Family reunification in the EU: the grounds and the conditions

Under Council Directive 2003/86/EC, a non-EU worker who holds a residence permit valid for at least one year in an EU member state, and who has reasonable prospects of staying, may apply to bring family. The core family is the spouse and minor unmarried children. A written decision is due within nine months at the latest.

Who may apply

Article 3 of the directive defines the applicant, called the sponsor. Two conditions run together. First, the sponsor holds a residence permit valid for at least one year. Second, there are reasonable prospects of permanent residence in that country. A worker on a three month seasonal placement does not meet this ground. A welder on a two year employment permit does.

Article 8 gives member states room to delay. Before accepting the application, a state may require the sponsor to have resided lawfully for up to two years. That figure is the ceiling in the directive, not the rule in every country. For a Nepali hire heading to Germany or the Netherlands, the practical question is whether the destination has set a waiting period of zero, one or two years, because that period decides the year the family arrives.

Articles 4 and 5 separate the mandatory relatives from the optional ones. The spouse and the minor unmarried children are the mandatory group: once the conditions are met, the state must admit them. Dependent parents, adult unmarried children and unregistered partners are left to each member state to include or exclude. A worker leaving Kathmandu who plans to bring parents should confirm that the destination has opened that optional category before counting on it.

What the state may require, and what it costs

Article 7 allows a member state to impose three material conditions. The first is stable and regular resources, sufficient to maintain the family without recourse to social assistance. The second is sickness insurance covering the sponsor and every arriving member. The third is accommodation regarded as normal for the region, evidenced by a tenancy agreement or proof of ownership. The same article opens the door to integration measures, a language level being the common one.

The cost sits inside those conditions rather than in the fee schedule. Visa and permit fees are modest. A two room tenancy agreement, health insurance for each family member, and the translation and legalisation of documents issued in Nepal are what move the number. Marriage certificates and birth certificates usually need attestation by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and by the destination embassy, and that step takes weeks on its own.

Article 5(4) sets the edge of the clock. The competent authority must notify a written decision as soon as possible and at the latest nine months from the date the application was lodged, extended only in exceptional circumstances. The clock starts when the file is complete. One unattested birth certificate moves the start date, and the family is then held up before the nine months begin rather than at the end of them.

This is where the most common mistake sits. The family file is opened the week after the worker lands, but the sponsor's permit card still has to be printed and the local address registered, which takes its own weeks. Then Article 7 asks for proof of resources, and most authorities read that as three months of payslips, which do not exist until the worker has actually been paid. In practice the first real lodging date falls three to six months after arrival, and only then do the nine months of Article 5(4) start running. A promise made in Kathmandu that the family follows inside the first year does not survive a destination that also applies a two year waiting period.

Ordinary permit compared with the EU Blue Card

Directive (EU) 2021/1883 builds a separate and more favourable family regime for highly qualified workers. For many employers this decides the route, because an engineer or an IT specialist brought in on a Blue Card brings the family in sooner.

Salary thresholds and qualification rules for that route are set out in the EU Blue Card directive. For the document the worker himself holds, see the single permit, and for how long each national procedure actually runs, see the timeline by country.

For an employer this is a planning matter as much as a legal one. When the family may follow is tied directly to whether the worker is still on the same site in year two. When a team is mobilised from Nepal, write down three dates at the start: when the sponsor becomes eligible, when proof of accommodation will exist, and when document attestation in Nepal will be finished. Which of the two routes a destination has open, and what it asks for at each step, is set out on the employers page.