Employment, Financial Services, Legislation, Lithuania, Markets and Companies, Technology, Wages

According to Audronis Azubalis, vice-chairman of the parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, the committee decided to scrap the requirement, introduced two years ago, for foreigners to employ three employees.

The proposed amendments to the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens require that companies founded by foreign nationals employ at least one EU or EEC citizen and pay monthly salaries of at least two times the country's average gross monthly wage, or 1,513 euros.

The government planned to reduce the salary threshold to 1.5 times the average wage when it submitted the original draft amendments to the Seimas.

The improved bill also imposes the requirement for a foreign national who wants to settle down and work in Lithuania to invest 28,000 euros in a business he or she is setting up, half of which will have to be his or her personal funds.

A foreign founder of a startup company involved in new technologies or other innovations significant to the Lithuanian economy would not only have their applications for temporary residence processed quicker, but would also be permitted to bring their families with them.

The committee says that these safeguards are necessary to stop the practice of foreign nationals founding bogus companies in order to obtain temporary residence permits in Lithuania and then move to higher-paying EU countries.

The full Seimas is expected to discuss the proposed amendments today.