Latvia could introduce stricter housing requirements for third-country nationals, as Economy Minister Viktors Valainis has asked the Saeima’s Defence, Internal Affairs and Corruption Prevention Committee to support new measures aimed at improving immigration control, the Ministry of Economics has announced.
The proposal would introduce a new legal basis for revoking temporary residence permits (TRPs) in cases where third-country nationals are found to be living in severely overcrowded and substandard accommodation.
Under the proposed amendments to the Immigration Law, a temporary residence permit could be revoked if a foreign national is permanently living in accommodation where less than four square metres of living space are available per permanent resident.
The ministry said the proposed threshold is intended to target only the most serious cases of overcrowding without affecting ordinary household arrangements, such as families with children living in smaller homes. Officials noted that the criterion is based on international practices for identifying overcrowded housing and also takes into account Latvia’s Sentence Execution Code, which sets minimum living space standards for prisoners.
According to Valainis,
current legislation does not establish minimum living space requirements based on the number of occupants,
creating conditions in which third-country nationals may be housed in overcrowded and unsanitary premises.
“Such practices endanger the health and safety of both the residents themselves and the surrounding community, while also hindering successful integration into society,” the minister said.
In addition to the minimum living space requirement, the ministry is proposing to prohibit foreign nationals from permanently residing in premises that are not intended for residential use, including offices, warehouses, garages and shared utility spaces.
The Ministry of Economics stressed that the new rules would apply only to foreign nationals covered by the Immigration Law who are staying in Latvia on temporary residence permits. The proposed changes would therefore not create any new legal obligations or consequences for Latvian citizens or permanent residents.
According to the ministry,
this targeted approach is intended to address problems specifically related to the accommodation
of third-country nationals without interfering with the housing arrangements of local residents.
As previously reported by LETA, on the 23rd of July the Saeima’s Defence, Internal Affairs and Corruption Prevention Committee set a five-day deadline for submitting proposals on amendments to the Immigration Law that had been returned to parliament for reconsideration by President Edgars Rinkēvičs.
The Saeima is expected to vote on the revised legislation on the 20th of August.
Parliament originally adopted the Immigration Law on the 11th of June, while on the 18th of June lawmakers approved additional amendments preventing Russian and Belarusian citizens from obtaining temporary residence permits through the investment programme for alternative investment fund managers.
President Edgars Rinkēvičs referred the Immigration Law back to the Saeima for a second review on the 19th of June. In a letter to Speaker Daiga Mieriņa, he noted that 158 proposals had been submitted before the law’s third reading. While some amendments were technical in nature, others introduced fundamentally new legal provisions, including rules governing the right of foreign nationals to apply for temporary residence permits after making qualifying investments in Latvia’s economy. According to the president, several of these issues warrant further parliamentary consideration.
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