Your first 90 days: Slovakia

This is the status the rest of this list depends on: it is what gives you the right to work, to put children in school and to draw social support. You apply in person at a foreign police department because biometrics are taken, so it cannot be done by post or online, and children have to come too. Without it your visa-free stay ends after 90 days and you are in the country unlawfully.

Where to go

Oddelenie cudzineckej polície Policajného zboru

What to bring

A passport, an internal ID or any other document with your photograph, the children’s birth certificates, and proof of accommodation if you have it.

Since August 2026 a man aged 18 to 60 applying for the first time or applying again has to show how his military obligations in Ukraine stand: a printout from the Reserv+ app, say, or an exit stamp in his passport. We could not confirm the exact requirement against an official source, and it differs by age. Ring the foreign police department and ask what to bring before you travel to the appointment.

Where to go

Oddelenie cudzineckej polície Policajného zboru

There is no card that says “temporary protection”: what you get is a tolerated-stay document (doklad o tolerovanom pobyte) marked “ODÍDENEC”, and it is what proves your status at every office, school, bank and doctor. At first you are given an A4 paper confirmation valid for up to 90 days, and the residence document itself is produced later. If you did not ask for it at registration, book another appointment and ask.

Where to go

Úrad hraničnej a cudzineckej polície Prezídia Policajného zboru

Your address has to be registered, and a change of address reported, or official post — including decisions about benefits — goes to somewhere you have left. Our sources disagree about which desk: a ministry FAQ names the foreign police department, later material names the residence registration desk (ohlasovňa pobytu) at your municipality. Ask your municipality first and do not put it off, because we could not confirm how many days you have.

Where to go

Ohlasovňa pobytu

What to bring

The ODÍDENEC document and proof of accommodation: a lease, a confirmation from an accommodation facility, or a sworn declaration by the person housing you.

Emergency care in Slovakia is given to everyone, free, with no registration and no insurance, and alongside it the necessary care whose scope the Ministry of Health defines. Public health insurance is a separate thing you still have to qualify for (the next phase): our sources contradict each other about whether the status alone confers it, so do not assume you are insured until an insurer says so. Take the ODÍDENEC document to every appointment.

Where to go

Ministerstvo zdravotníctva Slovenskej republiky

What to bring

The tolerated-stay document marked “ODÍDENEC”.

The state does not pay you for housing, it pays whoever houses you free of charge: €5 a night for residential space and €6 for non-residential premises, under a contract signed with you. Your host has to notify the municipality within 3 working days of the accommodation starting, and then file a report every month. For status granted from 1 March 2025 the allowance covers the first 60 days only, and after that only vulnerable people: households in material need, people with severe disabilities, people aged 65 and over, single parents with children under 5, and children under 5.

The host notifies the municipality within 3 working days of the accommodation starting.

Where to go

Ministerstvo vnútra Slovenskej republiky

What to bring

A signed accommodation contract between you and the host.

School attendance has been compulsory for the children of Ukrainian refugees in Slovakia since 1 September 2025, and the three-month clock starts on the day you arrive, not the day your status is granted. You may apply as soon as the temporary-refuge proceedings have begun: the finished document is not required. Children of temporary-refuge applicants come fourth in the order places are allocated in, so a late application almost always means a school you did not choose.

Within 3 months of arriving in Slovakia.

Where to go

Regionálny úrad školskej správy

What to bring

Proof that the temporary-refuge proceedings have begun, the child’s passport, the birth certificate, the last school report from Ukraine if you have it, and the bilingual Slovak–Ukrainian application form from the education portal, signed by both legal guardians.

The úrad práce is the single door to vacancies, to state-funded retraining and to the assistance in material need. You register either as an uchádzač o zamestnanie, someone actively looking and available to start, or as a záujemca o zamestnanie, someone already working but looking for something else. Work is lawful without this registration, but without it you are cut off from the benefits and from the free courses.

Where to go

Úrad práce, sociálnych vecí a rodiny

What to bring

The ODÍDENEC document, plus your education and work-history documents where you have them.

You choose the insurer yourself: VšZP, Dôvera or Union. The insured person files the application (prihláška poistenca) within 8 days of the fact that gives rise to public health insurance — starting a job, or starting self-employment — and your employer registers you only after you have registered yourself. Our sources say different things about whether temporary refuge by itself gives a right to public insurance, so ask the insurer what confers it in your case, and file inside that window rather than after it.

Within 8 days of the fact that gives rise to public health insurance.

Where to go

Všeobecná zdravotná poisťovňa

What to bring

The completed application (prihláška poistenca), your employment contract and the ODÍDENEC document. If you have no Slovak birth number (rodné číslo), leave that field blank: the insurer issues a card with an identification number that substitutes for it.

