Starting 1 January 2025, only citizens of Georgia and Armenia will be eligible for residence permits for the purpose of employment and guest worker residence permits. This marks a significant tightening of the previous rules, which allowed citizens of 10 countries to obtain guest worker residence permits and had no such restrictions for residence permits for the purpose of employment. Although these changes do not affect currently valid permits, the new rules will apply to all new permit issuances.

The employment supervisory authority has published its annual report summarizing its findings from inspections carried out over 2023. The main objective of the inspections was to assess the extent to which employers comply with the basic rules on employment. We highlight the most important takeaways of the authority’s report and our expectations for the future.