Economic growth in Panama creates certain need for specialists in various fields, which makes many companies, both international and local contact to the external labor market and hire foreign employees, especially in the area of senior management and IT professionals.
So how easy it is to get a job in Panama?
It's not a secret that in recent years, government of Panama tried make it easier for immigrants to receive necessary papers for living in Panama. Right now, virtually the only requirement - the existence of a work permit on the basis of an appropriate visa.
It is important to notice that there are as many types of work permits as there are visas. Both documents go hand in hand, and only a status of a legal resident will allow you to continue with receiving a work permit. The permits are divided into two types:
The first group is so-called “conditional” permits. The condition is that total number of foreign employees should not be over certain percentage of total staff. The second group is a highly specialized jobs, such employees do not need any condition for receiving their type of visa and permit.
The first group is being employed on the base of Marrakech law. According to it, total number of foreign employees should not exceed 10-15% of total hired personnel, however the company should comply with many standards and it is generally a more complicated way to be employed both for the company and its worker.
The second group has more freedom in terms of receiving their documents; however there are a number of requirements for each type of permit and visa which vary in each case.
We will only review two types of such visa and the first is the visa for “friendly nations”. This type of visa is mostly received in Panama by the citizens of EU, US and Costa Rica. The main condition is having sufficient funds (for now it is min. $5,000) in the local bank.
The second type of visa is more common and it is appropriate for professionals from almost any country around the world, however their job should be in the list of those which are required by this type of visa. Among it there is medicine, architecture, machine industries, law etc. Such visa type is popular among citizens of Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela etc. Such countries are not in the list of “friendly nations” and the applicants simply don’t have any other choice.
The main advantage of a specialized visa type against the conditional (i.e. under Marrakech law) is that the applicants obtain freedom in terms of choosing the employer, whether with the Marrakech law one is only allowed to work for the company that hired him, i.e. the permit is limited to the only company.
If you would like to know about immigration process in Panama and legal ways to working in Panama, please contact us.
