Accommodation and healthcare: the employer duty to a foreign worker in Latvia

Section 15 of the Immigration Law is direct about it: the inviter answers for the foreign national's health care, for the stay in Latvia and for the cost of the return home. The health insurance policy is a document in the residence permit application, and PMLP sets its floor in euro rather than in adjectives: a minimum liability limit of 42 600 euro for the insured period.

Health insurance is a document, not a benefit

In a Latvian residence permit application the health insurance policy sits on the same document list as the employment contract and the approved invitation. Without it the file is incomplete, and an incomplete file is not examined. That is the first thing for an employer who plans to arrange insurance after the worker lands: by then it is too late, because the policy is what gets the permit issued in the first place.

PMLP states three requirements and each one is checkable before purchase. The minimum liability limit of the insurer for the insured period is 42 600 euro. The period of validity must be no shorter than the intended stay in Latvia. And the cover has to extend to transport to the nearest medical institution and to return transport to the home country in the event of serious illness or death.

The common mistake is not the sum but the period. A one year policy is bought against a permit that is meant to run longer, and nobody files the extension when the year is out. Since 15 September 2026 the employment permit itself caps at one year under Section 27, paragraph one, point 12 of the Immigration Law, so policy and permit can now be bought on the same twelve month rhythm, which removes the mismatch that used to run for five years. Companies moving whole crews normally buy one policy run for everyone with a single expiry date, so the renewals do not scatter across different weeks.

It is also worth keeping the private policy separate from state funded healthcare. A third country worker on an employment contract, with social contributions paid, acquires entitlement to state funded services over time under the general rules, but the policy is what covers the period from arrival and it is the condition of the migration procedure.

Housing and address registration are two different things

Employers mix them up routinely. Housing is the physical place the worker lives, and providing for it falls within the inviter's responsibility for the stay under Section 15. Declaring the place of residence is a separate administrative act with its own statute. Section 3, paragraph one of the Declaration of Place of Residence Law gives the person one month from the day he begins to live permanently at the new address to declare it, and that declaration needs the consent of the owner of the premises.

Either one can exist without the other, and that is exactly where the problem starts. A worker can be living in a company rented flat in Liepāja and not be declared there, because the landlord never signed the consent. The worker then has no declared address for the authorities to send documents to, and collecting or renewing the residence permit card slips. Consent to declaration is the clause to demand in the tenancy agreement before signing it, not after.

The card line matters more than it looks. PMLP produces the permit within ten working days of the decision to grant residence rights, or within two working days on request, and it is produced against a person who has an address the authority can write to. An undeclared worker is a worker whose card is waiting.

Where these duties end

They do not end with the employment contract. Section 15 obliges the inviter to cover the costs of the foreign national's return to the country of origin, removal included if the authority reaches that point, and paragraph three of the same section makes failure to cover them a ground for barring the company from inviting foreigners for up to one year, with a further decision possible if the sum stays unpaid. A company that dismisses a worker and assumes its exposure ends there learns otherwise when the authority pursues the costs against it.

The obligations do end cleanly in one case. Section 15, paragraph eight releases the inviter when the foreigner leaves Latvia by the date named in the invitation, or when the inviter withdraws the invitation in writing before it has been used. Recording the departure date is therefore not administrative tidiness; it is the act that closes the liability.

In practice it means the housing agreement and the return travel plan belong on the same day as the invitation paperwork. Companies bringing ten or more workers into Latvia usually rent accommodation on a term longer than the first permit and budget a return ticket per worker. It is a line most corridors never spend, which is precisely why it is missing when it is needed.

That chain, together with the notification deadlines of three and five working days, is described in Latvia employer obligations and sanctions. The full relocation chain, from tickets to the first shift, is set out in the relocation chain for a non EU hire, and the permit sequence itself in the Latvia employment residence permit steps.

In Latvia accommodation and healthcare belong to the same document set that opens the residence permit, rather than to the employer's goodwill.