Hiring citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Slovenia under the bilateral agreement

A citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina can be employed in Slovenia only under the intergovernmental labour agreement. The Employment Service of the Republic of Slovenia issues a work permit valid for three years, and that permit counts as consent to the single permit for residence and work issued by the administrative unit.

The agreement is published in the Official Gazette RS, no. 92/2012, with amendments from 2017. Bosnia and Herzegovina is the largest source of foreign workers in Slovenia, so in practice this route is used more often than the general procedure described in the guide to the single permit.

Selection runs through the employment service in Bosnia first

The procedure starts with the employer reporting a vacancy to the Employment Service on form PDM-KTD. Box 3.d), which marks a worker arriving under a bilateral agreement, must be completed in full. The form is required even for occupations that are otherwise exempt from the labour market test, because without it the preliminary placement procedure does not begin. The form itself is covered in the guide to Slovenia's labour market test.

The Employment Service then checks whether the register of unemployed holds suitable domestic candidates and whether the other conditions for hiring a foreign national under article 17 of the Employment, Self-employment and Work of Foreigners Act are met. It requests confirmation of settled tax obligations from the Financial Administration, and asks the employer for missing details on accommodation and prior interviews.

If the conditions are met, the service prepares a document titled Basic data on the employer and the vacancy and sends it electronically to the Agency for Labour and Employment of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The agency selects suitable candidates and passes them to the employer for final choice. Where the candidate is already known, the agency verifies that they meet the stated conditions and are willing to accept the offered job.

Three conditions must hold at once. The candidate must be over 18 and registered as unemployed with the competent public employment service in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there must be no suitable domestic candidates on the Slovenian labour market, and the employer must satisfy article 17.

The employment contract must be concluded for at least one year. The Employment Service recommends signing its model bilingual contract, which removes the most frequent dispute about terms that surfaces on arrival.

Three years of permit, but the first year is tied to you

The permit is issued for three years, on the employer's application. After the first year of employment, during which the worker must be employed with the employer that filed the application or its legal successor, the worker gains free access to the labour market. For the remaining two years they may work for anyone, without new consent.

If the employment relationship ends during the first year, the work permit is revoked. The agreement provides two exceptions. The permit stands if the worker claims unemployment benefit, or if the contract is terminated extraordinarily for reasons on the employer's side and the worker signs a new contract with another employer for the same post within 30 days.

Before expiry the worker may apply for an extension on form TUJ-BiH-2, for a further three years. The condition is one of those listed in the agreement, for example at least one year of employment before expiry together with a contract running for at least one more year.

Deadlines and costs to put in the plan

Work permit applications can be filed in person at any employment office, by post to the service's central address in Ljubljana, or electronically through the SPOT portal. The administrative fee is payable on filing and must be paid into the state administrative fees account rather than the Employment Service's own account. The service flags this specifically, because misdirected payments have made proof of payment difficult.

Slovenia uses the same bilateral model for Serbia, under an agreement from 2019. How that model differs from the agreements Nepal concludes with European states is set out in the review of Nepal's bilateral labour agreements with Europe. Werklist runs both types of procedure for employers in Slovenia, and the scope of that work is set out on the employers page.

The most common error on this route is assuming the choice of candidate is yours from the start. The preliminary placement procedure through the agency in Bosnia and Herzegovina is built into the agreement and cannot be skipped, even when you already know the person. Skip it and the 60 day clock is being counted from the wrong point.