Temporary residence for the purpose of employment
Residency route facts
Identity
| Official name (local) | Prechodný pobyt na účel zamestnania as of 2026-08-24[4][7] The statutory name of the purpose, used identically by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs' consular catalogue and by the Border and Aliens Police question set. Where the residence is granted on the strength of a labour-office confirmation rather than a separate work permit, the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family and the Migration Information Centre both call the result 'jednotné povolenie na pobyt a zamestnanie' (single permit for residence and employment); that is a descriptive label for the same permit, not a second statutory name. |
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| Official name (English) | Temporary residence for the purpose of employment as of 2026-08-24[4] Translation of the Slovak statutory name. Slovakia publishes no official English text of the Act; the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs serves this page under an English URL with Slovak body text. |
| Legal basis | Zákon č. 404/2011 Z. z. o pobyte cudzincov a o zmene a doplnení niektorých zákonov, § 23, read with § 32 (náležitosti žiadosti); zákon č. 5/2004 Z. z. o službách zamestnanosti, § 21a (potvrdenie o možnosti obsadenia voľného pracovného miesta) a § 23b as of 2026-08-24[4][7][10] |
| Instrument type | residence permit as of 2026-08-24[4] |
Who can apply
| Nationals not served by this route | EU as of 2026-08-24[4] |
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| Minimum age | Not established from a qualifying source Not established. No age condition appears in the Border and Aliens Police document list for this permit, but that list is documentary rather than an enumeration of conditions. |
| Criminal-record condition | Yes as of 2026-08-24[7] § 32 ods. 2 písm. b): a document no older than 90 days confirming good character, being a criminal-record extract from the state of nationality and from every state where the applicant spent more than 90 days in any six consecutive months in the last three years. The extract must cover the whole territory of the issuing state or the police unit will not accept it. |
Permit terms
| Initial duration | up to 2 years as of 2026-08-24[3][10] |
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| Renewable | Yes as of 2026-08-24[9][10] Extended by an application to renew (obnovenie prechodného pobytu). Where the employer's circumstances change — a new employer, a different kind of work, a new district of work, or a longer period of work — the vacancy must be reported to the labour office at least 20 working days before the police unit is notified. § 23a ods. 1 písm. ak) lets the employer keep employing the holder between expiry and the final decision on renewal, provided the renewal application was filed at least 30 days ahead for a shortage occupation or 90 days ahead otherwise. |
| Renewal duration | Not established from a qualifying source |
| Work rights | own activity only as of 2026-08-24[4][10] |
Permanent residence and citizenship
| Counts toward permanent residence | Not established from a qualifying source Not established. Whether time on this permit counts towards EU long-term residence under § 52 could not be sourced, for the same reason permanent_residency.eligibility_years is unknown — the Border and Aliens Police question set for dlhodobý pobyt lists documents rather than the qualifying period. |
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Requirements
| Job offer required | Yes as of 2026-08-24[7][10] An employment contract, or the labour office's prescribed form of written promise of employment (prísľub na zamestnanie), must be filed with the residence application; only that form of promise is accepted. |
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| Labour-market test | Yes as of 2026-08-24[10] The default. The employer reports the vacancy to the labour office at least 20 working days before the residence application is filed, and the office weighs whether a registered jobseeker could fill it. The Central Office lists the cases in which the office does NOT examine the labour market: a shortage occupation in the district while third-country nationals stay within 30 % of the employer's workforce; an intra-corporate transfer; the equivalent agency-work case within the same 30 % ceiling; and a person carrying on continuous teaching or scientific work as a school teacher, university teacher, researcher or artistic member of a university. Seasonal employment of more than 90 days is expressly inside the test, not outside it. |
| Qualification requirement | none as of 2026-08-24[10] No general qualification threshold. Where the occupation is regulated the applicant must file a decision recognising the foreign qualification, or an officially certified document of the required education, and any occupational-competence documents the reported vacancy calls for — a condition on particular jobs rather than on the route. |
| Employer sponsorship | Yes as of 2026-08-24[10] The employer reports the vacancy and applies for the confirmation of the possibility of filling it; the worker cannot start that step. The employer must also notify the labour office of the start, end or non-start of the employment within seven working days. |
| Own means requirement | Not applicable[6] A sourced absence, not a gap. The Border and Aliens Police's own statement of the financial-security condition says it does not apply to a third-country national applying for the employment purpose (nor to service duties of civilian components of the armed forces, nor to a Slovak living abroad). The salary itself is the means test. |
| Job-search route | No as of 2026-08-24[1][4] Slovakia has no standalone job-search instrument. The § 21 ods. 1 enumeration of temporary-residence purposes is closed on its face and contains no job-search purpose; recorded. |
