Effective immediately, the Japanese immigration authorities have implemented new guidelines for permanent residency applications for foreign nationals, including shorter qualifying residence periods for certain applicants.
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JAPAN – New One-Year Permanent Residence Pathway Implemented for Highly-Qualified Foreign Residents
The Ministry of Interior has recently relaxed the qualifying criteria for work permits for foreign experts engaged in professions requiring a higher academic education.
Also, the immigration authorities have recently increased audits at client sites.
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The Moscow Migration Department in Sakharovo has recently refused to accept a number of work permit applications for technical reasons.
In addition, occasional rejections have taken place when applying to local migration offices for address registration, for employees who previously obtained work permits at the Moscow Migration Department in Sakharovo.
RUSSIA – Technical Problems at Moscow Migration Office
Effective immediately, all companies based in an EU Member State posting employees to Greece must notify the labour authorities on or before the assignment start date, designate a local representative and retain certain documents.
While Greece transposed the European Union Posted Workers Enforcement Directive (2014/67/EU) into its national law in 2016 through Presidential Decree 101/2016, actual implementation and enforcement of its provisions was delayed until recently.
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GREECE – New Notification and Document Storage Requirements for Posted Workers
Effective 28 August 2017, Immigration New Zealand (INZ) is introducing remuneration bands for work visas. The remuneration bands will affect how long applicants can stay and whether their families can stay too.
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Effective 3 September 2017, the Ministry of Labour and Social Development will implement a new version of its Nitaqat grading programme for companies, meaning stricter Saudization requirements for businesses.
The Ministry has also announced that it only approved 37% of work visa applications in 2016 (316,212 out of 849,228).
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Effective 15 August 2017, a significant legislative amendment makes extensive changes to Czech immigration law.
Act 222/2017 amends Act 326/1999, and includes changes to the rules on employee cards, residence permits and long-term visas. The various ministries have not yet published details of how they will implement the new rules, and the changes could initially cause delays and confusion.
Perhaps the most significant change is a new residence permit for intra-company transferees, which transposes the European Union intra company transfer (ICT) directive (2014/66/EU).
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CZECH REPUBLIC – Major New Immigration Law Includes New EU Intra-Company Transfer Card
