Families move fast here: the law gives ten working days for a reunification decision. But you cannot change employer except by going through the whole procedure again.
On paper the route is simple: one window instead of two agencies, short legal deadlines, a modest salary threshold, and a labour market test that comes down to the employer's own declaration. The government keeps a priority occupations list (127 roles in IT, medicine, agriculture, engineering and services), and specialists on it get a two-year permit instead of one. A spouse on a family reunification permit may work without a separate permit.
Delivery lags behind the law. The European Commission's 2025 report says migration management needs more staff, equipment and a digital system, and the real path to a card in hand is about twice the legal one. Refusal statistics are published neither by the inspectorate nor by the Commission. Applications go to the one-stop shop in person or through web services, but every document needs an apostille and a certified translation.
The weak spot is the tie to the employer. The law sets no grace period after a job ends, the right of residence can be withdrawn, and changing employer means a full new application (it can be filed without leaving while the permit is still valid). After withdrawal you get 30 days to leave, plus up to 30 more on request if children are in school. An appeal suspends removal, but an entry ban comes automatically with the return decision: one year for not keeping to the purpose of the permit. A renewal must be filed at least 15 days before expiry; if the decision is late, the agency issues a certificate and your stay remains legal.
The European Commission records no pressure on legally resident foreigners for 2024-2025, and we found no retroactive revocations. The friction is practical: a bank account requires collecting a personal IDNP number in person, and banks are selective with non-residents. A family can come straight away with no waiting period, but renewing a family reunification permit requires income of at least one national average salary per family member. Naturalisation rules were tightened in 2025.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
Visa-free for up to 90 days within six months, and work for up to 90 days without a permit. After that, the same residence procedure as for everyone.
Visa-free for up to 90 days within six months. Since July 2025 a separate, softer regime of access to the labour market applies to them.
Visa-free for up to 90 days within six months, and work for up to 90 days without a permit. Moldova is not in the EU, so the EU's temporary protection until 2028 does not apply here: Moldova runs its own temporary protection for people arriving from Ukraine, with a term set by the government. Check the current term and renewal rules with the General Inspectorate for Migration (protectietemporara.gov.md).
Visa-free for up to 90 days within six months of first entry. But since April 2025 Russian citizens have been systematically refused entry at the border; we found no documented cases involving holders of Moldovan residence permits. Banks apply sanctions checks to Russian citizens.
Visa-free for up to 90 days within six months of first entry. We found no specific nationality restrictions; residence follows the standard procedure.
The place interval 29-47 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Access to entry: 90 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 65.7. The weakest is Status security: 44 against 57.9. Above the world average: 4 out of 7.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
By law the decision takes 15 calendar days and the card up to 7 more. In practice the whole route takes 30-60 days; a paid fast track exists.
Not on the work route: the employer is the applicant. The self-employed are left with the digital nomad visa for up to two years with income of three average salaries, but it does not allow work for Moldovan clients.
The consular visa fee is €40. We did not find an official fee table for the residence right and its renewal, so we give no full total.
Yes. There is no grace period after a job ends, and the right of residence can be withdrawn once its purpose is gone. After withdrawal you have 30 days to leave, and an entry ban follows automatically.
Permanent residence after 5 years of continuous residence, with a certificate of intermediate Romanian; the law excludes IT specialists and employees of free economic zone residents. Citizenship after 10 years with basic Romanian and a constitution test, and you can keep your previous citizenship.
There is no pressure on legal residents, and the law is simple and cheap to enter. The problems are slow agencies, a tight tie to the employer and the 2027 law, which adds checks on funds and housing.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.