Seasonal work over 90 days in Slovenia: the single permit for agriculture and hospitality

For seasonal work lasting more than 90 days in a calendar year, a third country national needs a single residence and work permit issued on the basis of consent for seasonal work from the Employment Service of Slovenia. Total seasonal work may not exceed six months in any one calendar year. This is a different procedure from the permit for up to 90 days.

Two procedures that are easy to confuse

Slovenia runs seasonal work for foreign nationals along two separate tracks, and the dividing line is 90 days in a calendar year. Up to 90 days, the Employment Service of Slovenia issues a seasonal work permit, a standalone document with its own application and its own quota. Beyond 90 days that document does not exist: the worker needs a single residence and work permit, issued by the administrative unit, with the Employment Service giving consent for seasonal work inside that procedure. The shorter track is covered in the seasonal work permit up to 90 days.

The difference is not formal. A single permit is a residence permit, which brings the administrative unit into the file and requires the worker to satisfy residence conditions as well as work conditions. An employer used to the 90 day application at the Employment Service, who applies the same approach to a six month season, files with the wrong authority and loses weeks in the part of the year where there are none to spare.

The ceiling is six months per calendar year, counted in total. If the worker already did 80 days in spring for one employer, less than four months remain in that same calendar year, not a fresh six. This aggregation across separate periods and separate employers is a common reason for refusal at the autumn grape harvest or at a second tourism season.

What the Employment Service checks before consent

For consent to seasonal work the Employment Service of Slovenia examines the employer first and the post second. The employer must be properly registered for the activity in which the seasonal work will be performed, or must be entered in the register of agricultural holdings as the holder of the holding. In agriculture that entry is the most frequent obstacle: the holding exists and the land is worked, but the person entered in the register as holder is a different family member from the person signing the employment contract.

The second condition is the quota. Under Article 41 of the Act on the Employment, Self employment and Work of Foreigners (ZZSDT) of 2015, the government may set an annual quota of consents to single permits, and consent is issued only while that quota is unspent. The Employment Service of Slovenia states on its page for seasonal work over 90 days (2026) that an unexhausted annual quota is an express condition of consent. The quota for seasonal work over 90 days is separate from the one for permits up to 90 days, so knowing that one is still open says nothing about the other. For an employer, the filing date is part of the plan rather than an administrative detail.

Timeline, costs and the error that costs a season

Read the timeline backwards from the date the worker actually has to start. The single permit is an administrative unit procedure in which the Employment Service gives consent, so the realistic lead time is the sum of two steps rather than one. An application filed in March for a September harvest is safe. One filed in July for September often ends in agriculture with a worker who arrives after the picking is finished. The costs are the 70.00 euro administrative fee for the single permit, the production and service of the card at 15.47 euro in person at the office or 26.51 euro by post (SPOT, single permits eBDP, 2026), and translations and certifications of the registration evidence. The expensive item is still the missed season rather than the fee.

The error seasonal employers repeat every year is the day count. A worker who has already worked in the same season under a permit for up to 90 days cannot then receive a further full six months in the same calendar year. The Employment Service adds up every period of seasonal work in the calendar year and refuses consent once the sum passes six months. Since an employer usually does not know about earlier periods with other employers, the only reliable step is to ask the worker about all seasonal periods in the current year before filing, not after the decision arrives.

The second recurring question is accommodation. Seasonal work in agriculture and hospitality means the worker arrives in a place where they have no housing, and the accommodation requirements are checked separately from pay. The minimum standards are set out in worker accommodation standards in Slovenia, and the general course of the procedure in the single permit procedure in Slovenia.

Seasonal work over 90 days is therefore an ordinary single permit procedure with a specific consent basis and a hard ceiling of six months per calendar year. An employer planning the season in January has both procedures and both quotas available. An employer planning it in June has whatever is left.