December the 4th, 2024 – Switzerland will remove all restrictions on Croatian nationals on January the 1st, 2025. The rich European nation had quotas on the number of Croats permitted to live and work there, they’ll now be abolished.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Croatian nationals will be able to live and work in Switzerland without restrictions from the 1st of January, 2025. For two full years, Switzerland limited the number of Croat nationals allowed to live and work on its territory with quota. With this next move, full freedom of movement in Switzerland for Croatian nationals will once again come into force.
The Swiss decision to abolish quotas, or measures that limit the number of work permits issued, was made by the Swiss Federal Council. If we’re being frank, Switzerland actually had no choice in this matter. During previous years, it used a so-called “safety brake” provided for in the agreement between Switzerland and the EU, but that agreement stipulates that it can only be used for two years in a row, according to Večernji list.
Theoretically speaking, if the number of immigrants gets too high for Switzerland’s liking again, it could reactivate the safety brake clause in 2026, and only for one year. After that, the ten-year transitional period in the agreement on the free movement of persons between Switzerland and the EU that allows for this will cease to apply.
After that, Croatian nationals will finally be able to enjoy full freedom of movement in the sense that no further “brakes” can ever be applied by the Swiss. Back at the end of 2021, Switzerland limited the arrivals of Croatian nationals for 2022 after their number following the liberalisation of the labour market grew too large. Likewise, at the end of last year, and using that very same argument, it extended that restriction. Each year, the maximum quotas were rapidly filled.
Switzerland therefore placed restrictions on Croatian nationals, who were subject to quotas. For 2024, it was stipulated that a maximum of 1204 B permits (for work longer than a year) and 1053 L category permits (work up to a year) would be issued, and this was distributed quarterly.
L and B permits were issued on a first-come, first-served basis. When the limit was reached, the requested permit could not be issued until the next quota release. Owing to Switzerland’s restrictions on Croatian nationals, they could only start working after obtaining the necessary authorisations. Last year’s decision was made after they determined that the entire annual quota for B permits and 76 percent of the L category had been exhausted by the end of October 2022. This year, the quota was also exhausted well before the end of the year.
Exceptions to the issuance of L permits were four-month work permits, which were issued without restrictions. Furthermore, Croatian nationals holding student permits could work a maximum of fifteen hours a week (or full-time during the break between semesters) while studying.
The same applied to Croatian nationals who had been accepted to a Swiss higher education institution as doctoral or postdoctoral students and who were employed for more than fifteen hours a week. Switzerland fully liberalised its labour market after Croatia’s accession to the EU back in July 2013, and throughout the transition period. However, in 2022, it used the “safety brake” option for the first time, which was met with disapproval by the Croatian authorities. The reason for the anger was that Croatian nationals should be treated equally to other EU/EFTA citizens when it comes to employment in Switzerland, and because they believed that the pressure on the labour market wasn’t heavy enough to justify the move.
The EU and Switzerland otherwise signed the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons (AFPM) back in 1999. When Croatia joined the EU, the extension of the agreement to Croatia was agreed in Protocol III. The AFMP was extended to Croatia in 2017, but it also included a safeguard clause allowing Switzerland to unilaterally reintroduce quotas for Croatian nationals in the event of a large increase in immigration. That was set for period of ten years from the entry into force of Protocol III, i.e. until the 31st of December, 2026.
