Armenia Residence Permit Cost in 2026: Official Fees, Paid Medicals, and Intermediary Surcharges

An Armenian residence permit costs AMD 105,000 (about USD 289) in state duty for temporary residence and AMD 140,000 (about USD 385) for permanent residence, each covering both the status and the plastic card. Those figures rise by roughly half and by four fifths respectively when the migration authority switches applications to its new online platform, no later than 1 November 2026. Everything else on the bill, the medical panel, translations, apostilles and address registration, is charged by somebody other than the migration authority, and that is where the surprises live.

USD equivalents throughout use the Central Bank of Armenia official rate of AMD 363.44 to USD 1 on 23 September 2026 and are indicative. The dram figure is the amount you pay.

What the state charges right now

The Migration and Citizenship Service publishes a fixed schedule of state duties. These amounts hold until the new online platform is activated, which is the same event that triggers the increase described below.

One point of arithmetic catches people out. Armenian state duties are expressed as multiples of a calculation unit of AMD 1,000, and that unit is sometimes reported online as a separate application charge. It is not an extra payment: the figures above are the totals. For how the application itself works, see our guide to temporary and permanent residence permits in Armenia.

What changes on 1 November 2026

The immigration overhaul moves residence applications onto an online platform, and the fee increase is tied to the same event. It takes effect ten days after the migration authority publishes notice that the platform is live, and in any event no later than 1 November 2026.

That notice had not appeared as of 23 September 2026, and the Migration and Citizenship Service was still publishing and collecting the current rates. Treat the new schedule as enacted and pending, not as payable today.

What you will pay

From the trigger date, considering a temporary residence application costs AMD 150,000 and a permanent residence application AMD 250,000. Issuing the card is charged separately at AMD 5,950. Budget AMD 155,950 (about USD 429) for temporary residence and AMD 255,950 (about USD 704) for permanent, increases of roughly 49% and 83% on today’s rates.

You will still find 1 January 2027 quoted online as the date of the increase, including on two Armenian advisory sites at the time of writing. An earlier amendment did set that date, but it was repealed before it took effect. The only date that governs the duty is the platform trigger. A separate change does land on 1 January 2027, and it narrows exemptions.

Filing ahead of the increase is not realistic for most applicants. As of late September 2026 the appointment calendar held no slots before 1 November.

The certificate of lawful residence and the work entry visa

• The certificate of lawful residence stops being free. It confirms a right to live in Armenia without a residence permit, and is used mainly by nationals of the Eurasian Economic Union states. From the trigger date it costs AMD 30,000 (about USD 83) to consider the application plus AMD 5,950 to issue it, AMD 35,950 (about USD 99) in total.
• The work entry visa is legislated but not yet operational. A duty of AMD 15,000 (about USD 41) has been enacted for it, but the provisions governing work-purpose permissions are deferred until the new electronic visa system goes live. Do not build a plan around it yet.

Card replacement is left open. Exchanging a permanent residence card costs AMD 20,000 today and restoring one costs AMD 12,000, and the restated duty schedule carries no line for either. What either will cost after the trigger has not been published.

Reduced rates and exemptions

Several groups pay less than the standard schedule, and three of the concessions have an expiry date on them.

• Applicants under 18 are exempt from both the residence duty and the visa duty. This exemption is retained after 1 January 2027.
• Foreign students are exempt from the residence duty while enrolled at an Armenian educational institution. Teachers at those institutions hold an equivalent exemption.
• Parents, spouses, children and siblings of a foreign student pay a 60% reduced duty of AMD 42,000 (about USD 116), measured against the current AMD 105,000 base. The equivalent figure after the platform trigger has not been published.
• US citizens pay reciprocity-based duties: AMD 85,000 (about USD 234) for an initial temporary residence permit and AMD 90,000 (about USD 248) for permanent residence, against the standard 105,000 and 140,000. A repeat grant or extension within five years is AMD 1,000. The permanent-residence figure rests on a government decision that cross-refers to the state duty schedule as it reads today, and that cross-reference has not been updated for the restructured schedule, so the post-trigger US permanent-residence total is unsettled.
• Close relatives of Armenian citizens are currently exempt from the residence duty. That exemption ends on 1 January 2027, together with the student and teacher exemptions, the 60% student-family reduction, and the exemption for siblings of recognised refugees. The equivalent exemption on entry visas survives, narrowed to spouses, children and parents.
• Exceptional service to Armenia can support a permanent residence grant on a distinct basis. A new provision also lets the government cover the duty for groups it designates, though none has been designated yet.

The medical certificate, and why it may not last

A residence application is accompanied by a prescribed health certificate. Health Minister Order N 51-N, adopted on 8 July 2026 and in force from 23 July, expressly classes the consultations and tests behind it as paid services. Its predecessor did the same, so the order reorganised an existing charge instead of creating one.

The panel has to be done at an Armenian clinic and covers HIV, syphilis, hepatitis B and C, a tuberculosis X-ray and a general examination, normally returned within one to two days. Armenian clinics charge in the region of AMD 17,000 (about USD 47) for the full set. No national tariff has been set, so clinics price the panel independently and that figure is an indication only. One Yerevan centre published AMD 15,000 for the same panel in its 2024 tariff. Ask for an itemised price list covering every required test, and confirm the clinic is authorised to issue the certificate.

