Lithuania Start-up Visa

The article governing this route fixes no capital figure at all, and what deserves recording is that the silence is deliberate — the neighbouring article makes it plain.

Article 45¹(1) allows a temporary residence permit for a foreigner intending to establish a startuolis in Lithuania and carry on its activity, provided the institution authorised by the Minister of Economy and Innovation confirms in writing three things:

That the foreigner has proved they are developing the very startup activity they intend to pursue in Lithuania.

That they hold the required qualification, the financing and a business plan; and that their presence in Lithuania is necessary for the startup's activity.

In place of a money threshold the law sets a headcount limit: A startup may have no more than four foreign participants.

The assessment procedure decides whether the intended activity has high, innovation-based development potential and whether the applicant has the qualification, financing and plan.

That procedure is laid down by the Minister of Economy and Innovation in agreement with the Minister of Education, Science and Sport and the Minister of the Interior.

The contrast shows the silence is by design. Article 45(1)(1), the ordinary business route, is precise about figures.

The company must have been carrying on its stated activity under a business plan for at least six months before the application, and must have equity of at least EUR 28,000 of which at least EUR 14,000 is funds or other assets invested by the foreigner personally.

It must also employ full-time workers who are Lithuanian, EU or EFTA nationals or permanently resident foreigners whose aggregate monthly pay is at least twice the last published average monthly gross earnings.

And the applicant must be the company's head or a shareholder whose shares carry a nominal value of at least one third of the share capital. The startup route is exempted from that entire set of figures.

The figure in the options table, 1,038 euro for each month of stay, is the level the programme guidebook gives for 2025, that is 12,456 euro for twelve months.

Article 27 of the Law leaves the amount regarded as sufficient to live in Lithuania to the Minister of Social Security and Labour; the level applying to 2026 applications has not been verified at an official source, so the table keeps the 2025 figure with its year label.

The term of the permit is fixed by the statute itself rather than by guidance material. Article 45(1), paragraph 4, of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens provides that the temporary residence permit is issued for two years, and that it may be changed for three years.

That change is available only where the institution authorised by the Minister of the Economy and Innovation confirms afresh that the foreigner still meets the requirements of paragraph 1 of that same article.

The renewal is therefore not an administrative step but a second assessment against the same criteria: that the person is still developing the startup activity, still has the necessary qualification, financing and business plan, and that their presence is still necessary for the startup’s activity.

Paragraph 5 sets out the other side of the permit, and it is an obligation rather than a recommendation: a foreigner who has ceased the startup’s activity must leave Lithuania, except in the cases listed in Article 11(2) to (5), or unless they are granted a residence permit on another ground under the same Act.

As to how the assessment standard is built, paragraph 2 leaves the evaluation procedure to the Minister of the Economy and Innovation, but only with the prior consent of the ministers responsible for education and for the interior.

Three ministries together decide what counts as a startup with large, innovation-based development potential.

In practice the file passes through two bodies: the confirmation letter is issued by Startup Lithuania, part of Innovation Agency Lithuania, after a committee of experts has assessed the application, and Startup Lithuania itself notes that the letter does not guarantee the permit, since the Migration Department makes the final decision. A foreigner outside Lithuania files the permit application through an external service provider under Article 28(2); the Migration Department's MIGRIS system lists one such point in Viet Nam, the VFS Global centre in Hanoi, where Vietnamese citizens are served whatever the ground of the application.

The law sets no deadline binding the authority to decide, but it winds three clocks on the permit holder, and all three start running from the date the permit is issued rather than from arrival in the country.

On the authority's side, the Startup Visa Lithuania guidebook, August 2025 edition, gives a processing time for the temporary residence permit of one month under the general procedure and 15 days under the urgent procedure, excluding the time needed to send the document to the country of application; this is a time published in the programme's guidance, not a deadline set by law.

The first clock: a foreigner issued a temporary residence permit on the ground in Article 40(1)(5¹) must establish the startup and begin carrying on the activity stated in its founding documents within one hundred and twenty days of issue.

The second clock covers the case of a startup already in existence: where not all future participants took part in founding it, a foreigner issued a permit under Article 40(5¹) who comes to Lithuania intending to become a participant of an already-established startup must become one within sixty days of issue.

So the joining branch is held to half the time allowed the founding branch.

The third clock is the reporting duty, and it is the shortest. Under Article 36(2), no later than seven working days from the date the startup is established or the date of becoming a participant, the foreigner must report in writing to the institution authorised by the Minister of Economy and Innovation. The Startup Visa Lithuania guidebook, August 2025 edition, asks for more than the law: notice of the company's registration to the Startup Visa Lithuania team by email within three working days.

The report must state that the startup has been established and has begun the activity set out in its founding documents, or that they have become a participant. The three dates run consecutively, so in practice they add up to a fixed schedule, and missing any one of them means losing the very ground on which the permit rests.

The law sets no minimum number of days of presence; it measures absence instead, and the start-up founder is not among those exempted.

