ADVOCACY NEWS
Bureaucratic, Inflexible Visa
& Work, Residency
Permits Process
Despite impressive efforts by Macedonian authorities to
attract FDI over the years, the small number of expats
who need to live and work in the country continue to
face significant problems obtaining and maintaining work
visas, work permits and residency permits. Despite
some improvements to these processes, it still takes at
least 2 months to process a work permit, visa and local
residency permit.
This June, AmCham gathered detailed feedback from 11
international organizations in order to identify common
issues and submit structured feedback to the relevant
institutions. A summary of these findings follows.
Due to a lack of public investment in modern IT infrastructure to support modern and efficient processing of
payments and applications, expats are frustrated by the
need to:
• Submit many of the same hard copy documents to
multiple ministries and agencies (MOI, MFA, ESA)
with original signatures, stamps and court-approved
translations, which is expensive and time-consuming;
• Re-complete and resubmit documents when they
are lost or processing mistakes are made;
• Make time consuming trips to banks and
maintenance of hard copy proof of payment;
• Make ID photo appointments within just 2
work days per week;
• Travel to third countries to apply for and
pick up their Macedonian visa/permits, since
the network of consulates is limited and use
of electronic communications is rare;
• Resubmit much of the same documentation
when renewing work and residency permit
renewal application requirements; and
• Follow the same visa and work permit procedures
for very short-term (<1 month) consultants.
• The inability to obtain a visa for accompanying family
members if their work contract last less than 1 year;
• The inability to obtain a visa for accompanying
unwed partners; and
• Difficulties proving a legal connection between the
local entity and the group, even when both entities
have the same name.
In certain cases, visa and work/residency permits procedures are seen as non-transparent and unpredictable.
For example,
• Detailed visa and work permit application requirements are not consistently published by all Macedonian consulates and consulate staff does not
consistently advise applicants on proper completion
of the application process;
• There is inconsistent treatment of cases by different officers and depending on the country of origin
of the applicant, even when applying to work in the
same organization;
• Some foreigners report lengthy wait times (e.g., 3-6
months) for the issuance of their first residency permit from MOI after arriving in country despite care-
AmCham gathered detailed feedback
from 11 international organizations
to identify common issues and
submit structured feedback to the
relevant institutions.
Other complaints include:
• Having to produce a notarized lease agreement
and prove health insurance coverage, as though
employed expats are likely to seek local welfare
benefits;
fully following MOI timelines and instructions. By
law, residency permits must be issued within 25 days,
however this does not always happen in practice, leaving some expats in an uncomfortable “grey zone”; and
• A number of expats report lengthy wait times for
the renewal of their residency permit from MOI
(e.g., 3 months) despite carefully following MOI
renewal timelines and instructions.
Summer 2015
Issue 46 17