From student to work permit, country by country

The EU floor, and who is outside it

EU law on students and researchers gives a graduate the right to stay for at least nine months after finishing, to look for work or start a business. That is a floor, not a standard — most countries give more.

Denmark is outside this framework entirely. Denmark has an opt-out from EU justice and home affairs, so the EU student directive and the EU Blue Card do not apply there. Denmark instead runs its own schemes, and its post-study offer is the most generous of the nine.

What each country offers

⚠️ Every one of these has been amended in the last few years. Finland extended its job-search permit, Sweden tightened both the eligibility and the salary floor, and Hungary rewrote its immigration act. Check the authority's own page for the rule that applies on the day you graduate, not the one that applied when you applied to the university.

A job-search permit is not a work permit

This is the most common misunderstanding. The permit above lets you stay and look, and in most countries lets you work while you look. When you have a real offer you convert to a work permit, and that is where the conditions bite:

• Sweden requires a salary at or above 80 percent of the median wage — a figure that was around SEK 27,000 a month when the rule took effect and moves as the median moves. Below that, the offer does not qualify however genuine it is.
• Denmark's Pay Limit Scheme has an annual salary threshold in the range of several hundred thousand kroner, adjusted every year. The Positive List route is easier if your occupation is on it.
• The EU Blue Card, available in eight of the nine, generally requires a salary between 1.0 and 1.6 times the national average, with a reduced threshold available for recent graduates in some countries.
• Italy historically routed conversions from study to work through the annual quota decree, which is a real bottleneck rather than a formality.

So the honest question is not "can I stay after graduating" — mostly yes — but "will my first job pay enough to convert", and that varies far more by country and sector than by effort.

The half-counting rule for permanent residence

Here is the detail almost nobody is told. EU long-term resident status normally requires five years of lawful residence — but under EU law, time spent as a student is generally counted at only half. Four years of a bachelor's degree can therefore count as two years towards permanent residence, not four.

Some countries count study time in full under their own national rules, so it is worth checking for your country specifically. But if you are planning a settlement timeline, plan it on the half-counting assumption and be pleasantly surprised. It also means the clock that matters starts when you convert to a work permit, which is another reason to convert as early as you can.

Regulated professions, again

A European degree in medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, veterinary science, psychology, teaching, law, architecture or social work is not a licence to practise — not in the country you studied in, not elsewhere in Europe, and not in Bangladesh. Each requires registration with a national professional body, which normally means a language qualification, sometimes an examination, and sometimes supervised practice. Your work permit and your professional registration are two separate processes with two separate authorities, and the registration is usually the slower one. Build both into the timeline before you choose the degree.

The realistic sequence

1. 1Final year — write the thesis with a company if you can, and apply for jobs before you graduate, not after. See applying for jobs in Europe.
2. 2On graduation — apply for the job-search permit immediately. Several countries require the application before the student permit expires, and the gap is unforgiving.
3. 3During the search — keep your address registration, your insurance and your tax number current. A lapse here creates problems at conversion.
4. 4On an offer — check the salary against the threshold before you accept, and get the employer to start the permit process at once. It takes weeks to months.
5. 5After conversion — start counting towards long-term residence, and start the language, because most permanent-residence routes test it.

More detail on the overall picture is in post-study work and residence in Europe and the student visa to work permit route. If you want to weigh this before you choose a country, the country comparison and the country guides are the place to start.

We do not promise anyone a job, a permit or settlement. What we can do is tell you which rule applies to your country and your degree, and where the official page that holds the current number is.