Good practice:

Startup VISA Lithuania

Immigrant entrepreneurs have great difficulty getting a visa, making investment into establishment of their innovative startup in Lithuania pretty complicated.
The new legislation streamlines the process for gaining temporary residence permits for citizens of non EU/EEA countries who want to run innovative businesses in Lithuania. Thanks to these changes, startups from Russia, Ukraine, and India are already in the process of establishing their businesses in Lithuania.
The Startup Visa is a temporary residence permit issued by the Migration Department and approved by the Ministry of Economy. An evaluation committee decides if the startup applying is suitable. This committee is made up of representatives of local startup accelerators and venture capital funds, plus staff from Startup Lithuania and the Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology. There are some key criteria for startups applying for the visa: the startup must operate in an innovate field, the applicant must legally be at least a partial owner of the newly founded company, and they must have enough financial resources to achieve the set business goals for 1 year. A set amount is not stipulated, and applicants have the freedom to decide how much capital is required to achieve the startup’s goals for their first year in Lithuania. All the applications are assessed by the committee, so it is important to establish an evaluation committee that would be made up of local startup ecosystem builders.

Currently Startup Lithuania is responsible for this program and this organization has two project manager who works on the Start-up Visa full-time:
- Communication with potential applicants
- Communication with those who have the visa.
The evaluation committee could consist of 5-10 memebers.

Since 2017 lots of start-ups from non-EU markets have shown interest in Lithuania, during the 2017-2019 the increased number of non-EU start-up founders were granted with Start-up visa: 2017 – 27 2018 – 83, 2019 Q2 – 70 , in total 35% of applications were approved. These non-EU Start-ups consisted almost 16% of all Start-ups working in Lithuania in 2020. This program provided a possibility to attract company founders that otherwise wouldn’t consider Lithuania as a place to start their company.

The idea of Start-up Visa could be transferred to any country or region and there are various versions of this program in different countries. How easy and fast it could be transferred depends on the local legislation, governmental structure, procedures etc. In Lithuania the main thing was to make an amendment in the National Foreigners Act as well to give event bigger advantage for Foreign founders Lithuanian government is considering to pass a legal amendment that will allow foreigners to obtain the status of an e-resident
Startup Visa offer companies a plethora of benefits. For example, the chance to enter a new market or establish and grow a business in a more startup friendly environment than where you currently reside. There’s a significant benefit to countries as well. Startup visas are a way to attract a highly qualified workforce, innovation, and in the long-term – new jobs and more funds in the country’s budget.