Estonia: 1 Year Visa May Become Mandatory For Foreign Workers

Estonia has disclosed its intention to mandate foreign nationals looking for temporary jobs in the country to apply for a one-year visa before entering the nation.

The Estonian government has changed the laws governing visas for temporary workers, enabling all immigrants to work legally as long as their jobs are registered, regardless of whether they have a valid visa.

To address the issue of people entering Estonia on tourist visas and then engaging in employment, the Border Guard and Migration Policy Department of the Estonian Interior Ministry, under the leadership of Janek Mägi, has proposed a change that would require short-term workers to obtain long-term visas valid for 365 days before commencing work in the nation.

Mägi underlined that to guarantee job openness and legality, foreigners planning to work in Estonia should apply for a long-stay visa.

According to the head of the Border and Migration Policy of the Interior Ministry of Janek Magi “If a person already knows their clear path to come here to work, they should apply for a long-stay visa, and that would be perfectly correct.”

The agriculture sector is worried that these changes would make it more difficult to hire foreign workers, even though Estonia's government has determined that modifications to the short-term employment visa are necessary, as reported by ERR.

Meanwhile, Ragnar Viikoja, the head of Estonia's agriculture industry, said in his statement that requiring one-year permits for temporary workers could result in higher expenses for all parties because the agriculture sector depends so largely on foreign labor for physical labour. Viikoja added that implementing more laws could hurt the industry and result in labor shortages and higher domestic production costs.

“What this means for us is that we may be missing out on the people who could do the job,” Viikoja stated.

Viikoja added that authorities may undertake extensive background checks without imposing onerous visa requirements, hence seasonal workers should be excused, while Mägi stressed further that workers who worked seasonal jobs, like strawberry pickers, would not be impacted by these changes for shorter periods each year.