Armenia’s Immigration Law Overhaul: What Changes November 2026

Armenia’s rewritten Law on Foreigners takes effect on 1 November 2026, and the two figures that matter most are AMD 155,950 (~USD 395) for a one-year temporary residence permit and AMD 255,950 (~USD 648) for five-year permanent residence. Both rise in a single step tied to the launch of the new application platform, no later than 1 November 2026.

The same date ends the 10-year special passport, moves residence applications to a single portal that the Ministry of Internal Affairs has named permit.am, replaces the labour market test with an annual government quota covering residence statuses generally, and puts biometric cards in place of the current documents. Applications filed before 1 November are processed under the rules in force when they were filed, and documents issued before that date stay valid until the expiry printed on them.

In this article:

• The new permit structure
• Special passport elimination
• Agricultural land after the special passport
• permit.am, biometric cards and where you collect them
• Work entry visa and the annual quota
• Business and investment residency
• Ethnic Armenian pathway
• Family sponsorship changes
• EAEU and Russian citizens
• Students and researchers
• Fee schedule
• Monitoring, enforcement and appeals
• Transitional rules
• What to do now
• Frequently asked questions

The new permit structure

Three residence categories exist today: a one-year temporary residence permit, a five-year permanent residence permit, and the 10-year special passport for ethnic Armenians. After 1 November 2026 only the first two remain.

Temporary residence permit. Issued for up to one year. Qualifying grounds include employment, business activity, study, family ties to an Armenian citizen or to a foreigner holding residence or refugee status, volunteer work, and scientific or innovation activity. The government charge becomes AMD 155,950 (~USD 395), made up of an AMD 150,000 application duty and an AMD 5,950 card issuance charge.

Permanent residence permit. Issued for five years. Available to applicants who have held a temporary permit for at least three of the preceding five years, and directly, without that waiting period, to ethnic Armenians, to investors, and to people recognised for exceptional service to Armenia. The government charge becomes AMD 255,950 (~USD 648), being an AMD 250,000 duty and the same AMD 5,950 card charge.

The three-year temporary residence prerequisite already applies to family-based permanent residence. The change is that it extends to business-based applicants, who could previously reach permanent residence without a prior temporary period. Ethnic Armenian origin, qualifying investment and exceptional service are separate grounds for permanent residence in their own right, so they are not carve-outs sitting inside the family route.

Special passport elimination

The 10-year special passport, formally special residence status, has been the main legal instrument for diaspora Armenians who wanted a durable tie to Armenia without citizenship. It disappears on 1 November 2026.

What it carried: ten years of validity, the right to own agricultural land directly, sponsorship of extended family including siblings, grandparents and grandchildren, and eligibility for customs privilege certificates.

What replaces it: a standard five-year permanent residence permit, still with no prior temporary residence requirement for applicants of Armenian descent. The preference based on origin survives the reform; the document changes.

What is lost on transition: direct agricultural land ownership, extended family sponsorship, certain preferential services, and five years of the validity period.

Existing holders: special passports issued before 1 November 2026 stay valid to the expiry date printed on them, with the rights and obligations attached under the old law. There is no automatic conversion and no early revocation. When the document expires, an ethnic Armenian holder moves to five-year permanent residence without the three-year temporary waiting period.

One practical warning applies to anyone considering an early switch. Surrendering the special passport to take standard permanent residence ends the special status on the day of conversion, and with it the agricultural land entitlement, so the divestment clock starts on that date instead of the printed expiry.

Agricultural land after the special passport

The Constitution bars foreigners and stateless persons from owning land, and the Land Code has excepted holders of special residence status from that bar. From 1 November 2026 that exception is rewritten to cover permanent residence granted for exceptional services. A holder of ordinary permanent residence, including one who qualified as an ethnic Armenian, falls back under the general restriction. The same amendment also touches state and community land lease and development rights, so the change is principally about agricultural land without being confined to it in the text.

