How to hire a third country national in Slovakia: the full employer procedure

A Slovak employer first reports the vacancy to the labour office, leaves it on the register for the prescribed number of working days, then applies for a confirmation that the vacancy can be filled or for a work permit. The worker then applies for temporary residence for the purpose of employment. Start and end of the job are reported within 7 working days.

Two acts, four routes

Two statutes have to be read together. Act No. 5/2004 Coll. on employment services governs the labour side of the file, meaning whether the worker may take the post and on what terms. Act No. 404/2011 Coll. on the residence of foreigners governs the residence side, meaning whether and for how long the worker may stay. The Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family of the Slovak Republic states both as the common basis for employing third country nationals in 2026.

The ministry sets out four basic routes, and the file has to be assigned to one of them before anything else happens:

• Confirmation that a vacant post can be filled. Issued by the labour office and the usual path to temporary residence for the purpose of employment.
• Work permit. A separate labour office decision for defined groups, for example seasonal employment or temporary assignment through an agency.
• EU Blue Card. For highly qualified employment, with a required level of education and a required salary level.
• No permission required. The act lists groups of foreigners who need neither a confirmation nor a permit to reach the labour market, permanent residence holders among them.

Choosing the wrong route is the most expensive mistake in the file. If the employer applies for a confirmation where the act calls for a work permit, the labour office does not produce a decision the worker can use, the procedure restarts, and the post loses a month at minimum.

The sequence and the labour office deadlines

The order of steps is fixed and each step carries its own deadline. The Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family (ÚPSVaR) decides the labour half of the file; the foreign police handle the residence half.

Costs on the labour side are low and the budget sits mostly on the residence side. The administrative fee for a temporary residence application for the purpose of employment filed at an embassy runs to tens of euros under the Slovak schedule of administrative fees, with translations, certifications and recognition of the education document on top. The labour office issues the work permit decision without a fee for the employer. The real cost is time: 20 working days on the vacancy register plus 20 working days for the decision is close to two months before the worker files anything on residence.

Duties that start on the first working day

The file does not close when the permit is issued. The Ministry of Labour keeps employer information duties as a separate group, and the Labour Inspectorate checks them alongside the labour office. Start and end of employment are reported within 7 working days. Since 15 July 2026, according to ÚPSVaR, those information duties can also be filed electronically, which shortens the submission but leaves the deadline unchanged.

The worker must also hold working and pay conditions comparable to a comparable employee of the same employer. A change of job type, place of work or employer alters the conditions the confirmation was issued on and normally means a fresh procedure. The employer keeps a copy of the residence document for the whole duration of the employment.

The Slovak sequence follows the same logic as other European procedures built on one document for work and stay, described in the single permit and its national variants. The Czech version, with its mandatory vacancy register, is set out in the Czech employee card, and if you are recruiting into several countries at once, the timeline comparison by country shows where Slovakia sits.

Anyone planning a start date for a named month counts backwards from the day the vacancy is reported, not from the day the contract is signed. Send the roles, the origin country and the target start date through the employers page and our team will map them against the labour office calendar.