Armenia

Salary in IT

$ 12 518 – $ 45 520

Median

$ 26 174

Visa speed

Two processing times are published, and both come from the authorities: the MFA promises to process an e-visa in three working days, counted from the next working day after submission, and the Migration and Citizenship Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs processes a residence card in up to 30 days from submission. The time for a visitor visa at a consulate is not published. Hiring a non-EAEU foreign national takes longer than the visa itself: the employment permits platform allows 30 days for Armenian candidates to be offered to the employer, and only then does the route to temporary residence status on the basis of employment open.

Degree required

no

Language at work

Russian is widely used; Armenian and English depending on the situation

Changing employer

Free (EAEU citizens need no work permit)

Visa types: Visitor visa (single and multiple entry) · Transit visa (single and multiple entry) · E-visa · Official and diplomatic visas · Temporary resident card — employment, study, family, business activity, Armenian origin · Permanent resident card · Special passport (special residency status) · EAEU citizens — work without a permit and a certificate of lawful residence

Employers: Synopsys Armenia, EPAM, PicsArt, ServiceTitan, relocated Russian IT companies

Collected on 31.08.2026 from three government sources, and the first thing to know is who is responsible for what. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues and extends official and diplomatic visas and issues electronic ones; VISITOR visas are extended not by it but by the Migration and Citizenship Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which also handles residence permits. Since 1 January 2022 the employment permit is arranged on a separate unified electronic platform, workpermit.am. One limit applies to every kind of visa: no more than 120 days, with the possibility of extending by another 60, unless an international agreement of Armenia provides otherwise. Visa-free foreign nationals may stay no more than 180 days within one year — with the same caveat about international agreements. There are two exemption lists: a unilateral list of countries, and a list of countries with which a visa-free regime is agreed by bilateral and multilateral treaties. Holders of a valid United Nations (UNLP) or European Union (EULP) Laissez-Passer are exempt from the visa requirement and may stay up to 180 days in a year. A temporary exemption stands apart, and it runs for exactly one year — from 1 July 2026 to 1 July 2027. It is granted to nationals of 111 countries who hold a valid residence permit of the United States, an EU member state, a Schengen Area state, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Oman, and that residence permit must be valid for at least six months from the date of entry into Armenia; then no visa is needed and a stay of up to 180 days in a year is allowed. The requirements for the document itself are named: it is presented as a physical card or as a sticker in the passport, and the border authorities may recognise it if it shows, in LATIN script, the title of the document, the foreign national's given name, surname and nationality, the date of birth and the validity period according to the Gregorian calendar. The end date of this exemption is stated in the source itself, and it must be re-read after 1 July 2027. An invitation is not required of everyone: there is a separate list of countries whose nationals are issued a visa ONLY on an invitation and only at Armenia's diplomatic missions and consular posts. Nationals of those same countries who are of Armenian origin are not subject to the restriction. Invitations are submitted through the unified portal e-request.am, and they may be presented by legal entities registered in Armenia, by government agencies and local self-government bodies, and by accredited embassies, consular posts and international organisations; individuals submit an invitation to the Migration and Citizenship Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. With the invitation — on the organisation's letterhead, signed and sealed — go a copy of the invited person's passport, a visa application form and a receipt for the 5,000-dram consular fee. The consular tariff prints every sum in four currencies at once — drams, dollars, euros and roubles — and these are not converted automatically: they stand in the tariff as they are. Drams are recorded here, and the other three figures are named in the basis of the fee in each record. The tariff marks every visa fee as NON-REFUNDABLE, and the terms of the electronic system repeat it outright: a refusal returns no money and is not subject to appeal except in cases named by law, and the grounds for refusal are listed in the Law on Foreigners. Residence is arranged in three steps: the temporary resident card — for one year, extendable by another year; the permanent resident card — for five years, extendable by another five; and the special passport — for ten. An extension must be applied for no later than 30 days before the card expires, and the processing time is stated outright: up to 30 days from submission. The duties are 105,000 drams for the temporary card and for its extension, 140,000 for the permanent one and 150,000 for the special passport, and their basis is the Law on State Duties, articles 8 and 14. For citizens of the United States, different rates apply on the principle of RECIPROCITY — 85,000 for the temporary card, 1,000 drams for its extension and 90,000 for the permanent one — and this is not a concession but a mirror: the basis is separate, article 14.3 of the same law and Government decree No. 300-N of 29 March 2019. For a foreign national from outside the EAEU the employment permit exists as a unified electronic platform, in operation since 1 January 2022; the government approved the rules for running it on 16 December 2021, and the legislative package — amendments to the Laws on Foreigners and on State Duty, to the Code of Administrative Offences and to the Labour Code — was adopted by the National Assembly in second reading and in full on 27 May 2021. The order is this: the employer registers on the platform, describes the vacancy, obtains the consent of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs to the post being filled by a foreign national, and only then enters the foreign national's details; the latter receives notification by email. Within 30 days the employer either receives an offer to fill the vacancy with citizens of Armenia, or may conclude an employment contract with the foreign national — through the granting of temporary residence status on the basis of employment. The card is collected at the Unified Office, 3 V. Sargsyan Street, on working days from 09:00 to 14:00 and from 15:00 to 18:00. The platform names its own duties: 105,000 drams for granting the status, 105,000 for extending it and 12,000 for replacing the card, treasury account 900005162111 (100). The platform writes the thousands separator with a DOT — «105.000 դրամ» — which is the same order of magnitude written differently from the MFA tariff's comma. Citizens of EAEU member states and their family members are exempt from the work permit requirement under the EAEU Treaty — for the whole term of the employment contract. The exemption does not remove the registration: to confirm the lawfulness of their residence they register on the same platform and receive a certificate. Two details are worth more than the general rule. First: WITHOUT a public services number the certificate cannot be printed or issued at all. Second: a family member's certificate is issued for the term of the worker's employment contract, and if the contract is open-ended — for one year. What was not collected, and why. The e-visa is recorded as a separate ground, but it has no line of its own in the tariff: what is paid is the fee of whichever visitor visa is applied for. The portal evisa.mfa.am itself is an AngularJS application without server-side rendering and yields no content to an ordinary request; all that could be read from it directly is the PDF of general terms it publishes, and from there comes the only published processing standard for visas: three working days, counted from the next working day after submission.

