Planning a seasonal hiring peak six months ahead

Every year we get the same call in August from a food producer who needs forty people in September. Sometimes we can help and sometimes we cannot, and the difference is almost never effort — it is arithmetic. International hiring has a lead time you cannot compress much below eight weeks, and in Lithuania it has a calendar problem on top. Both are manageable if you count backwards from the date you need people on site.

Counting backwards

Take the first day you need the worker productive and work back:

Two to four weeks for licence exchange, Code 95 or site certification after arrival, for roles that need it. A driver is not productive the week they land.

Six to ten weeks for the residence permit decision in Lithuania, which can overlap with travel if a national visa is used. Latvia runs a little shorter at eight to twelve weeks overall; Poland is longer at ten to sixteen; Germany longer still at twelve to twenty.

Two to six weeks for sourcing and assessment — running a walk-in session, testing candidates properly, and getting you a shortlist you can interview.

One to two weeks for the order itself: agreeing the role, the wage, the headcount and the contract terms.

For Lithuania that is eleven to twenty-two weeks from decision to productive worker. Call it four months for planning, five if the role needs a licence. September's crew is a March conversation.

The calendar problem

Since 2025 Lithuania has no labour-market test. Instead the ministry sets an annual quota for newly issued permits to non-highly-qualified workers, and it is consumed through the year on a first-come basis. In 2025 the figure was 24,830 permits and it ran out in October.

Once the quota is exhausted, applications are not refused — but they are approved only for jobs paying at least 1.2 times the national average gross wage. Roles on the high-value-added list are exempt at a lower threshold.

So the calendar has a cost attached. The same worker, the same role, the same file, applied for in February and in November, are two different budgets. If your peak is in autumn, the cheap window for filing was the spring.

What to do at each point in the year

January to March. The ideal window. File for the whole year's expected intake, including the autumn peak. Quota open, consular appointments available, driving schools not yet full.

April to July. Still comfortable for an autumn peak, but check where the quota count stands before committing to a wage.

August to October. Late for the same year. Model the higher salary threshold into the offer and decide whether the role still works at that number. If it does not, look at the high-value-added route, at candidates already holding permits in Lithuania, or at moving the peak's work rather than the peak's people.

November to December. Plan for next year and file in January. Trying to force an intake through the end of a used-up quota is expensive and often disappointing.

Two things that buy you time

Renewals and employer changes sit outside the quota. A worker already lawfully employed in Lithuania who moves to you is not a new permit. Where the timeline is impossible, this is sometimes the only route that works.

The national visa overlaps with the permit. Filing both together lets the worker travel and start induction while the permit is finalised, typically saving four to six weeks. It is not a shortcut around the process, but it is real time.

If you are already late

Tell us anyway, and tell us the real date. There is a version of this conversation where we say the honest thing — that you will not have forty people in four weeks — and then work out what you can have: a smaller first cohort, a later start, or a different route. That is more use than a promise nobody can keep.

Send us your peak dates for next year and we will build the backwards calendar with you.