What happens if your status ends while you still own farmland. Title is not extinguished and nothing is confiscated on the day the status lapses. Civil Code Art. 282(1.1) gives the owner one year from the expiry of the qualifying status to sell or otherwise transfer the property. If the year passes without a transfer, Art. 282(2) provides for a court-ordered compulsory sale with compensation to the owner, and the Constitution allows deprivation of property only through a judicial procedure.

Four routes preserve the position:

Leasing remains open to foreigners. State and community agricultural leases are capped at 25 years, against 99 years for non-agricultural land.

permit.am, biometric cards and where you collect them

Applications are split today between workpermit.am for employment-based permits and appointment-based submission to the Migration and Citizenship Service for everything else. The Ministry of Internal Affairs announced on 29 June 2026 that permit.am will take residence applications, supporting documents and responses to deficiency notices online, with ordinarily one physical visit remaining in the process. The platform had not been confirmed live at the time of writing, and workpermit.am was still operating.

The appointment backlog that has shaped planning for the last two years is the one number nobody publishes. No official waiting time has been issued by the Migration and Citizenship Service, so any figure circulating online, including the four-month estimate this page previously carried, is an unsourced operational claim.

Biometric residence cards

Residence permits become polycarbonate biometric cards. Once an application is approved, the applicant attends in person in Armenia to give fingerprints and an electronic signature before the card is produced. Biometric capture is not available at Armenian embassies or consulates, and a power of attorney does not substitute for personal attendance. Applicants under 16 give a facial photograph to the international standard and are exempt from fingerprinting and the electronic signature, with a parent or guardian acting for them.

Card issuance itself is moving out of the migration and police offices. In April 2026 the government signed a public private partnership with a consortium of IN Groupe and A.C.I. Technology, operating as Haypas, to produce and issue identity documents through roughly 23 new service centres, among them Yerevan Megamall, Abovyan, Artashat, Gyumri and Vanadzor. A separate draft law consolidating Armenia’s identity documents has been prepared with a 1 October 2026 target, and its adoption was not confirmed on the official legal portal at the time of writing.

Work entry visa and the annual quota

The work entry visa

Armenia introduces a dedicated work entry visa costing AMD 15,000 (~USD 38), valid for stays of up to 120 days, single or multiple entry, and issuable once per calendar year. It is an entry document, not a residence permit, and the two run on different tracks: the visa gets you across the border with your purpose declared, and the work-based residence permit is the status you then apply for.

The consequence for hiring is direct. A visa-required national who enters as a visitor and then applies for work-based temporary residence inside Armenia will be refused, because entry on the wrong visa becomes an express refusal ground. The change of status from tourist to worker without leaving the country is closed. Citizens of countries with visa-free access to Armenia are outside this requirement. Armenia’s visa-required list is maintained by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and whether the work entry visa follows exactly the same nationality matrix has not been confirmed.

The annual quota

The labour market test is abolished. It was never doing much work: of 18,314 work permit applications filed between January 2022 and August 2025, ten produced a local Armenian candidate for the advertised job.

In its place the government sets an annual cap on residence statuses, specified by type, quantity and grounds. This is wider than a work permit quota: the decision-maker must take the year’s quota indicators into account on temporary and permanent residence applications alike, and an exhausted quota is an express statutory ground for refusal. Applications late in a quota year therefore carry a timing risk that has nothing to do with their merits.

Two exemptions are identified. Permanent residence for exceptional services is procedurally distinct and may sit outside the quota system. Eurasian Economic Union nationals working in Armenia, and their family members using the lawful residence certificate route, are exempt under the EAEU Treaty; that exemption attaches to the worker route and does not extend automatically to every EAEU national applying on every ground.

No quota-setting government decision has been published. The numerical caps, the categories that will be capped, whether family and ethnic Armenian grounds are included, and the mechanism for mid-year adjustment are all unknown, and the electronic platform is expected to track utilisation once they are set.

Fifteen working days to sign a new contract

If the employment contract underlying a residence permit ends early, the holder has 15 working days to conclude a new qualifying contract. The rule requires a signed contract inside that window, so filing a notification while the search continues leaves the status exposed. Failure to conclude one is a ground for revoking or refusing to extend the permit, and the same period applies to a volunteer agreement that terminates.

