The Lithuanian parliament has approved legal amendments that will make it easier for Lithuanian employers to hire foreign staff and obtain "startup visas" for non-European Union citizens.
The amended law “On the Legal Status of Foreigners” will come into force from the beginning of 2017. It will provide the creators of startups, and in particular IT specialists, with temporary residence permits in Lithuania for one year, with the option of extend them for another year. After two years, any foreigner can apply for a temporary residence permit in Lithuania as the head of the company or its shareholder.
It will take two months to issue startup visas, or up to one month if the visa application is urgent.
Mantas Katinas, the director of Invest Lithuania, a non-profit owned by the Lithuanian Economy Ministry that aims to attract foreign investment, told the Kyiv Post that Lithuanian Startup Visa has five main target markets: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Israel and the United States.
“We expect that Ukrainians will take such an opportunity,” Katinas said.
The amendments will also make it easier to hire in Lithuania a range of non-EU specialists with high professional qualifications. A list of high-demand qualifications will be prepared in few month time, as the law requires additional documents to be approved before it takes effect. However, the priority will be IT-related qualifications.
Non-EU citizens will be issued a temporary residence permits (Blue Cards) faster — in one month or even 15 days and then they will be able to stay in Lithuania up to 3 years.
In addition, the amendments will free foreigners studying in Lithuania of the obligation to obtain work permits. Such foreigners will be allowed to work up to 20 hours a week from their first year of study – and not from their second year, as before.
Moreover, foreign graduates that want to stay and work in the country will no longer have to take job-center tests.
Invest Lithuania lobbied for the legal amendments.
“About 1,000 information technology, information systems, programming systems, math and computer science graduates come to Lithuanian labor market every year,” Paulius Vertelka, CEO of the IT association Infobalt said on July 5.
“But some 1,000-2,500 workplaces are being created each year. So we see a shortage of nearly a thousand IT specialists annually,” Vertelka said. “I believe these amendments will create favorable conditions to meet the growing demand for such specialists.”
The Netherlands, Denmark, France and Israel passed similar laws in 2015. Lithuania is the first country to adopt such amendments in Central and Eastern Europe.
Kyiv Post staff writer Denys Krasnikov
can be reached at [email protected].
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