Article 50(1)(13) of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens provides that a temporary residence permit is revoked — the verb is indicative, panaikinamas, not may be revoked — if the alien departs to live, or is living, in a foreign state for more than six months.

That same provision lists exactly five exempted grounds, and this is the part to read closely: Article 40(1) points 4¹, 4² and 13, together with Article 46(1) points 1 and 5.

The start-up permit is issued under Article 40(1) point 5¹, the provision covering an alien who intends to found a startuolis in Lithuania and operate it under Article 45¹; point 5¹ does not appear in the exemption list. The six-month absence ceiling therefore binds the founder personally.

Worth reading alongside it: the same statute treats this route in opposite directions — Article 43(6) waives outright the two-year wait before family members may join, while Article 50 grants no relief from the absence ceiling.

An exemption in one place does not imply an exemption in another, even within one instrument.

Article 43(1) of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens, in the consolidated text in force from 1 July 2026, lists eight cases of family reunification, and the three that apply where the sponsor is a foreigner holding a residence permit are points 2, 5 and 6. Point 2 covers minor children.

Point 5 covers the spouse or the person with whom a registered partnership agreement has been concluded, so a registered partner is recognised while an unregistered cohabiting partner is not; under paragraph 7 of the same article, both spouses or both registered partners must be at least 21 years old. Point 6 covers a first-degree relative in the direct ascending line, meaning parents, with no age limit and no requirement to prove dependency.

Adult children are absent from the list, as are grandparents and siblings.

Article 43(3) requires the relatives to meet, or the sponsor to guarantee, three general conditions that Article 26(1), points 2 to 4, sets for every applicant for a residence permit, the founder included: valid health insurance, sufficient funds or regular income to live on, and a written undertaking to declare a place of residence with at least seven square metres of living space for each adult declared there.

One substantial hurdle is waived outright for this category, and that is the most valuable point in this record:

Paragraph 6 requires the sponsor to have lived in Lithuania for two years before bringing relatives, but item 2 of that same paragraph exempts outright a person holding or applying for a permit under article 40(1)(5^1), which is precisely the startup route.

A startup founder may bring relatives at once, with no two-year wait. The relatives permit is issued for exactly the term of the sponsor permit, and marriages and registered partnerships are screened for sham arrangements under a procedure set by the Minister of the Interior.

The statute contains no monetary figure: Article 27 leaves the amount regarded as sufficient to live in Lithuania to the Minister of Social Security and Labour, and the instrument setting the 2026 amount has not been verified in full at an official source.

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the Lithuania passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Lithuania passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Lithuania passport reaches 195 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

The provision that creates this category says nothing at all about tax. Article 45(1) of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens grants a temporary residence permit to a foreigner intending to establish and operate a startup in Lithuania, and requires confirmation from the body authorised by the Minister of the Economy and Innovation.

It allows at most four foreigners to be members of one startup, requires the startup to be established within 120 days of the permit being issued or the applicant to join an existing startup within 60 days, grants two years renewable for three, and requires departure from Lithuania once the startup ceases to operate.

The whole provision is silent on rates, tax residence and concessions. Tax arrears, however, appear at three other points in the same statute, and at each one they operate against the applicant.

Article 35(1) item 11 refuses issue or replacement of a permit where the foreigner owes tax exceeding one basic social benefit to the state budget, a municipal budget, the funds administered by the State Tax Inspectorate or the state social fund budgets, has failed to meet customs obligations, or has not filed at least one mandatory tax return.

There are exceptions where the debt is deferred, postponed or under a tax dispute.

Article 50 repeats that same condition as a ground for revoking a permit already issued. And article 133 allows an entry ban of up to five years on a person who has lost the right of residence and has not paid a fine or has not filed at least one mandatory tax return.

The second tier contains no dedicated regime: the Personal Income Tax Law does not mention startups, and neither does the personal income tax page of the revenue authority.

Tax residence is established by a permanent place of residence, by a centre of interests weighted toward Lithuania, by 183 days in the tax period, or by 280 days across two consecutive periods with 90 days in one of them.

The Startup Visa Lithuania guidebook, August 2025 edition, prices the step of filing the temporary residence permit application at two levels, and applicants filing through a VFS centre also pay a service fee depending on the country:

Health insurance is a mandatory cost for each applicant. The cover must be at least EUR 30,000, valid for at least 12 months, valid in the European Union, and must cover repatriation in case of illness or accident. It may be bought from a Lithuanian or a foreign provider, as long as it is valid in Lithuania.

One document cost is often left out. Papers issued by government authorities, such as a certificate of non-conviction, must be legalised or apostilled depending on whether the issuing country has joined the Apostille Convention; papers issued by non-governmental bodies, such as a bank statement, must be notarised.

Every document not in Lithuanian or English must be translated by a certified translator. On housing, the guidebook notes that using a broker usually costs a fee equal to one month's rent.