Slovakia

Whether a short visit needs a visa is not a question Slovak law answers. Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 carries two annexes: nationals of Annex I countries need a visa to cross the external border, nationals of Annex II countries do not for stays of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period. Section 5(1) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z. hands the conditions for crossing the external border to a separate instrument and to treaties, and the measure of ninety days in any 180-day period appears nowhere in the Act. What Slovakia adds is a figure and a duty. Section 6(2) makes a third-country national prove at the border the funds needed to cover the cost of the stay, and section 6(3) tells the Ministry of the Interior to fix that sum by decree. Decree No. 499/2011 Z. z. sets it at 56 EUR per person per day and breaks it down to the cent: 30 for accommodation, 4 for breakfast, 7.50 for lunch, 7.50 for dinner, 7 for pocket money. It has had one version since 1 January 2012, so the figure is thirteen years old in euros that are not. A verified invitation under section 19 replaces the money altogether. Once inside, section 111(2)(a) gives the traveller three working days to report the start, the place and the expected length of the stay to the police, unless the accommodation provider carries that duty - and section 113(c) gives the provider five days, which is longer.

Slovakia has no passive-income or self-sufficiency residence category, and the way the Act is built makes that a finding rather than a gap. Section 21(1) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z. lists the purposes for which temporary residence may be granted and there are nine of them: business, employment, study, special activity, research and development, family reunification, service duties in civilian components of the armed forces, the status of a Slovak living abroad, and the status of a long-term resident in another member state. Section 20(2) then ties the residence to one purpose. The widest-sounding of the nine, special activity under section 25(1), is itself a closed list of nine named activities - lecturing, art, sport, a traineeship, a government or Union programme, a treaty obligation, health care, volunteering, journalism - and it opens by excluding a business person. The only long-stay permission outside those titles is the national visa in section 15(1), and its five grounds are an existing residence, a pending residence application, a language school of at least 25 hours a week, the interest of the Slovak Republic, and a treaty obligation. There is no tenth door. What the Act does ask of everyone who holds residence is money: section 111(1)(e) makes the holder prove, at a residence check, financial security of at least the subsistence minimum for each remaining month, up to a year ahead - 295.22 EUR a month since 1 July 2026, and half that for a minor.

There is no retirement residence permit in Slovak law. The nine purposes in section 21(1) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z. do not include one, the nine special activities in section 25(1) do not include one, and the five grounds for a national visa in section 15(1) do not include one. A pension appears in the Act exactly once, and not as a ground: section 53(4) names a pension document among the ways a person can prove the stable and regular resources needed for long-term residence, which is a test applied to someone who already has five years behind them. Age appears three times. Section 27(2)(f) lets a parent of a resident or of their spouse join them where that parent is dependent on their care and enjoys no proper family support in the country they come from - a family route that needs a relative here, not an income. Section 67(2)(a) gives a Union citizen permanent residence before five years where they stopped working on reaching pension age, which is a free-movement right and closed to a third-country national. Section 2(7) counts a person over 65 as vulnerable, which changes how they are treated and not whether they may come. The one place where sixty-five is worth money is the naturalisation fee: item 20 of the schedule to Act No. 145/1995 Z. z. exempts foreign nationals over 65 from the 1,000 EUR altogether.

Employment residence rests on a document issued by a different authority before the police see the file. Section 23(1) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z. grants temporary residence for the purpose of employment on the basis of a confirmation of the possibility of filling a vacancy, and Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. is where that confirmation lives. Section 21b(1) gives the labour office 15 working days to issue it with a yes or a no. Section 21b(4)(b)(1) requires the employer to have notified the vacancy at least 20 working days before applying, and section 21b(6) says the confirmation is given only where the vacancy cannot be filled from the register of jobseekers - a labour-market test in terms. Section 21b(7) then lists the cases where the test is skipped, and the last of them is the figure that matters: a shortage occupation in the region qualifies only where the employer, on the day of the application, employs fewer than 45 per cent third-country nationals out of its total staff. That is Slovakia's quota, and it is counted inside the employer rather than at an embassy. The residence itself runs for the expected duration of the employment and at most five years; seasonal work is capped at 240 days in any twelve months. The police decide in 90 days as a rule, 60 for employment, and 30 for a short list that includes shortage occupations and work for a significant foreign investor. The fee is 250 EUR.

