How does an employee of a foreign company's branch or representative office get a residence permit in Ukraine?

Who can use this ground

Working at a branch or representative office of a foreign company registered in Ukraine is a separate ground for a посвідка (temporary residence permit, TRP). Subparagraph 5 of paragraph 33 of Procedure No. 322 requires just one document on top of the basic package, a submission from the branch or representative office concerned. Branches and representative offices of foreign banks have their own subparagraph 6, which follows the same logic. The general procedure is described in our guide to the TRP.

This ground is meant for employees of a unit of a foreign legal entity. The company itself stays foreign and operates in Ukraine through a registered branch or representative office. For a comparison with other routes, see the article on grounds for a TRP.

Why no work permit is needed

Part six of Article 42 of the Law "On Employment of the Population" expressly lists staff of branches and representative offices of foreign legal entities among those who may be employed without a permit. You therefore do not deal with the employment centre at all, and the document that confirms your job is the submission from the office itself.

A subsidiary is a different matter. If a foreign group works in Ukraine through a separate Ukrainian LLC, that LLC is an independent legal entity, and its foreign employees do need a дозвіл на застосування праці (work permit). How such a permit is issued for a transfer within a group is explained in the article on intra-corporate transferees. Other exemptions are collected in the article on exemptions from the work permit.

Documents and the submission

The basic package is the same for every ground, and for this one you add the submission from the branch or representative office. It is a document issued on behalf of the unit, asking for a TRP for a named employee. The head of the office signs it, and the details in it must match the employee's passport. The basic package itself, meaning the passport, the translation, the insurance policy and the fee receipt, is covered in the article on documents for a TRP.

Your office must be registered in the prescribed manner. Before filing, make sure the registration is valid and that the head signing the submission has the authority to do so. Documents issued by the parent company abroad need legalisation and a translation.

Type D visa and humanitarian offices

For most nationalities the employee gets a type D visa at a Ukrainian consulate before applying for the TRP. Law No. 4816-IX made an exception for staff of branches and representative offices of foreign companies that receive humanitarian aid. Unless they are Russian citizens, they do not need a type D visa for the TRP for the period of martial law and one year after it ends.

Humanitarian organisations gain a lot from this. The employee can enter Ukraine visa-free, if their nationality allows it, and apply for the TRP from inside the country. The filing deadline stays the same, so plan the filing from the first week after entry.

When the job at the office ends

The TRP rests on the job at the representative office. If the employee resigns or the office stops operating, the ground disappears. Among the grounds for withdrawing a permit, paragraph 63 of Procedure No. 322 names both a request from the host party and the termination of the legal entity that acted as host. If the employee moves to another structure, prepare the new ground in advance. The withdrawal procedure is described in the article on withdrawal of a TRP.

The employee's family

Staff of representative offices often relocate with their families. A spouse and children can get their own permits through family reunification, because Procedure No. 322 extends this ground to family members of foreigners who work at branches and representative offices. They need documents proving the family relationship, proof of sufficient funds and the employee's own TRP. Details are in the article on a TRP for a family member.

Plan your family's documents at the same time as your own. Marriage and birth certificates from abroad need legalisation, and that takes longer than the filing itself.

After you receive the card

With the card in hand, a few everyday matters come up, and the representative office usually helps to settle them. You need to register your place of residence at the ЦНАП (administrative service centre, TsNAP) for your home address. Then come a tax number, if you do not have one yet, and a bank account. The full list of steps is in the article on steps after getting a TRP.

Lawyer's experience

In representative office cases, the most common confusion is about the company's form of presence itself. A client tells me "we have a representative office", while the register shows a wholly foreign-owned Ukrainian LLC. Whether a work permit is needed depends on exactly this, so I always start by checking the registration.

My second piece of advice concerns the signature. The submission from the office must be signed by a person with proper authority, and the power of attorney from head office is often drawn up in a foreign language without legalisation. Check it before filing, because the ДМС (State Migration Service, DMS) may refuse to accept a submission signed that way.

If your company is sending staff to its representative office in Ukraine, we handle the residence permit process from preparing the submission to the issue of the card.

Frequently asked questions