Residence and Work permits for Non EU Citizens

With the increase of foreigners wishing to come to Romania and Europe to work, we are asked regularly as to what is the position for non-EU citizens concerning work permits and residency.

The position of the employment of Non-EU employees is governed in Romania by the provisions of EU Directive 2011/98/EU and Romanian government emergency Ordinance 194/20002. Under this legislation, the position is that if a person wants to work in Romania and is non-EU national who may already be resident in Romania and have direct access to the labour market or indeed may already working in an EU country then they can, in theory, obtain a work permit for Romania. To obtain a work permit there are a number of steps that have to be undertaken.

Once an employee has been offered employment the employer has to obtain a work permit for the non-resident EU employee. The employer can be either an individual or a legal entity. The most important condition concerns are that Non-EU citizens will only be offered employment if the position cannot be filled by a Romanian citizen, a citizen of the EU or by a permanent resident in Romania.

The employer is responsible for obtaining and the issuing by the Romanian Authorities of the work permit. To be allowed to employ a non-EU citizen the employer must have paid all of its obligations to the State Budget and not have been sanctioned for employing persons illegally or without notifying the authorities.
Non-EU citizens have to show that they meet the requirements regarding professional training, experience and hold suitable qualifications. They must not have a criminal record. As the Romanian government in December, each year issues a decision on the number of non-EU citizens who can be granted work permits for the following year they must also fall within these provisions.

The obtaining of a work permit is possible for persons who hold the position of sole administrator in a company with foreign share participation subject to certain financial qualifications as an administrator does not fall within the provisions of the employment legislation. The same applies to professional sportsmen but they must prove that have carried out a similar activity in other countries.

After obtaining the work permit the employer has to send this document to the future employee so that he can on his own responsibility and the employee is then responsible for obtaining the relevant visa.

Depending on the type of activity that is to be performed a person may be employed as a permanent worker on a work contract with an individual, or legal entity, including a representative office, branch or subsidiary of a legal entity based abroad.

The other types of employment open to a non-EU resident are as a probationer, the employee’s presence in Romania being strictly limited in time, and are for professional education, linguistic and obtaining cultural knowledge. As a seasonal worker under a fixed-term individual contract which cannot exceed 6 months over a period of 12 months. As a cross-border worker when the employee works in a border locality and returns every day or at least one day per week to the non-EU country where he resides and which has a common border with Romania’s.
Where the employee works for a foreign legal entity and the employee is transferred to a Romanian company based on a contract concluded between the company making the transfer and the Romanian company.

Once the employee has obtained the relevant work permit it is necessary in the majority of cases for him to obtain a visa before entry in Romania. The work permit does not operate as a visa and this is a separate application based upon the work permit. This is normally made by an application to the Romanian embassy in the employees home country. The applicant will have to produce his passport as well as the work permit and other documentation as specified by the embassy at that time.

After entering in Romania, the employee must obtain a single permit. Authorities in EU countries are required to treat any application for this single permit for residence and work (new, amended or renewed) as a single application procedure. They must decide whether the application is to be made by the non-EU country nationals or by their employer (or by both). The permit can be renewed but this must be done before the expiration date of the current permit. Simultaneously, the work permit will be extended if the employee remains with the same employer.

The single permit allows a non-EU country citizen to equal treatment with Romanian citizens no matter their country of origin.

The obtaining of the work permit and relevant visa is on paper relatively simple, but the time taken will depend upon the employer at the time of the application for the work permit having all the correct necessary paperwork in place otherwise delays will occur. Similarly for the visa and as mentioned above this has to be applied for before entry into Romania when a visa is required.

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