The residence permit is taken away at the very moment the employment contract ends. Pressure on newcomers, meanwhile, is 100 out of 100: not a single case.
A quiet country without drama. In the European Commission's 2025 report every concern relates to asylum seekers and transit migrants; there are no cases of pressure on legal foreign residents, and we found no retroactive revocations either. Amendments to the Law on Foreigners in force since 26 September 2025 eased the rules: workers and their families no longer need to prove funds and insurance.
Getting in is cheap, but the status is fragile. A permit lasts a year at most and is withdrawn as soon as the employment contract stops being valid: instead of time to find a new job, the law sets a deadline for voluntary departure. You may only do the job the permit was issued for; a new employer means a new agency opinion with a labour market test and a quota. Since September 2025 the employer must also give a guarantee covering removal costs.
A renewal filed on time lets you stay until the decision, but the law gives no right to work in the meantime. You can appeal a withdrawal, but for people who have lived there less than three years the appeal does not suspend the decision. The state does not publish refusal statistics.
Family: by law a spouse may work, but that right is arranged separately and on the law's terms. There is no numeric income threshold for reunification, only stable sources of income. You can apply for your family only once the sponsor holds a one-year permit, and the agency sometimes issues the first opinion for six months. Children attend state school for free.
Day to day is easier than the paperwork: banks open an account on a passport, without a residence permit, with a deposit of €100-500. You must register your address with the police after arrival. Macedonian is needed already for permanent residence, not only for citizenship. The permit requires proof of qualifications: a diploma recognition procedure exists, but its timelines are not published.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
No visa needed to enter. As citizens of an OECD country, Americans can also get residence through property worth at least €40,000.
Only they have a route to residence through property worth at least €40,000; for everyone else that door is closed.
Enter without a visa; the European Commission recommends ending this visa waiver.
No visa needed to enter. After that, the same work and residence permit procedure as for everyone.
A visa is required. Under a 2008 agreement, holders of a Macedonian stay permit enter visa-free, as do people on business, study, cultural, sports, medical or family trips of up to 90 days with an original invitation; tourists for up to 30 days with an original voucher and a tour operator's confirmation. Printed emails do not count as originals. Like others who need a visa, you can also enter on a valid multiple-entry Schengen visa, for up to 15 days per entry.
A visa is required. With a valid multiple-entry Schengen visa or an EU or Schengen residence permit you can enter without a Macedonian visa, for up to 15 days per entry and no more than 90 days in 180.
The place interval 36-53 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 Pressure on newcomers: 100 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 65.2. The weakest is Status security: 38 against 57.9. Above the world average: 3 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 30 working days when filed with the Interior Ministry or 60 through an embassy, extendable by 30 more. The Employment Agency opinion takes up to 15 working days. In practice the whole path takes 1-3 months.
Yes, by setting up your own company as its founder or director. There is no visa for remote work for a foreign client.
The temporary stay application form costs 4,000 denars (≈€65), with a service fee of €60 at first issue and €30 at renewal. A permanent residence application costs 6,150 denars (≈€100).
Yes, and easily: the permit is withdrawn as soon as the employment contract ends, with no grace period to find work. Doing work outside the permit's scope is also a ground for withdrawal.
Permanent residence after 5 years of continuous stay, with everyday Macedonian. Citizenship after 8 years; ordinary naturalisation means giving up your previous citizenship.
Calmly so: legal foreign residents face no pressure, and the rules were eased in 2025. The main risk is the status itself: it hangs on a single employment contract and ends with it.
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.