Lithuania Student Visa (National Long-Stay) & Temporary Residence Permit

Overview

Lithuania has quietly become one of the strongest value study destinations in the EU for Pakistani students. It is an EU member since 2004, adopted the euro in 2015, sits inside the Schengen area, and runs a reformed higher education system built on the Bologna framework with hundreds of English-taught programmes. Living costs sit well below Western Europe, and the public universities of Vilnius and Kaunas hold genuine academic weight in engineering, technology and health sciences. For immigration there are two lawful routes, and choosing the wrong one is the single most common mistake Pakistani applicants make. Route one is the national long-stay visa. You apply through a Lithuanian visa mission abroad using an electronic mediation letter filed by your Lithuanian university, and the visa is issued within 15 days. It allows you to enter Lithuania and stay for up to one year, and it cannot be renewed — so it works best if you intend to convert to a residence permit once you arrive. The consular fee is EUR 120 when the application is filed abroad; applicants who apply from within Lithuania are exempt from that state fee. Route two is the temporary residence permit. You apply from Pakistan through VFS Global, which acts as the Migration Department's external service provider. The permit is issued for one to two years — up to three years for doctoral students — and can be renewed for the remaining duration of your course, with the final permit extending a few months beyond your expected graduation so you can wrap up. The state fee is EUR 80 in general order, plus the VFS service fee. A decision is normally taken within three months, or within 45 days if an additional fee is paid for urgency. The document list is specific, and precision matters more than volume. Your Lithuanian institution files a mediation letter electronically in the Migration Information System, and you quote its number on the application. On top of that you need a travel document, proof of funds, health insurance and — for a first-time residence permit — a police clearance certificate that has been apostilled or double-legalised. The published subsistence benchmark is around EUR 577 per month plus about EUR 1,153 for the return journey to your country of origin, though these figures are adjusted, so we confirm the current amount with you. Insurance must carry at least EUR 30,000 of Schengen-wide cover for the national long-stay visa. Lithuanian authorities also require documents in Lithuanian or English, with certified translations for anything else, and the police clearance must be apostilled or double-legalised. Our Lithuania visa consultants in Islamabad handle the full sequence: university shortlisting and application, the mediation letter, attestation of your police clearance, the electronic filing and the VFS appointment, and the in-country residence permit application once you land. EU and EFTA nationals follow a much lighter route, so if you hold an EU or EFTA passport, tell us at assessment and we will not waste your time on the wrong process.

Key benefits