An Overview of Legal Stays in the Slovak Republic in 2024 and 2025

Abstract

This paper presents a statistical overview of legal stays in the Slovak Republic for 2024 and the first half of 2025, drawing on data from the Praesidium of the Police Corps and the Bureau of Border and Alien Police. At the end of 2024, a total of 337,140 persons held valid residence in Slovakia, an increase of 8.3% year-on-year, of whom 281,648 were third-country nationals. Ukrainian nationals accounted for approximately 70% of all valid third-country national stays, predominantly under tolerated residence in the form of temporary refuge. Among newly granted stays, business and employment purposes dominated temporary residence, reflecting sustained structural demand in Slovakia's labour market. Border crossing data show that 3.78 million persons legally crossed Slovakia's external borders in 2024, with air border traffic growing markedly — up 6.7% in 2024 and 18.1% in the first half of 2025 year-on-year, accompanied by a rising share of third-country nationals. The paper discusses policy implications relating to the integration of displaced Ukrainians and labour migration governance, and digital border management capacity. It concludes that Slovakia is undergoing a structural shift in its migration profile and that sustained policy investment will be required to manage both humanitarian and economic migration flows in the medium term.