Apply for a work permit

Conditions

• That the Directorate of Labour has been assisted in finding an employee in Iceland and within the European Economic Area (EEA), EFTA or the Faroe Islands.

• That the person to be hired has made an employment agreement with the employer to perform a specific job that requires expertise according to law or practice in Iceland.

• The individual's expertise is essential to the company in question.

• The individual's expertise includes university education, vocational education, art education or technical education that is recognized in Iceland. In exceptional cases, long professional experience that can be compared to a specialist knowledge is taken into account.

The Directorate of Labour may request that the competent bodies, in the opinion of the Directorate, certify that the nature of the work requires the person performing it to have a certain level of expertise.

Duration

Temporary work permits for professionally demanding work are generally granted for one year but such permits may be granted for up to four years at a time.

Required data

Original application

A union statement

A union's opinion must be obtained on the application before it is submitted (field IV on the application) unless the union is a Efling union. In such cases, the Directorate of Labour provides the opinion.

Checklist for application

Employment contract

The employment contract is made between the individual and the employer. It must include:

• Information about the planned job of the individual with the employer and his/her title.

• Information about the establishment.

• Information on the pension funds to be paid for the work of the person concerned.

• The pay of the person to be hired must be comparable to that of other specialists working in the industry.

The application must be accompanied by detailed information on the planned job of a foreigner with the employer and how the foreigner meets the requirements of the job. These information can also be provided in the contract annex or the application supporting document.

Signs

Both the employer and the person to be hired must sign the application and the employment contract.

Other supporting documents may include:

• A certified copy of the individual's diploma in Icelandic or English.

• Confirmation of professional experience. If the person's professional knowledge is based on long-term professional experience, the application must be accompanied by a confirmation of the person's former employer's work, which includes detailed information about his/her work and periods of employment. A CV is not equivalent to such confirmation.

• A copy of a valid license. In the case of a licensed professional title or a licensed trade, a confirmation from the competent Icelandic authorities must be provided that the individual has the right to perform the work for which he is being hired.

on the website of the Directorate of Health.

Specialist or manager moving between establishments

Expert

If an employer sends an employee temporarily to work at its establishment in Iceland, the Directorate of Labour may depart from the conditions. The individual must then be an employee of the employer with permanent employment as an expert at his/her establishment abroad.

Manager

In the case of an employee of an employer who is permanently employed as a manager at an employer's establishment abroad, the Directorate of Labour may depart from the conditions. The Directorate of Labour requests the employer's justification regarding the need for the foreign national to come to work at his/her establishment in Iceland if the Directorate considers this necessary.

Jobs requiring specialized knowledge that are temporarily lacking in Iceland

The Directorate of Labour may grant a temporary work permit for a job that requires specialized knowledge that is temporarily lacking in Iceland and has been published in Icelandic. The Directorate of Labour requests confirmation of the specialized knowledge of the person concerned in accordance with Icelandic regulations if the Directorate considers this necessary.

Responsibilities of applicants

It is the applicants responsibility to submit the necessary documents with an application for a temporary work permit. If necessary documents are missing, the application may be delayed or rejected. The Directorate of Labour requests additional documents if they are considered necessary.

Submit an application

The application is submitted to:

Directorate of Immigration

Dalvegur 18

201 Kópavogur

Outside the capital area

The application is submitted to the relevant office of the District Commissioner.

Starting work as soon as possible

A foreigner may not start working before a work permit and residence permit has been granted. An employer may however request that the work force be able to start working before a residence permit has been granted.

A work permit for a job requiring professional knowledge must be granted. The employer must also guarantee the costs of the return of the employee in case of a rejection of the application for a residence permit.

Revalidation of the work permit

Temporary work permits for professionally demanding work are generally granted for one year but such permits may be granted for up to four years at a time.

A foreigner is generally allowed to work while an application for an extension of a permit is being processed by the same employer. However, it is a condition that an application for an extension be submitted to the Directorate of Immigration four weeks before the expiry of the previous permit.

With an application for an extension of a specialist licence, you generally only need to submit the necessary documents listed above.

The Directorate of Labour may however request further information for the application, including that the employer provide information on how the individual's expertise has been used in the work he was hired to do. Furthermore, the employer must have paid the tax as well as the insurance premium for the work of the person concerned.

New employer

If a foreigner who has been issued a specialist license wants to change his/her job, he/she must apply for a work permit from the new employer. Documents must be submitted as if it were a new application, except for educational documents.

The Directorate of Labour will assess whether the specialist knowledge the person has meets the requirements for a specialist license in relation to the new job, regardless of the previous assessment of the individual's specialist knowledge by the Directorate. The conclusion of such an assessment may be that the nature of the new job is so different from the previous job the foreigner held that he is not considered an expert in that field in the opinion of the Directorate of Labour and therefore the issue of the work permit is rejected.

Right to stay in Iceland after loss of employment

A foreigner who loses his/her job can apply for 12 months to seek another job based on his/her expertise.

Laws and regulations

Article 8 of Act No. 97 of 2002 on the employment rights of foreigners.