The adoption of Act No. 57/2018 Coll. on Regional Investment Aid and on amendments to certain acts (the “Regional Investment Aid Act”) was one of a series of measures intended to improve the business environment in the Slovak Republic. It sets out the conditions for granting investment aid, including aid to foreign investors. In connection with this, the employment of foreign nationals working for technology centres and business service centres has also been simplified. Below we explain what technology centres and business service centres are, and what this simplification involves.

Technology centre

Under Section 5(b) of the Regional Investment Aid Act, a technology centre is: “an establishment in which technologically advanced products, technologies or production processes are developed or innovated for the purpose of their use in production or of increasing added value, whereby routine or periodic changes to products, production lines, production processes, services and other ongoing operations shall not be regarded as development and innovation, even if such changes represent an improvement; the production process shall not be regarded as an activity of a technology centre.”

The list of technology centres is maintained by the Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic and is published on the ministry’s website.

To be included in this list, an establishment must not only meet the above legal definition but also satisfy at least two of the following conditions:

  • providing services in industry, agriculture, information and communication technologies, transport or healthcare;
  • carrying out research and development in one of the sectors listed above;
  • employing highly qualified staff, or working with highly qualified professionals under a contractual arrangement.

Inclusion in the list at the Ministry of Economy can take place either on application – a template of which is published on the ministry’s website – or automatically. Technology centres that appear on the European Commission’s list of technology centres are included automatically in this way.

Business service centre

A business service centre is defined in Section 5(c) of the Regional Investment Aid Act as “an establishment providing centralised support services, in particular in the fields of corporate management, information technology, accounting, finance, legal services, auditing, procurement, marketing and human resources, with the exception of services relating to the hiring out of labour.”

In practice, such a centre might be a department within a larger corporation that runs certain internal processes for other organisational units as well.

As with technology centres, the Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic keeps a list of business service centres and also publishes it on its website.

Entry in the list is made on the basis of an application addressed to the Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic, a template of which is available here.

Benefits for employing foreign nationals

Since technology centres and business service centres often need staff with specific education, qualifications, work experience or language skills, it is common for them to recruit workers from abroad.

To support this, the Slovak Republic amended Act No. 5/2004 Coll. on Employment Services and on amendments to certain acts (the “Employment Services Act”) and Act No. 404/2011 Coll. on the Residence of Foreigners and on amendments to certain acts (the “Residence of Foreigners Act”), making it easier for these centres to employ workers from abroad.

Under Section 23(1)(aj) of the Employment Services Act, a new exception was added to the cases in which an employer may employ a third-country national even without temporary or permanent residence having been granted: it covers third-country nationals who provide specialist training for a business service centre, provided that their employment relationship with the centre does not exceed a total of 90 days in a calendar year ).

A corresponding exception was therefore also written into the Residence of Foreigners Act. Under Section 23(6)(h) of that Act, a foreign national who “provides specialist training for a business service centre, where the duration of their employment relationship with the business service centre does not exceed a total of 90 days in a calendar year” is not required to hold temporary residence for the purpose of employment in the Slovak Republic.

A further advantage relating to the employment of foreign nationals under the Residence of Foreigners Act is a shorter deadline for deciding on an application for temporary residence for the purpose of employment. The standard deadline for deciding on a temporary residence application is 90 days. For applications by third-country nationals who represent or work for a business service centre or technology centre, this has been reduced to 30 days.