North Macedonia · Business & founder
Temporary Residence for Business and Self-Employment with Personal Work Permit
Open. Amendments dated 26 September 2025 simplified temporary residence procedures across the board. The business or self-employment route requires no labour-market test and no educational documentation, which makes it materially easier than the employment route.
North Macedonia offers the cleanest tax proposition in the Western Balkans. It has a true 10% flat rate and no capital gains tax at all on securities held over two years. Under Article 2 of its Citizenship Law, it also fully permits dual citizenship, with no renunciation required. That combination is the most permissive on this list. The business route, not the phantom CBI, is how you actually get there.
Qualifying routes
No labour-market test. It does require a detailed business plan and proof of substantial means.
A 1-year permit with unlimited extensions, but a labour-market test applies.
The facts
- Total landed cost
- EUR 2,000–5,000 for company formation and the permit. Ongoing accounting costs are modest.
- Route type
- Business & founder
- Timeline
- 1–3 months (Processing runs through the Ministry of Interior and the Employment Agency.)
- Physical presence
- Required, to build toward the 3-year permanent-residence clock.
- Family
- SpouseDependent children
- Permanent residency
- 3 consecutive years of temporary residence, plus proof of financial means, accommodation and health insurance
- Citizenship
- 8 years of legal, continuous residence
- Language test
- Macedonian language, to a standard the local community can understand
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- registered Macedonian company or self-employmentpersonal work permitdetailed business planProof of substantial means and a confirmed place to liveHealth insuranceA clean criminal record
- THE PROPERTY ROUTE IS RESTRICTED TO NATIONALS AND RESIDENTS OF EU OR OECD MEMBER STATES. A non-EU, non-OECD national, a Russian national, for instance, cannot use it at all. This is a hard blocker that most comparison tables leave out.
- EIGHT YEARS IS THE LONGEST NATURALISATION CLOCK among the viable Balkan jurisdictions.
- NORTH MACEDONIA APPEARS NOT TO BE A CRS PARTICIPANT. The OECD appears to list it among developing countries with no first-exchange date set, but the OECD portal returns 403, so it is unconfirmed. If correct, it is a wasting asset, not a strategy. EU accession eliminates exactly this status, and we would not build a plan on it.
- Inheritance tax, CFC rules and exit tax are unverified. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Do not represent these as none.
- The business route requires a genuine business plan and substantial means. It is not a shell-company route.