Latvia or Lithuania: a practical comparison for employers

Companies operating on both sides of the border ask us regularly which country is easier to hire into. The honest answer is that they are close, and the deciding factor is usually which constraint bites your particular operation: Lithuania's quota, or Latvia's wage floor.

How the two routes work

Lithuania. There is no labour-market test. The employer files a mediation letter through the Migration Department's MIGRIS system; the worker applies for a temporary residence permit for employment, usually at the consulate, often alongside a national visa so they can travel while it is processed. The constraint is an annual quota on newly issued permits for non-highly-qualified workers. From order to worker on site, expect eight to fourteen weeks.

Latvia. There is a labour-market test, but a light one: the employer registers the vacancy with the State Employment Agency for at least ten working days. After that the employer files a sponsorship, or invitation, with the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, and the worker applies for a residence permit with employment rights or a long-stay visa. Standard processing at OCMA is around thirty days and paid faster tracks exist. Overall, eight to twelve weeks.

The constraint that actually decides it

In Lithuania it is the quota. While it is open, a compliant contract at a market wage is enough. Once it is exhausted — in 2025 that happened in October — new permits require pay of at least 1.2 times the national average gross wage. So Lithuania is cheap early in the year and expensive late in it.

In Latvia it is the wage floor. The salary must be at least the Latvian average gross monthly wage for the previous year, as published by the Central Statistical Bureau. That is a fixed hurdle applying all year, not a seasonal one — but it is a real hurdle for entry-level production and warehouse roles, which frequently pay below the national average.

Put simply: Latvia has no quota cliff but a permanent wage floor; Lithuania has no wage floor while the quota lasts, then a higher one than Latvia's for the rest of the year.

Where each one wins

Lithuania suits high-volume blue-collar hiring filed early in the year, and it suits transport above all — the sector is large, the international haulage industry is concentrated there, and the supporting infrastructure for licence exchange and Code 95 is well established. It is where the great majority of our placements go, and where our Kaunas office is.

Latvia suits roles that comfortably clear the average wage anyway — supervisors, technicians, skilled trades — and employers who would rather deal with one known threshold all year than track a quota. The ten-working-day vacancy registration is a small, predictable delay, not a real obstacle.

What is the same

More than the differences suggest. Both are EU member states in the Schengen area, so a permit in either allows travel across it. Both require a written employment contract before the worker arrives. Both leave licence exchange, professional certification and residence registration to be done after arrival. Both make the employer responsible for the file being right.

And in both, the practical determinants of success are identical: the worker must actually be able to do the job, the offer must be honest, and the housing must be decent.

If you operate in both

Some of our clients run entities on both sides and choose per intake — Lithuania in the first half of the year, Latvia in the second, once the quota is tight. That is a perfectly reasonable strategy if the work can sit either side of the border.

Tell us the roles, the wage you can offer and when you need people, and we will tell you which country we would file in. Sometimes the answer is the one you were not expecting.