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The Lithuanian authorities have temporarily suspended the acceptance of employment documents from citizens of Central Asian countries. To this end, it was decided to close visa centers in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. These centers acted as intermediaries between foreigners and Lithuanian institutions. The agency has not yet announced when exactly the procedures will resume.
According to the head of the republic's Migration Department, the measure is linked to a sharp increase in the number of applicants over the past year, which forced the visa centers in these countries to stop processing applications.
In early September 2026, the quota of 24.7 thousand foreigners coming to Lithuania for work, set for this year, was fully exhausted. After its exhaustion, temporary residence permits based on employment can only be issued in cases provided for by law.
According to the Migration Department, as of September 1, 2026, nearly 227 thousand foreigners hold a valid residence permit in Lithuania. Of these, 80 thousand are citizens of Ukraine, almost 48 thousand are citizens of Belarus, 13 thousand are from Russia, approximately the same number are citizens of Uzbekistan, 9.4 thousand are from India, and 7.4 thousand are from Tajikistan.
Similar restrictions are not being introduced for the first time: in 2025, the Lithuanian side had already suspended the operation of its visa center in Dushanbe due to systemic violations by those entering. Over the two-year period of the representative office's operation, about 6.5 thousand people obtained residence permits in Lithuania, mostly qualifying as construction workers and drivers. However, audits showed that many labor migrants used the obtained documents only for transit with the aim of actual employment in other European Union states.