This is a different rule from the one-month employer-cost obligation that applies today, and the two should not be treated as the same deadline. What the new provision does give is portability: an employee can move between employers without the status lapsing on the day the old contract ends, provided the gap stays inside 15 working days and the new contract is filed through the platform.

Business and investment residency

Company-based residence acquires explicit financial thresholds and a tax-data enforcement mechanism.

The 180-day tax check

The migration authority gains direct access to State Revenue Committee data to confirm that a business supporting a residence permit is actually trading. If no tax is assessed on the business within 180 days of the status being granted, the permit can be invalidated. A dormant company will no longer sustain residence.

Investment-based permanent residence

A new ground gives direct five-year permanent residence for a qualifying investment, skipping the three-year temporary period. The thresholds and the eligible asset classes are left to a government decree that has not been adopted or published. Until it is, there is no figure to plan against and no application to file on this ground.

The parallel exceptional-services route to permanent residence is granted on the initiative of the Prime Minister’s Office. Its substantive criteria are undefined in the law, so it operates as a recognition of contribution decided case by case.

Ethnic Armenian pathway

Direct access to permanent residence without a prior temporary period survives the reform. The document changes from a 10-year special passport to a five-year permanent residence card, and the land and extended-family entitlements described above do not carry across.

Proof of Armenian origin: a baptism certificate from a recognised Armenian church, or a birth certificate or state document recording Armenian ethnicity, relating to the applicant, a parent, a grandparent or a sibling. Foreign documents require legalisation through an Armenian embassy.

Process from 1 November 2026: file online through the platform, then attend in Armenia for fingerprints and electronic signature. Consular processing of the application is not part of the new design. Full details sit on our special residency page.

Check your citizenship status before you travel

Residence carries no military obligation, which attaches to citizenship. The point that catches diaspora applicants is a different one. When the Citizenship Law took effect in 1995, people meeting defined criteria were recognised as Armenian citizens automatically, and children of those individuals may be citizens by descent even if born abroad and never registered. If there is any prospect that your parents were within that group, confirm your own status with the Migration and Citizenship Service before you apply for residence or book travel.

Family sponsorship changes

Family-based permanent residence currently reaches a spouse, parent, child, sibling, grandparent or grandchild of an Armenian citizen. From 1 November 2026 it reaches a spouse, parent or child only. Siblings, grandparents and grandchildren drop out.

Temporary residence keeps a wider family test: a spouse, parent or child of an Armenian citizen qualifies, and so does a spouse, parent or child of a foreigner who holds residence or refugee status in Armenia. Permanent residence on family grounds is limited to relatives of citizens.

The three-year temporary residence prerequisite continues to apply, together with proof of housing. A foreign national who marries an Armenian citizen still holds temporary permits for three of the preceding five years before permanent residence becomes available, exactly as today. Whether a family member under 16 can be the qualifying relative for a parent’s application is not settled in the enacted text or in the published implementing acts, and we are not stating a position on it here.

EAEU and Russian citizens

Citizens of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan keep their treaty-based freedom to work in Armenia without a work permit. The administrative wrapper around it changes.

Certificate of lawful residence. EAEU nationals staying beyond 180 days in a year already need this document. Under the new schedule it costs AMD 35,950 (~USD 91), being an AMD 30,000 duty and the AMD 5,950 card charge, where the process was previously free. Applicants need a Public Services Number before the certificate can issue, and registration runs through a dedicated EAEU section of the portal.

Russian citizens. Address registration continues to be sufficient for lawful stay. The change that will be felt is the new charge for the formalised certificate.

The quota exemption discussed above follows the same logic: it is grounded in the EAEU Treaty’s provisions on workers and their families, so an EAEU national applying for residence on a study or family ground should not assume the exemption travels with them.

Students and researchers

Study-based temporary residence widens beyond accredited universities to cover non-formal education, professional training courses and student exchange programmes. A separate ground appears for scientific, technological and innovation activity, which needs an agreement or invitation from a recognised Armenian institution or organisation.