The requirement itself is on the way out. Health certificates have already been removed for work-based residence permits, and the wider immigration reform is expected to drop them for the remaining categories after the platform launches. That is not yet settled, so plan for the cost without assuming it is permanent. The order covers temporary and permanent residence only; special residence applicants are not asked for a certificate at all.

Health insurance: not required to get the permit, mandatory for some afterwards

This is the most common misconception we field, and it costs people money they did not need to spend. There is no statutory requirement to hold or present health insurance in order to obtain or renew an Armenian residence permit, whether temporary, permanent or special. Insurance is sometimes mentioned informally as supporting evidence of financial self-sufficiency on a temporary residence application. That is officer practice and carries no legal force.

What does exist is separate and comes later. Armenia’s universal health insurance regime creates a mandatory state contribution that reaches foreign residence-permit holders once they are earning here. The threshold is a monthly salary of AMD 200,001 or more from a given employer, about USD 550. The monthly contribution is AMD 4,800 (about USD 13) on salaries between AMD 200,000 and AMD 500,000, and AMD 10,800 (about USD 30) above AMD 500,000. Once triggered, contribution treatment generally continues for twelve months even if pay later falls. The covered population reaches Armenian-registered individual entrepreneurs, notaries, certain individual agricultural operators and voluntary joiners as well as salaried employees.

The State Revenue Committee administers it as a payroll and tax obligation. It has no bearing on whether your residence application is accepted, and it belongs in your employment and payroll compliance planning.

Is the duty refundable if you are refused?

Often, yes. The widespread claim that the duty is simply non-refundable does not hold. The law on state duties lists refusal by the authority that collected the duty as an express ground for a refund, and a refusal of your residence application is exactly that. What the law cuts off is a refund on your own withdrawal: once the authority has begun substantive work on the file, changing your mind no longer gets your money back. Those are two different situations, routinely run together.

A statutory right to a refund is also not the same as money arriving unprompted. It has to be claimed, and refunds on refusal are not offered as a matter of course. A refusal costs you months of elapsed time, and the duty is the smallest part of what you lose. If you have already been refused, the refusal itself can be challenged, which is a separate question from recovering the duty.

The confusion has a traceable source. The state duty on a citizenship application really is non-refundable by statute, except where you have overpaid. That rule belongs to citizenship and gets quoted as though it covered residence.

The other government fees around a residence file

Several charges sit outside the residence duty and are set by other authorities. These are the published ones.

The apostille figures apply to documents issued in Armenia. A document issued abroad is apostilled or legalised in the country that issued it, at that country’s price. The Armenian same-day service is charged as an addition to the base fee, and the government portal describes the AMD 10,000 addition loosely as a state duty, which is why you will see AMD 10,000 and AMD 17,000 both quoted as the same-day price.

The AMD 1,000 notarial charge is the state duty plus the notary’s service fee for certifying the translator’s signature. It does not include the translator’s own fee, which is set by the translation agency and has no published tariff. Address registration is charged as its own service on top of the residence duty, and is done after the permit is issued, within 15 days of taking up an address. A public services number and a tax identification number carry no charge.

If residence is a step toward a passport, naturalisation costs AMD 50,000 (about USD 138) from the table above, though the three-year residence requirement matters far more than the fee. See Armenian citizenship through residency.

The intermediary surcharge, and how to spot it

When the Migration and Citizenship Service published its duty schedule, it did so with an express warning: private intermediaries sometimes demand additional amounts and present them to the applicant as government charges. That warning exists because the practice is common enough to merit a public notice.

A law firm or agency charging a professional fee for preparing and filing an application is entitled to be paid for it. The problem is presentation: a service fee described as a state duty, or a single bundled number with no breakdown, which makes an overcharge invisible. Four checks protect you:

• Ask for the breakdown in writing: state duty on one line, professional fee on another, third-party costs such as medical examinations, translations and notarisation on their own lines.
• Check the duty against the published schedule. The figures above are public. If the state-duty line does not match, ask why before paying.
• Insist on the official receipt. State duties are paid into the Migration and Citizenship Service treasury account, and that payment generates documentary proof. Without the receipt you do not know the duty was paid.
• Be sceptical of expediting charges. The published duty covers the review, and an extra payment does not buy a faster statutory timeline. Armenia does publish a genuine same-day surcharge for apostilles, at AMD 10,000, and that one appears on the official tariff.

Building a realistic budget

Working from the figures above, a temporary residence application filed today by a national with no concession comes to roughly AMD 123,000 (about USD 338) in unavoidable charges: AMD 105,000 duty, about AMD 17,000 for the medical panel, and AMD 1,000 for address registration. After the platform trigger the same file is about AMD 174,000 (about USD 479). Neither figure includes translation, apostilles or professional fees.

• The state duty from the schedule above, or the higher figure once the online platform is live.
• Medical consultations and tests for the health certificate while it is still required, around AMD 17,000, itemised quote requested in advance.
• Certified translation of foreign documents into Armenian, at the agency’s own rate, plus AMD 1,000 for notarial certification of each translator’s signature.
• Apostille or legalisation of documents issued abroad, at the issuing country’s price, or AMD 7,000 per document for Armenian-issued papers.
• Address registration at AMD 1,000, paid after your permit is issued.
• Any professional fee for preparing and filing, quoted separately from all of the above.

Frequently asked questions

Last updated: 23 September 2026