Employment of foreigners from third countries

It is important to distinguish whether the Korean citizen was sent here as part of an intra-company transfer or not.

According to § 128 of Act No. 461/2003 Coll. on Social Insurance, as amended, every employee, regardless of whether they are a foreign national or a Slovak citizen, is obliged to pay insurance contributions for sickness insurance, old-age insurance, disability insurance, and unemployment insurance.

However, there is a bilateral social security agreement between Slovakia and the Republic of Korea (published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic under No. 51/2010), which under certain conditions provides a different regime regarding social security for Korean nationals.

According to Article 7, point 1 of this agreement: “A person employed by an employer with a registered office in the territory of one contracting state who is posted by this employer to the territory of the other contracting state to perform work for them shall remain subject, as regards this employment, during the first sixty months, to the legislation of the first contracting state as if still employed in that state. For the purposes of this article, the employer and its subsidiary or branch, as defined by the legislation of the contracting state from which the employee was posted, shall be considered as one and the same employer.”

According to § 145, paragraph 1 of the Social Insurance Act, “The Social Insurance Agency is obliged to refund insurance contributions paid without legal grounds to the natural or legal person obliged to pay contributions or to their legal successor within 30 days from:

Based on the cited provision, it is primarily important for submitting a refund request that the Korean national was posted by the parent Korean company to a company in Slovakia belonging to the same employer group, based on which the employee was granted residence in Slovakia.

This means that your mentioned employee must have a residence permit in Slovakia based on an intra-company transfer (not a residence permit for employment based on a work contract, since the international agreement does not apply to that case).

If the Korean national meets the posting condition, during the first 60 months of this posting they remain subject to social insurance in Korea, but this must be proven.

This confirmation is issued in the Republic of Korea by the National Pension Service at the employer’s request, stating that the employee is subject to its legislation, specifying the validity period of the confirmation, and providing one copy to the employee.

If the employee holds this confirmation and meets the residence permit condition for posting, they can request a refund of the social insurance contributions paid in Slovakia, as under the agreement they are insured in Korea. In this case, Korean nationals may join the Slovak social security system only after 5 years of residence in Slovakia. If the employee does not have this confirmation and contributions were not paid to the Korean Social Insurance, they must be registered in the Slovak social security system from the start of employment in Slovakia.

(Source: Social Insurance Agency)