Who works in Albania without a single permit: exempt categories and registration

Not every foreigner working in Albania goes through the single permit. Law no. 79/2021 on foreigners recognises categories that work without prior AKPA approval, and EU citizens receive a Registration Certificate instead. The exemption covers the permit, not the record: the employer still declares the worker.

Law no. 79/2021 of 24 June 2021, updated in 2025, replaced law no. 108/2013 and governs entry, stay, employment and departure of foreigners. Both the general single permit rule and the exemptions from it sit inside that one act. The usual employer error is not misreading the exemption list but reading an exemption as freedom from every formality. It is not. The authority and the deadline change, while the duty to declare the employment relationship stays exactly where it was.

Who skips prior AKPA approval

The 2026 joint instruction of the ministry responsible for the economy and innovation and the ministry of internal affairs sorts the categories by the authority that handles them. Citizens of the United States and their family members, citizens of Schengen area countries that are not EU members, and citizens of the Western Balkans, meaning Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia and North Macedonia, are handled solely by the local border and migration structures. For them no prior employment approval from AKPA is required.

That removes a whole step from the file, because the vacancy publication requirement and the wait for the AKPA answer both fall away. Those steps are described in the Albanian single permit and the employer procedure and in AKPA employment approval and the vacancy rule.

The Registration Certificate for EU citizens

EU citizens do not apply for a single permit at all. They receive a Registration Certificate, issued free of charge and valid for five years. Order no. 94 of 6 May 2026 sets the verification at two working days from the date the request is filed. This is the fastest route to employing a foreigner in Albania and the only one with no document fee.

The two day deadline covers the verification, not the gathering of documents. The passport or identity card, the proof of the employment relationship and the residential address have to be ready before filing, otherwise the clock never starts.

Registration survives the exemption

This is exactly where files come apart. Under the 2026 instruction, AKPA receives the employment data electronically even for the categories exempt from prior approval. Registration in the AKPA employment system is required within ten days, and Council of Ministers decision no. 240 of 1 April 2026, which updated the residence procedures, left the same declaration duties in place for every category.

The practical consequence is simple. An employer who hires a Serbian or North Macedonian national and treats the exemption as freedom from registration has not saved a step. That employer has an undeclared worker in the employment system. At inspection this is treated as irregular employment and falls inside the sanction scale set out in fines for illegal employment of foreign workers.

Exempt or not, every foreigner in that table works on a document, and the electronic record of the employment relationship at AKPA applies to all of them. What the exemption changes is the number of authorities: two on the single permit route, one for the categories handled by the local border and migration structure alone.