence; a continuous twelve months of normal residence outside the customs territory; and entry for free circulation within twelve months of the move. Alcohol, tobacco, commercial means of transport and trade equipment other than portable instruments of the applied or liberal arts get no relief at all.