07/11/2007

The Russian immigration authorities have announced an annual limit on the number of work permits available for foreign national workers in Moscow. This limit applies to employment as of 2008. Employers seeking to hire foreign nationals to work in Moscow in 2008 must now submit an employment request to the Interregional Information and Business Center by July 13, 2007. The employment request is a new step in the work permit application process for Moscow. While employment request applications may be accepted after July 13, in order to avoid the limit, it is advisable to file by the July 13 deadline.

The precise number of work permits available for Moscow in 2008 has not yet been specified.

While the government of Russia has set annual limits on the number of work permits for each region of the country, Moscow has traditionally been exempt from such limits. Employers hiring foreign nationals to work in Moscow were not required to submit an employment request to the authorities. The maximum number of work permits applies to all foreign national workers, regardless of skill or education level. Please note that citizens of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) nations are exempt from the employment permit requirement, and are therefore not counted against the general limit.

In general, the employers make the employment request by (1) completing two original copies of the request form, which should be stamped and signed by both a general manager and a human resources manager of the employer; (2) submitting the completed request forms to the Interregional Information and Business Center in Moscow, which will retain one copy of the request and return the other stamped copy to the employer's representative; and (3) retaining the stamped request form to document that it made the necessary employment request for 2008.

Once the employer receives the approved employment request, it can proceed with the normal work authorization process.

In preparing this article, Fragomen has worked closely with the immigration law firm, VISTA Foreign Business Support (Moscow). The content of this article is provided for informational purposes only.

If you have any questions regarding this alert, please do not hesitate to contact the global immigration professional with whom you work at Fragomen Global Immigration Services or send an email to the appropriate regional mailbox: canada@fragomen.com, lar@fragomen.com  (for Latin America), asiapac@fragomen.com, or emea@fragomen.com (for Europe, Middle East and Africa).

Source: http://pubweb.fdbl.com/news1.nsf/c8abb103352ef95a86256e3100809438/e76c397cf51fadcd85257315004dc161?OpenDocument