Slovakia has no investment residence permit. What it has is the business purpose in section 22 of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z., which covers both a sole trader and a person acting for a company without an employment relationship, and the money sits in section 32(7). The applicant must show the balance of an account opened for the business and separate from the account used to prove personal support, and the amount is a multiple of the subsistence minimum rather than a sum: twenty times for a sole trader, a hundred times for someone acting for a company, and forty times where the business plan is for an innovative project. Against the 295.22 EUR in force from 1 July 2026 that is 5,904.40, 29,522.00 and 11,808.80 EUR. The permit is granted for three years. The Ministry of Economy is asked, under section 33(2), whether the business is a benefit to the economic interests of the Slovak Republic and whether the plan serves an innovative project, and it has 60 days to answer. The route is also the only one with an exit test: on renewal, a sole trader must show taxable income from the business above the personal allowance threshold for the previous tax period, and a company representative must show the company paid tax of at least the minimum corporate tax - 340 EUR in the lowest band. Czechia's comparable route asks for 75,000,000 CZK and twenty new jobs; Slovakia asks for a bank statement and a business that paid its tax.

Section 24(1) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z. opens study residence to three people: a secondary-school pupil in full-time study who is under 20 on the day of the application, or under 23 for certain follow-up and higher vocational courses; a university student; and a person on language or subject preparation for university study that is organised and delivered by a university in Slovakia. A private language school is on none of those, and Slovakia does not leave that person out - section 15(1)(c) gives a national visa to someone over 15 admitted to a language school for at least 25 teaching hours a week, which is a visa rather than a residence title and runs at most to 31 July of the school year. The permit is granted for the expected duration of the study and at most six years. What a student may do here is split in two. Section 24(3) says in terms that a student may carry on business during the residence. Employment is allowed without a work permit, but by the hour: section 23a(1)(e) of Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. caps it at 40 hours a month for a secondary pupil and 80 hours a month for a university student, across all employers together. The Czech record for the same question records no hour limit on the equivalent exemption in section 98(j) of Act No. 435/2004 Sb. After graduating, section 34(1)(b) renews the residence for nine months to look for work or start a business. The schedule to Act No. 145/1995 Z. z. has no fee item for a study application at all.

Where Czech residence law knows nothing about descent, Slovak law makes it one of the nine purposes. Section 21(1)(h) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z. opens temporary residence to a third-country national who has been granted the status of a Slovak living abroad, and section 29 sets the terms: the police shall grant it, for five years, and the holder may carry on business. What makes it unlike every other purpose is what it does not ask for. Section 32(2) requires financial security only of a business applicant and requires accommodation of everyone except a short list that includes section 29; section 32(3) excuses the criminal-record certificate where the application is lodged within 60 days of the certificate being issued; and section 33(7) cuts the refusal grounds from fifteen to six, removing the general ground of not meeting the conditions. Section 36(1)(d) exempts the holder from the presence quota that applies to every other temporary residence, and section 52(7)(b) exempts them from the A2 Slovak examination for long-term residence. The status itself comes from Act No. 474/2005 Z. z.: a person without permanent residence in Slovakia who preserves a national consciousness and whose ancestor in the direct line is of Slovak nationality, with no generation limit in the definition. The Office for Slovaks Living Abroad decides within 60 days. Employment needs nothing further - section 23a(1)(g) of Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. lets an employer hire the holder with no confirmation and no labour-market test.