Enforcement tightens at the same time. An institution must notify the Migration and Citizenship Service within 10 days when a foreign student’s contract is terminated or studies are interrupted. Failure to report attracts a fine of 50 times the minimum salary, AMD 50,000 (~USD 127), rising to 100 times, AMD 100,000 (~USD 253), for a repeat within a year. A student whose contract ends loses the residence status that rested on it.

One timing concession is easy to miss. Students on education-based permits may file for renewal up to the last day of validity, where other categories face the standard 30-day-before deadline.

Fee schedule

Residence charges move in one step when the platform goes live, no later than 1 November 2026. Each new figure bundles an application duty with an AMD 5,950 card issuance charge, which is why the totals end in 950.

Two lines in that table record gaps in the published schedule. The replacement and restoration charge does not appear in the new schedule, so no post-transition figure can be stated. The reciprocity rates that US citizens pay have not been reconciled with the split between application duty and card charge, so neither an unchanged rate nor a new total can be quoted; US applicants should get the current position confirmed before budgeting.

Entry visas

Visa duties sit in a separate instrument that commences on 1 January 2027. Only the residence fee provision was repealed and re-timed to the platform trigger, so the visa rates below keep their original commencement date, and the work entry visa additionally waits for the electronic visa system.

Exemptions

Applicants under 18 pay neither residence nor visa duties, and that stays as it is. Recipients of permanent residence for exceptional services are exempt. Two exemptions are being withdrawn on 1 January 2027: family members of Armenian citizens lose the residence fee exemption while keeping the visa one, and foreign students and teachers lose theirs. The government retains a power to fund the duty wholly or partly for defined groups.

Dram figures are converted at approximately AMD 395 to USD 1. Use them as an order of magnitude, since the rate moves.

Monitoring, enforcement and appeals

The 183-day absence notification

A temporary or permanent residence holder who is absent from Armenia for 183 days has 10 days from reaching that mark to file an electronic notification through the platform. Missing it is a ground for revoking the status. Investors and holders of permanent residence for exceptional services are exempt from the requirement. A comparable duty existed before; what changes is that the digital infrastructure makes non-compliance visible.

Immigration status and tax residence are governed by different statutes. A residence permit does not make you an Armenian tax resident; the Tax Code decides that on physical presence across the 183-day threshold and on other connecting factors. The absence data the new platform collects will nonetheless make presence easier for the State Revenue Committee to establish. Our Armenian tax guide covers the test itself.

If your application is refused

A refusal can be challenged administratively or through the courts. In practice the administrative appeal rarely changes the outcome, and the judicial route is the one that produces results. An exhausted quota becomes an express refusal ground from 1 November 2026, so some refusals will turn on the date of filing.

Transitional rules

Applications already filed. An application submitted before 1 November 2026 is decided under the rules that applied when it was submitted, including the fee paid at filing and the document format of the old system.

Documents already issued. Existing temporary and permanent permits run to their printed expiry. The new fees, biometrics and platform apply at renewal.

More than one status. The reform limits a foreigner to a single residence status, and the limit is not retroactive. Anyone holding more than one lawful residence document before 1 November 2026 may continue to use each of them until that document’s own expiry date.

Implementing acts still missing. The application workflow, the document list, the inter-agency data exchange rules and the technical description of the platform had not been published on the official legal portal or the draft-legislation portal at the time of writing. The existing government decree that governs residence procedure has not been expressly repealed, and its replacement is expected to arrive with that package. Operational detail announced in press statements should be treated as announced, pending publication of those acts.

What to do now

Filing before 1 November is not a realistic plan for most people. Submission dates under the appointment-based system are not available, so a new applicant who is not going through the employment route on workpermit.am will be applying after 1 November, under the new system. Advice to rush an application in before the deadline, whether to secure a special passport, to avoid the three-year rule or to catch old fees, does not survive contact with the appointment calendar.

Frequently asked questions