EU Blue Card (residence permit for highly qualified workers)
Residency route facts
Identity
| Official name (local) | Titre de sejour appele « carte bleue europeenne » as of 2026-06-12[2] Art. 45-1(1) names the title 'un titre de sejour appele «carte bleue europeenne»'. |
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| Official name (English) | EU Blue Card (residence permit for highly qualified workers) as of 2026-03-03[1] Guichet's own English rendering: 'a residence permit for highly qualified workers from third countries called EU Blue Card'. |
| Legal basis | Loi modifiee du 29 aout 2008 sur la libre circulation des personnes et l'immigration, art. 45 to 45-5 as of 2026-06-12[2] Art. 45 sets the admission conditions and the definitions; art. 45-1 the card's term and renewal; art. 45-2 the change-of-employer regime; art. 45-3 procedure and refusal grounds; art. 45-4 and 45-5 intra-EU mobility. |
| Instrument type | residence permit as of 2026-06-12[2] Art. 45-1(1) issues a 'titre de sejour' under art. 40. |
Who can apply
| Nationals not served by this route | EU, EEA, EFTA as of 2026-03-03[1] Guichet: the route is for 'a third-country national (i.e. a national from a country which is not an EU Member State or a country treated as such – Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland)'. |
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| Criminal-record condition | Yes as of 2026-03-03[1] Guichet's document list requires a criminal-record extract or affidavit from the country of legal residence at the authorisation stage and a recent Luxembourg criminal-record extract (record no. 3) at renewal. Art. 45 states no criminal-record condition of its own; the public-order test sits in art. 34. |
Permit terms
| Initial duration | 4 years as of 2026-06-12[1][2] Art. 45-1(2): the card is 'valable pour la duree de quatre ans, sinon pour la duree du contrat de travail plus trois mois si la duree du contrat de travail est inferieure a quatre ans'. Guichet says the same in English. No bound marker is set: four years is the term where the contract runs at least that long, and the contract-plus-three-months alternative is a different rule rather than a ceiling on the same one. |
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| Renewable | Yes as of 2026-06-12[1][2] Art. 45-1(2): renewable on request for four years, or the contract's duration plus three months where the contract is shorter, as long as the conditions of grant remain met. Where the card expires during the renewal procedure the holder is authorised to remain as a highly qualified worker until the minister decides. |
| Renewal duration | 4 years as of 2026-06-12[1][2] Art. 45-1(2), same sentence. |
| Work rights | employment only as of 2026-06-12[1][2] The card is granted for highly qualified salaried employment (art. 45(1)). Art. 45-2(1): during the first twelve months of lawful employment a change of employer, or any change affecting the admission conditions, must be notified to the minister in advance, and the right to change is suspended while he verifies; guichet states a 30-day objection window after which silence permits the change. Guichet adds that taking a post which does not meet the highly-qualified conditions requires restarting the ordinary salaried-worker application. |
Permanent residence and citizenship
| Counts toward permanent residence | Yes as of 2026-03-03[1] Guichet: 'After 5 years of regular and uninterrupted residence on EU territory as an EU Blue Card holder, of which the last 2 years preceding the application were spent in Luxembourg, third-country nationals may apply for long-term resident status.' This is a route-specific variant of the country default; the accumulation across member states is recorded here rather than as a pr_years_override, because the total remains five years. |
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Requirements
| Job offer required | Yes as of 2026-06-12[1][2] Art. 45(1)1: a valid employment contract for highly qualified employment of at least six months. |
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| Salary threshold | |
| Labour-market test | No as of 2026-03-03[1] Guichet: 'Highly qualified workers are not subject to the obligation of a labour market test.' The employer must still declare the vacant position to ADEM before recruiting, which is a notification rather than a market test. |
| Qualification requirement | degree, equivalent experience, regulated profession as of 2026-06-12[2] Art. 45(1)2 requires documents attesting the high professional qualifications required for a non-regulated profession, or satisfaction of the conditions for the regulated profession named in the contract. Art. 45(2)(d) defines high professional qualifications as sanctioned either by a higher-education diploma (art. 45(2)(e): at least three years' study, at least level 6 of the Luxembourg qualifications framework) or attested by high professional competences (art. 45(2)(f): three years' relevant experience in the preceding seven for ISCO-08 groups 133 and 25 managers and ICT specialists, five years otherwise). The three enum values record the alternatives; they are not cumulative. |
| Employer sponsorship | Yes as of 2026-03-03[1] Guichet: before recruiting, the employer must declare the vacant position to ADEM, sign a dated employment contract, see and copy the authorisation to stay before the relationship begins, keep the copy for the contract's duration, and inform the General Department of immigration of the start of the relationship within three working days. |
| Job-search route | No as of 2026-06-12[2] |
Process
| Where to apply from | from abroad only as of 2026-03-03[1] Guichet: 'Except in exceptional cases (e.g. third-country nationals who already hold a residence permit in Luxembourg), the application must be submitted and approved before coming to Luxembourg. Applications submitted from Luxembourg are inadmissible.' The same page opens the route to a third-country national already lawfully resident who has not worked in Luxembourg. |
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| Statutory processing time | up to 3 months as of 2026-03-03[1] |
| Fees |
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Physical presence
| maximum consecutive absence | 6 months · to keep the permit as of 2026-03-03[1] |
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Family inclusion
| Family members may be included | Yes as of 2026-06-12[1][2] Art. 71(b) lets the family members defined in art. 70(1) of a worker holding a card under art. 45-1 accompany the holder on entry or join later, provided the sponsor meets the art. 69(1) conditions; art. 73(7) grants the family permits at the same time as the card where complete applications are filed simultaneously. |
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| Eligible relations | spouse, registered partner, minor child as of 2026-06-12[2] Art. 70(1) via art. 71(b). Guichet's card page names 'their spouse/partner or single underage children (or the children of the spouse/partner)'. |
| Family may apply at the same time | Yes as of 2026-06-12[2] Art. 73(7): where the conditions are met and the complete applications are filed simultaneously, the family members' authorisation is granted at the same time as the card; where they join later, within 90 days of the complete application. |
| Family members' work rights | full as of 2026-06-12[2] Art. 74(2): the family-member permit carries the right to carry on a salaried or self-employed activity from issue. |
Your next step
Read the requirements above considering your own situation: the income multiple, the absence limits, who you can bring. Check the country record for the reference figure those amounts are calculated from, and for anything that has changed recently.
The next step is your own case. That assessment is legal work. Create profile for our assistance in this.
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Verification
| Sources cited | 2 |
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| of which official (tier 1) | 2 |
| Oldest as-of date | 2026-03-03 |
| Newest as-of date | 2026-06-12 |
| Reviewed on | 2026-08-17 |
| Schema version | 1.1 |
Sources
- [1] Applying for a residence permit for highly qualified workers (EU Blue Card)
Guichet.lu – State Information and Press Service, Luxembourg · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2026-03-03 · Accessed 2026-08-14 - [2] Version consolidée applicable au 12/06/2026 : Loi du 29 août 2008 portant sur la libre circulation des personnes et l'immigration
Journal officiel du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg (Legilux) · statute · Tier 1 · Published 2026-06-12 · Accessed 2026-08-14