Who you married decides which half of the Act you are in, and in Slovakia the halves are not the ones a reader of Czech law would expect. Section 27(1)(a) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z. gives family reunification to the family member of a third-country national with temporary or permanent residence - and only of a third-country national. The spouse of a Slovak citizen is not in that provision at all. They are in section 43(1)(a), which grants permanent residence for five years, straight away, to the spouse of a Slovak citizen with permanent residence here. Item 24 of the schedule to Act No. 145/1995 Z. z. then exempts exactly that applicant from the 250 EUR fee for a permanent residence application. What they do not get is Union law. Section 2(3) defines a citizen of the Union, for the purposes of this Act, as someone who is not a Slovak citizen, so a Slovak's third-country spouse falls outside the free-movement chapter - unless section 2(5)(h) applies, which it does only where the couple are returning to Slovakia from another member state where both had residence rights. The price of the shortcut is a long tail. Section 50(1)(e) cancels the permanent residence where the marriage ends within five years of it being granted, and section 50(1)(d) cancels it where the spouses do not lead a common family life. Employment needs no permit either way: section 23a(1)(d) of Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. covers the family member of a Slovak citizen and of a Union citizen alike.

Free movement sits in its own chapter of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z., sections 63 to 72, and the first thing it does is make a Union citizen report. Section 64(1) gives three months with no conditions or formalities on a valid identity card or travel document, and section 64(2) requires the start of the stay to be reported to the police within ten working days of entry. Section 66(1) then goes further than the Czech equivalent: a Union citizen staying longer than three months is obliged to apply for registration of residence, on an official form, within 30 days of the three months expiring. The grounds for staying longer are the familiar five in section 65(1) - employment, self-employment, sufficient resources with health insurance, study, and a realistic prospect of employment - plus a family member accompanying someone who meets one of them. What is unusual is the ceiling on the resources test: section 66(8) forbids the police to require a Union citizen to prove a sum higher than the subsistence minimum in the Slovak Republic, which is 295.22 EUR a month from 1 July 2026. Section 67(1) gives the right of permanent residence after five years of lawful continuous residence, and section 63(2) calls residence under this chapter permanent residence from the start. The registration certificate is issued on the day of a complete application and a ten-year residence document may be asked for on top.

Section 7(1)(a) of Act No. 40/1993 Z. z. counts eight years of continuous permanent residence immediately before the application - three years longer than Czechia asks of anyone and five longer than it asks of a Union citizen. Everything else in section 7(1) is a condition rather than a qualification: good character with a five-year tail after a conviction is spent, no expulsion sentence, no criminal, extradition, European arrest warrant, administrative expulsion or protection-withdrawal proceedings, compliance with the duties that attach to a foreigner's residence, insurance, tax and employment obligations, and no threat to public order or security. Language is section 7(1)(h), and it is not a certificate. Section 8(5) to (8) has the district office, embassy or consulate verify it while the questionnaire is being filled in: an interview on the applicant and on the history, geography and socio-political development of Slovakia, a randomly chosen press article of at least 500 words read aloud and handed over immediately beforehand, and a written account of it in 30 minutes, assessed by a three-member commission that needs two votes to pass someone. Czechia sets B1 by Decree No. 433/2013 Sb.; Slovakia states no level anywhere. Section 7(1)(h) exempts anyone under 14, anyone who is or was a Czech citizen, a holder of the Slovak-living-abroad certificate, anyone over 65, and a recent Slovak-language school leaver, plus every applicant under paragraphs 4 to 8. The Ministry has 24 months to decide, a refusal bars a fresh application for two years, and the 1,000 EUR fee is collected only after the act is performed.

Section 2(d)(1) of Act No. 595/2003 Z. z. gives three alternative tests of unlimited tax liability for an individual, and the first of them is one Czech law does not have. A natural person has unlimited liability if they have permanent residence on the territory of the Slovak Republic, or a bydlisko there, or habitually stay there - and the footnote to permanent residence points at Act No. 404/2011 Z. z. as well as at the registration Act for Slovak citizens, so a foreigner's permanent residence permit is itself a test. Bydlisko is defined in the same subparagraph as the possibility of accommodation that does not serve only occasional accommodation, where the intention to stay there permanently is apparent from all the surrounding facts and circumstances including personal and economic ties. Habitual stay is a count: at least 183 days in the calendar year, continuously or in several periods, with every started day of presence included. An unlimited taxpayer is taxed on income from sources in Slovakia and from sources abroad; a limited taxpayer only on Slovak-source income. Two carve-outs follow. A person who meets the first test but is treated as resident in another contracting state under a treaty is a limited taxpayer here, and so is a person whose habitual stay is only for study or medical treatment.

