Useful resources

The most underrated resource of all. The Ministry publishes a separate checklist file for each ground, each citing a specific article of the Residence of Aliens Act: work — article 23, business — 22, study — 24, family reunification — 27, research — 26, special activity — 25.

This is the primary source the inspector checks your file against. If you are unsure whether a document is needed, look here rather than at somebody else's checklist.

Not a commercial outfit but an official information resource.

It holds the application forms for a permit and its renewal, and explains where exactly you are allowed to file. A non-obvious point: as a rule the first application is filed at a Slovak embassy, and only under certain conditions at the foreigners' police inside the country. For business permits the restrictions are tighter.

All documents issued abroad must be legalised, and documents expire in 90 days. That is what breaks plans most often: while you were obtaining one certificate, another went out of date.

Without an appointment your documents will not be accepted. Walk-in queues are gone; in Bratislava nothing is accepted without a booking.

Plainly: getting a free slot is hard. Slots appear in the system automatically and are taken very quickly, so you have to monitor it regularly. An empty calendar is not a malfunction, it is the normal state.

The “one person, one booking” rule applies to children too: a separate slot is booked for each child. And for a first application you may book at any foreigners' police department, not only the one covering your address — which widens your options considerably when there are no slots in your city.

Situations the law does not spell out: whether you can file electronically, what to do when the grounds change, how the deadlines are counted.

The conditions for moving to the next statuses. This is where you can see that five-year permanent residence and long-term residence are different statuses with different grounds, and that citizenship requires 8 years of permanent residence. The naturalisation conditions are on the neighbouring page of the same section.

When a work permit is required and when it is not. Relevant for those arriving through family reunification: the nine-month rule applies there — an employer may only hire a family member after nine months of continuous residence.

The primary source on apostilles: which authority certifies what, when an apostille suffices and when consular legalisation is required. Phone numbers for consultations are listed.

The split matters: different categories of documents go through different authorities, and you cannot send everything to a single window.

The Ministry of Justice's official translator database. It is in Slovak only, but searching is straightforward — you need the language-pair filter.

A translation by a translator from this register requires no further certification and is accepted by the authorities directly.

A separate route for diplomas, school certificates and study records. They are certified by the Ministry of Education, and without this first step the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will not legalise them further.

Relevant to anyone going to study or having qualifications recognised.

The whole procedure broken down step by step in English — useful when the authorities' own pages read too bureaucratically.

One point stands out: Slovak embassies sometimes produce translations themselves for use inside the country, in which case no further certification is needed. The service is rare, but where it is available it saves both time and money.