Changes in Foreigners’ Employment Procedure in Ukraine

On 03 February 2017, the changes to the Procedure of issuing, prolongation and annulling the work permit for foreigners and stateless persons in Ukraine came into force.

According to the changes employers are entitled to employ a foreign expert in several management positions (concurrently), that being important for enterprises, founded with the foreign investment involvement.

An employment agreement with a foreign employee shall be concluded within 90 days after the foreign employee has obtained a work permit in Ukraine. Thus, the term of submitting a copy of the employment agreement, concluded between an employer and a foreigner, has been prolonged from 7 business days up to 10 calendar days.

There has been introduced a regulation on the mandatory return of the documents, submitted for the purpose of the work permit prolongation, to the employer (provided the regional employment center has refused to issue a work permit).

In addition, now the employment center registers and issues a work permit not later than 3 business days from the date of credit of funds for the work permit into the account of the State insurance fund of Ukraine.

There have also been specified terms of submitting documents by an employer for the purpose of prolonging the validity term of the permit for employment. The documents should be submitted not later than 20 and not earlier than 40 calendar days before the permit expiration.

There have been introduced and determined the procedure and terms of reviewing the regional employment centers decisions. Now, a decision about the refusal to issue a permit, prolong its term and cancel the permit can be reviewed at the State Employment Service not later than 10 calendar days following the date of its receipt by the employer or in the court.