Slovak law gives a consumer a right to a payment account with basic features and ties it to residence in the European Union rather than to residence here. Section 27d(2) of Act No. 483/2001 Z. z. defines the entitled person as a consumer with residence in the European Union, and then says in terms that this includes a consumer with no residence on Slovak territory, an asylum applicant, and a consumer who has not been granted a residence permit but whose expulsion is impossible for legal or factual reasons. The bank must open the account or refuse within ten working days of the day after a complete application, and the grounds of refusal in section 27d(7) are three: that opening it would breach the anti-money-laundering instrument, that the applicant already has an account carrying all the same services, or that a 30-day cure period for an incomplete application ran out. What makes the Slovak version different from the directive's floor is the price. Section 27d(15) has the Ministry of Finance set the services and the maximum fee by decree, and section 2 of Decree No. 42/2016 Z. z. sets that maximum at three euros a month. The account that price buys is listed in section 1 of the same decree: opening, keeping and closing it, unlimited euro cash deposits and withdrawals at the bank's own premises and its own ATMs, unlimited transfers, standing orders and direct debits within the member states, and one international debit card with automatic renewal.

Section 3(2) of Act No. 580/2004 Z. z. starts where Czech law starts - a person with permanent residence on the territory is publicly insured - and then section 3(3) widens it in a way Czech law does not. A person without permanent residence is publicly insured if they are not insured in another member state and either work for an employer seated or permanently established here at a monthly wage of at least the statutory minimum, or are a self-employed person who holds a residence permit here. That second limb is the divergence: in Czechia a self-employed holder of a long-term permit is outside the public system and has to buy commercial cover under section 180j of Act No. 326/1999 Sb., which sets a floor of 400,000 EUR per claim. Slovakia puts the same person inside. For everyone who is still outside - a family member who does not work, a student, a person living on their own money - the residence Act asks for proof of insurance and says nothing about how much it must cover: section 123 of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z. defines the document as a confirmation in the foreigner's name that they are health-insured here or have the payment of treatment costs here insured, and sets no amount, no exclusion rule and no licensing requirement. Section 111(1)(d) gives a new resident three working days from collecting the residence document to take out insurance. Permanent residence can also be lost for leaving: section 3(2)(c) treats a continuous stay abroad of more than 180 days as long-term and takes the public insurance away where the person is neither employed nor self-employed here.

Section 102(1) of Act No. 8/2009 Z. z. recognises three things besides a Slovak licence: an EEA licence issued before 19 January 2013, an EEA licence issued from that date for the categories marked in it, and a valid licence of a state that is a party to the Geneva or Vienna Convention. A licence from a state outside both Conventions is recognised for nothing. Section 102(2) adds international driving permits with their own clocks - one year for a Geneva permit, three years for a Vienna one, and a Vienna permit is valid only together with the domestic licence behind it. Exchange is where Slovakia reads unlike Czechia. Section 104(4) does two things in one paragraph: an EEA licence holder resident here may apply to exchange after 185 days of residence, and a Convention-state holder who is not from the EEA and wants to drive must apply within 60 days of those 185 days expiring. So the window opens at day 185 and shuts at day 245, and section 104(5) makes the licence invalid if the holder did not apply. Czechia gives three months from the start of residence and counts from the permit rather than from a waiting period. The minimum age is the Slovak one for the category, except that category B is 18 for a licence from the EEA or a Convention state. A Convention-state applicant must also produce the issuing state's confirmation that the licence exists, with a certified translation of both. The licence itself costs 10 EUR.

Slovakia 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.