Permanent residence after

3 years

Citizenship after

3 years

Language

Armenian (for citizenship)

Dual citizenship

allowed

Naturalisation after 3 years of permanent residence; Armenian and knowledge of the Constitution are required (a single exam). A simplified procedure applies to people of Armenian descent.

Document certification

apostille

The country is party to the 1961 Hague Convention: a degree or certificate is authenticated with a single apostille in the country that issued it.

Limit

5

Quarantine

no

Antibody titre test

not needed

Preparation

~1 months

Cost per animal

$ 171 – $ 569

Banned breeds: Pit Bull Terrier, Japanese Tosa, Dogo Argentino

Rabies vaccination (no earlier than 21 days and no later than 11 months before entry), a veterinary certificate (form 5a), and dogs from 6 months of age. A microchip is recommended but not compulsory. There is no quarantine. No antibody titre test is required. Up to 5 animals without special permission. Since August 2024 the import of rodents and primates has been banned (mpox).

Situation

tension

Border tension with Azerbaijan; in 2023 the exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. Inside the country it is calm.

Crime: Low street crime, safe in day-to-day terms. Corruption is mid-level and falling.

The main risk is earthquakes: the country lies in an active seismic zone.

Type

Sharply continental

Sharply continental: cold winters, hot dry summers. The Ararat valley (Yerevan) reaches +40 in summer; the mountains are noticeably colder. Figures depend on altitude.

Life expectancy

78.3 years

Migration

inflow

Healthcare: The public system is weaker than in the EU; private clinics are available and inexpensive.

Air: Yerevan has noticeable air pollution from traffic and dust, especially in summer.

Flows: A large inflow of people relocating from Russia after 2022, a substantial share of whom later left. Armenians' own emigration continues.

Bread, 500 g

$ 0,87

Milk, 1 l

$ 1,62

Eggs, 12

$ 2,65

Chicken breast, 1 kg

$ 7,69

Cheese, 1 kg

$ 8,31

Rice, 1 kg

$ 2,18

Potatoes, 1 kg

$ 0,70

Apples, 1 kg

$ 1,32

Coca-Cola / Pepsi, 2 l

$ 2,20

Total

$ 27,5

The same set for every country, so the comparison is fair.

Rent, 1 bedroom

$ 655 a month

Rent, 3 bedrooms

$ 1 173 a month

Utility bills

$ 110 a month

Home internet

$ 20,8 a month

Monthly transport pass

$ 25,2 a month

Single transport ticket

$ 0,39

Petrol, litre

$ 1,46

Cold medicine

$ 6,45 for a week

Country averages. City prices, where collected, are shown above and are more precise.

Life expectancy

78,3 years2024

Homicides

2,2 per 100k2024

Road deaths

13,6 per 100k2021

Unemployment

12,9 %2025

Unemployment, ages 15–24

26,2 %2025

Inequality (Gini)

27,42024

Health spending per person

$ 767 a year

Air pollution, PM2.5

28,6 µg/m³2023

Access to clean water

99,9 %2024

Internet, fixed line

91,7 Mbit/s2026

Internet, mobile

74,3 Mbit/s2026

Governance

Political stability

below average · -0,7

Control of corruption

above average · 0,1

Rule of law

below average · -0,1

Government effectiveness

below average · -0,4

World Bank estimates on a −2.5 to +2.5 scale, higher is better.

Natural hazards

Earthquakes

7,3 out of 10

River floods

5,3 out of 10

Coastal floods

0 out of 10

Tropical cyclones

0 out of 10

Droughts

5,3 out of 10

Tsunamis

0 out of 10

Each value carries the year it refers to. “Data lags behind” means this country's figure was collected noticeably earlier than the rest. Natural hazards use one 0–10 scale and are meant to be compared against each other.

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