How long can you stay in Estonia after studying?

After your studies can you stay here, if you can stay then on which basis you can stay, and can you easily get a job after your studies on whose basis you apply for your residence permit. Today we will talk about all those questions. So let’s start the news.

So first, if we talk about universities, here mainly there are three universities which are the University of Tartu, Tallinn University, and Tallinn University of Technology. Here you can do your studies. Mainly the students who come, they come to these universities. They are public universities, so here you also have the option of scholarships, and if you want to study business then there is Estonian Business School, you can come there too.

Now let’s talk about whether you can stay here after your studies. If you can stay, then on which basis can you stay? So after your studies here, you can look for a job for nine months. Basically, every student finds a job before nine months.

So you can work along with your studies. So you can secure your job and at the same time continue your studies.

But if you do not want to work along with your studies first, then you have nine months. In nine months you can find a job and after finding a job, you can apply for your residence permit. The residence permit is connected with your employer. This means the employer applies for your residence permit. So this means based on that residence permit you are living in Estonia and you cannot leave that employer. If you leave that employer, your residence permit gets canceled. If you want to work in another company, then through that company you have to apply for a new residence permit.
So this was about the residence permit.

Now let’s talk about that residence permit which is not connected with your employer and which you can apply for yourself. You can apply for it in Estonia if you have been living in Estonia for three years based on your temporary residence permit. In this, studies are not counted. Now if you want to apply for a temporary residence permit, then you must live for three years in Estonia, and studies are not counted. That means if you have spent two years in studies and after that you stayed three years, then you can apply for your three-year temporary residence permit. So that one is not connected to your employer.