Process
| Where to apply from | either as of 2026-08-24[4][7] Filed in person abroad at a Slovak mission, or directly at a foreign police department where the applicant is already lawfully in Slovakia. § 31 ods. 3 lists the in-country channel's conditions (a valid residence permit under a special regulation, tolerated stay under § 58 ods. 1 písm. a) to c) or ods. 2, a Schengen visa for seasonal employment, a national visa under § 15, visa exemption, temporary refuge, or a certificate of a Slovak living abroad) and excludes an applicant under § 23 ods. 5 from it. |
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| Statutory processing time | 90 days as of 2026-08-24[4][10] The police unit decides within 90 days. It decides within 30 days instead where the vacancy is in a shortage occupation and, on the day the residence application is filed, third-country nationals (including agency workers temporarily assigned) do not exceed 30 % of the employer's total workforce; in that case the 30 days run from the labour office sending the confirmation. A separate 30-day period applies where the applicant represents or works for a certificated significant foreign investor and is a national of an OECD member state. Where the application is lodged at a mission the mission has a further 30 days to process and forward it, so 90 days is not a clock from lodging. |
| Observed processing time | Not established from a qualifying source No official observed-duration statistics for this permit were located; the authorities publish statutory deadlines, not outturn times. |
| Fees |
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| Quota |
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Family inclusion
| Family members may be included | Yes as of 2026-08-24[8][9] Family members apply in their own right for temporary residence for the purpose of family reunification under § 27; the police document list for that permit requires a copy of the sponsor's own residence document, and the financial-security provision names a sponsor who holds, or has applied for, temporary or permanent residence under the Act. |
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| Family members' work rights | authorisation required as of 2026-08-24[2][9] § 23a ods. 1 písm. c) of the Employment Services Act: a holder of temporary residence for family reunification needs neither a work permit nor a labour-office confirmation after nine months of uninterrupted residence in Slovakia from the grant of that residence. Before then a separate permission is required. The nine-month wait does not apply to the family of an EU Blue Card holder, of an intra-corporate transferee, or of a researcher. |
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.
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Verification
| Sources cited | 10 |
|---|---|
| of which official (tier 1) | 8 |
| Oldest as-of date | 2026-08-24 |
| Newest as-of date | 2026-08-24 |
| Reviewed on | 2026-08-26 |
| Schema version | 1.1 |
Sources
- [1] Zákon č. 404/2011 Z. z. o pobyte cudzincov a o zmene a doplnení niektorých zákonov (znenie vyhlásené v Zbierke zákonov, čiastka 126)
Ministerstvo vnútra SR (kópia vyhláseného znenia na webovom sídle Úradu hraničnej a cudzineckej polície) · gazette · Tier 1 · Published 2011-10-21 · Accessed 2026-08-24 - [2] Kto nepotrebuje povolenie na zamestnanie ani potvrdenie o možnosti obsadenia voľného pracovného miesta?
Migračné informačné centrum IOM (Medzinárodná organizácia pre migráciu) · international organisation · Tier 2 · Published 2026-08-11 · Accessed 2026-08-24 - [3] Jednotné povolenie na pobyt a zamestnanie
Migračné informačné centrum IOM (Medzinárodná organizácia pre migráciu) · international organisation · Tier 2 · Published 2026-08-11 · Accessed 2026-08-24 - [4] Pobyt cudzinca – účely prechodného pobytu, druhy trvalého pobytu a podávanie žiadostí
Ministerstvo zahraničných vecí a európskych záležitostí SR (Generálny konzulát SR v Užhorode) · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2022-07-08 · Accessed 2026-08-24 - [5] Poplatky — sadzobník konzulárnych poplatkov, položky 240 až 265 (položka 242: žiadosti o udelenie pobytu)
Ministerstvo zahraničných vecí a európskych záležitostí SR · fee schedule · Tier 1 · Published 2024-03-11 · Accessed 2026-08-24 - [6] 44. Finančné zabezpečenie pobytu podľa zákona č. 404/2011 Z. z. o pobyte cudzincov (edícia október 2024)
Úrad hraničnej a cudzineckej polície, Prezídium Policajného zboru, Ministerstvo vnútra SR · official guidance · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-24 · Superseded by sk-uhcp-faq-podnikanie - [7] 16. Doklady potrebné k prijatiu žiadosti o udelenie prechodného pobytu na účel zamestnania podľa § 23 zákona o pobyte cudzincov (edícia júl 2025)
Úrad hraničnej a cudzineckej polície Prezídia Policajného zboru, Ministerstvo vnútra SR · official guidance · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-24 - [8] 17. Doklady potrebné k prijatiu žiadosti o udelenie prechodného pobytu na účel zlúčenia rodiny podľa § 27 zákona o pobyte cudzincov (edícia júl 2025)
Úrad hraničnej a cudzineckej polície Prezídia Policajného zboru, Ministerstvo vnútra SR · official guidance · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-24 - [9] 4. Zamestnanie štátneho príslušníka tretej krajiny, u ktorého sa povolenie na zamestnanie ani potvrdenie o možnosti obsadenia VPM nevyžaduje (§ 23a zákona č. 5/2004 Z. z. o službách zamestnanosti)
Ústredie práce, sociálnych vecí a rodiny SR · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2024-03-07 · Accessed 2026-08-24 - [10] 1. Zamestnanie štátneho príslušníka tretej krajiny s potvrdením o možnosti obsadenia voľného pracovného miesta
Ústredie práce, sociálnych vecí a rodiny SR · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2023-01-09 · Accessed 2026-08-24