Temporary refuge carries the right to work on its own: no work permit is required, and that is written into § 23a(1)(k) of act no. 5/2004 Coll. on employment services rather than decided case by case. Your access to the labour market is the same as a Slovak citizen’s, except for civil-service posts. The filing duty is your employer’s: they send an information card (informačná karta) to the labour office within 7 working days of the work starting, and again within 7 working days of it ending.

The employer sends the information card within 7 working days of the work starting, and within 7 working days of it ending.

Where to go

Úrad práce, sociálnych vecí a rodiny

What to bring

Give the employer the confirmation of temporary refuge and whatever the trade itself requires: a health card, a hygiene certificate, a driver card. For a regulated profession such as health care, a recognised diploma is needed as well.

Pomoc v hmotnej núdzi is the basic income support, and people with temporary refuge receive the allowance and its supplements on the same terms as Slovak citizens. If you are housed under an arrangement where the state pays your host, you do not additionally get the housing supplement, and only household members physically present in Slovakia are counted. There is no deadline, but the benefit runs from the day you apply, so every week of delay is money.

Where to go

Úrad práce, sociálnych vecí a rodiny

What to bring

The ODÍDENEC document, or the document showing you have applied for temporary refuge, together with your household’s income and composition. The bilingual Slovak–Ukrainian assessment form is on the labour office’s site.

Slovak is the gate to work that is not manual, to the school system working for your children, and to every office on this list. State and private language schools holding a Ministry of Education grant teach foreigners aged 16 and over free of charge, and there is no central sign-up: you contact the school directly. For children, schools provide Slovak-as-a-second-language support, and since 1 January 2026 adaptation classes of 4 to 10 pupils may also be set up at secondary schools, not only primary ones.

Where to go

Ministerstvo školstva, výskumu, vývoja a mládeže Slovenskej republiky

Renewal is the step that does not exist: Slovakia extends temporary refuge automatically, so there is nothing to file, no appointment and no reminder letter. That is exactly why the only way to know your status is live is to look it up yourself in the Interior Ministry’s online service. The automatic extension applies to a status you already hold: if yours ever lapses, a fresh application goes by the rules of that day, including the military-registration condition for men aged 18 to 60.

Where to go

Ministerstvo vnútra Slovenskej republiky

Slovakia splits this into two tracks, and the wrong track costs months: academic recognition gets a foreign diploma accepted for further study or ordinary employment, while professional recognition is compulsory before you may practise a regulated profession — health care and many others. There is no way round it: without it no employer may hire you into such a post. The application goes in electronically through slovensko.sk or on paper, under act no. 422/2015 Coll., and it is worth starting early because this is the slowest item on this list.

Where to go

Stredisko na uznávanie dokladov o vzdelaní

A licence issued in a Convention state outside the EEA that is not exchanged in time does not merely “expire” — it becomes invalid, which means driving on it is driving unlicensed. The rule we found on the Interior Ministry’s own page is that you apply to exchange it within 60 days after 185 days have elapsed from the grant or registration of residence. Whether tolerated stay starts that clock at all we could not confirm, so ask the traffic police before the deadline can start counting against you.

Where to go

Dopravný inšpektorát Policajného zboru

What to bring

The valid original Ukrainian licence, confirmation from the issuing country with a certified translation, a certified translation of the licence itself, and, for categories C, D and similar, medical and psychological fitness certificates.

A trade licence (živnostenské oprávnenie) is what lets you earn outside an employment relationship, and almost any self-employed activity in Slovakia requires one; trading without it is neoprávnené podnikanie, punishable by a fine of €1,659 to €3,319. Whether somebody with temporary refuge may hold one in 2026 is a question our sources answer differently: a current professional source says an amendment to the residence law effective 15 July 2024 permitted it, older ones say you need prechodný pobyt. So ask the district office’s trade licensing department whether it is open to you, and only then file the ohlásenie živnosti.

Where to go

Okresný úrad, odbor živnostenského podnikania

The Slovak tax authority starts from the position that refugees from Ukraine are not tax residents of Slovakia but of Ukraine, because temporary accommodation “lacks sufficient permanence and continuity”; that changes only if your circumstances change materially, such as permanently losing your home in Ukraine. With a Slovak employer the tax is withheld from your pay, and above €2,289.63 of income the year has to be settled: through the employer’s reconciliation or your own return. Working remotely for a Ukrainian employer becomes taxable in Slovakia once your physical presence exceeds 183 days in any 12-month period, and an employer reconciliation is requested by 15 February, with the employer completing it by 31 March.

Where to go

Finančná správa Slovenskej republiky