Residence permit for family members (family reunification)
Residency route facts
Identity
| Official name (local) | Titre de sejour pour « membre de famille » as of 2026-06-12[2] Art. 74(1) names the title 'titre de sejour pour «membre de famille»'. |
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| Official name (English) | Residence permit for family members (family reunification) as of 2025-02-05[1] Guichet's own English rendering. |
| Legal basis | Loi modifiee du 29 aout 2008 sur la libre circulation des personnes et l'immigration, art. 68 to 77 as of 2026-06-12[2] |
| Instrument type | residence permit as of 2026-06-12[2] |
Who can apply
| Nationals not served by this route | EU, EEA, EFTA as of 2025-02-05[1] Guichet: this procedure applies to a third-country national joining a family member who is himself a third-country national. Third-country family members of EU citizens or of nationals of countries treated as such follow a different procedure, recorded here rather than as a route. |
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| Minimum age | 18 as of 2026-06-12[1][2] Art. 70(2): the spouse and the registered partner must be over eighteen at the time of the family-reunification application. The floor applies to those two relations only, not to children, which the field cannot express; stated here. |
Permit terms
| Initial duration | 1 year as of 2026-06-12[1][2] Art. 74(1): the permit is 'valable pour une duree d'un an, renouvelable', and its validity may not run past the expiry of the sponsor's own permit. Four derogations align it instead with the sponsor's title: the family of an EU Blue Card holder, of an intra-corporate transferee, of a long-term-mobility holder, and of a researcher exercising mobility. Guichet adds that family members of a family already established in another member state, joining a long-term resident exercising residence rights in Luxembourg, receive a five-year permit. |
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| Renewable | Yes as of 2026-06-12[1][2] Art. 74(1): renewable on request as long as the conditions of grant remain met. Guichet: applications are filed within two months of the expiry date. |
| Work rights | full as of 2026-06-12[1][2] Art. 74(2): from issue, the permit confers access to education and vocational guidance, to training, to advanced training and retraining, and the right to carry on a salaried or self-employed activity. Guichet says the same and adds that the holder may apply for a separate salaried-worker or self-employed permit in their own right if they meet the legal requirements. |
Permanent residence and citizenship
| Counts toward permanent residence | Yes as of 2025-02-05[1] Guichet: 'After 5 years of a legal and uninterrupted stay in Luxembourg, they may directly submit an application to obtain long-term resident status.' |
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Requirements
| Who can sponsor | temporary permit holder, permanent resident as of 2026-06-12[2] Art. 69(1) does not define the sponsor by naming a status. It opens family reunification to any third-country national holding a residence permit valid for at least one year who has a founded prospect of obtaining a long-term right of residence. The two enum values record the union of what that test admits; the test itself is recorded in sponsor_qualifier. Luxembourg citizens and EU citizens are outside this sub-section entirely. |
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| Eligible relations | spouse, registered partner, minor child, parent, adult dependent child, other dependent as of 2026-06-12[1][2] Two tiers, which this field flattens. As of right, art. 70(1): the spouse; the partner in a registered partnership meeting the substantive and formal conditions of the amended Law of 9 July 2004; and unmarried children under eighteen of the sponsor and/or of the spouse or partner, subject to custody and, in shared custody, to the other holder's consent. At the minister's discretion, art. 70(5), and only where the sponsor has lawfully resided in Luxembourg for at least twelve months: first-degree direct ascendants of the sponsor or of the spouse or partner who are dependent on them and lack the necessary family support in their country of origin; unmarried children over eighteen of the sponsor or of the spouse or partner who are objectively unable to provide for themselves because of their state of health; and the legal guardian or other family member of an unaccompanied minor granted international protection who has no traceable direct ascendants. Art. 70(3) bars spousal reunification in polygamous marriages where the sponsor already has another spouse living with him in Luxembourg. Art. 70(4) admits the first-degree direct ascendants of an unaccompanied minor granted international protection without the art. 70(5)(a) conditions. |
| Sponsor income requirement | 1 × monthly social minimum wage for unskilled workers aged 18 and over per month measured over 12 months as of 2026-06-12[1][2] |
| Sponsor accommodation requirement | Yes as of 2026-06-12[1][2] Art. 69(1)2: suitable accommodation to receive the family member or members. Guichet adds that suitability is assessed under the Law of 20 December 2019 on health, safety and habitability criteria for dwellings let or made available for dwelling purposes. |
| Sponsor waiting period | at least 12 months as of 2026-06-12[1][2] Art. 69(2): for the discretionary family members of art. 70(5) the sponsor must have resided in Luxembourg for at least twelve months. There is no waiting period for the art. 70(1) relations, which is what makes this field a partial statement of the rule; guichet lists the further exemptions – sponsors bringing minor children of whom they have sole custody, and sponsors holding an EU Blue Card, a transferred-worker or a researcher permit, or long-term resident status in another member state whose family was already established there, who may be accompanied on entry. |
| Pre-entry language test | No as of 2026-06-12[2] Art. 69(1) states the sponsor's conditions exhaustively as resources, suitable accommodation and health insurance, and art. 70 states the family member's as the family link, age and public-order tests. No language or integration condition appears in either. A qualified reader should confirm that nothing sits outside these articles; the same caveat already attaches to the country-level permanent-residency fields. |
| Who qualifies as a sponsor |
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Process
| Where to apply from | from abroad only as of 2026-06-12[1][2] Art. 73(4): the application is filed and examined while the family members reside outside the country. Art. 73(5) lets the minister accept, in duly reasoned exceptional cases, that they are already in Luxembourg when it is filed. |
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| Statutory processing time | up to 9 months as of 2026-06-12[2] Art. 73(6): the minister notifies his decision in writing at the latest nine months after the application is filed, extendable in exceptional cases tied to the complexity of the examination. Two shorter clocks displace it: art. 73(7) grants the family permits at the same time as an EU Blue Card where complete applications are filed simultaneously, and within ninety days where the family joins later; art. 73(8) sets ninety days for the family of an ICT or mobile ICT holder. |
| Fees |
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Physical presence
| maximum consecutive absence | 6 months · to keep the permit as of 2025-02-05[1] |
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Family inclusion
| Family members may be included | Not applicable as of 2026-06-12[2] This route is itself the family-reunification instrument; the family_inclusion block asks whether a principal applicant may bring dependants, which does not arise here. Whether a family-member permit holder may in turn sponsor is governed by art. 69(1)'s general test. |
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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.
Profile benefits
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Verification
| Sources cited | 2 |
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| of which official (tier 1) | 2 |
| Oldest as-of date | 2025-02-05 |
| Newest as-of date | 2026-06-12 |
| Reviewed on | 2026-08-17 |
| Schema version | 1.1 |
Sources
- [1] Applying for family reunification with a third-country national
Guichet.lu – State Information and Press Service, Luxembourg · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2025-02-05 · 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