What to Know About Visiting the Upravna Enota in Slovenia
1.3.2024 |
When it comes to the real estate side of Slovenia Estates, although many of our customers come from Slovenia, we also meet many house buyers from all over the world. And many of them ask us about the administrative side of moving to and living in Slovenia. We try to give the best advice we can, but everybody has different circumstances: which country you come from, whether you are working or retired, and whether you have a family connection with Slovenia.
Foreigners who have already made the move to Slovenia can be a useful source of information about what you need to do to apply for residence, register your car, or check the rules for extending your property. However, we should point out that people can have wildly different experiences of red tape in Slovenia; in fact, the experience can differ depending on which town you’re going to be living in, or even which administrative assistant deals with your application.
Here, we offer only some broad advice about what you need to know about dealing with the Upravna enota (Administrative Unit – hereafter UE).
What do Administrative Units do?
Administrative Units—there are 58 of them across Slovenia—carry out state administrative tasks such as:
- dealing with residence matters (including applications)
- passport applications
- vehicle registration and driving licences
- planning matters for land use and construction,
Larger units have local sub-units, although the latter might not be able to conduct all matters; however, once you have your residence confirmed, you may be able to re-confirm your address (which has to be done every two years) at your nearest sub-unit. In the first instance you should deal with your nearest main UE. At the time of writing (March 2024), some UEs are taking a long time to process residence applications, and you may hear advice to go to a smaller UE where applications are processed quicker, but some foreigners have reported being redirected to the UE in their town of residence when they have attempted this. It is true, however, that the busiest UEs have been sending some applications to be dealt with at quieter offices.
When to visit the UE
It is not essential to make an appointment to visit the UE but, especially if you will be taking an interpreter with you, it is possible to do so. Check the opening hours before you go to the UE. Typically they all close at 1pm on Fridays; opening hours and lunch breaks may differ during the week. Search for the UE in your area and you can see the opening hours (as in the image below).
Sub-units may only open a couple of days each week but you don’t have to go to your nearest sub-unit. You can go to a different sub-unit if there is something you need to do urgently. During the summer, sub-unit hours are reduced but between the sub-units, you can always find one to go to.
The official language of business in the UE is Slovenian. However, in the areas where Hungarian or Italian have equal status, you can also deal with the UE in those languages. You should assume that you will be dealing with the UE in Slovenian. If you cannot communicate in Slovenian (see our post about learning Slovene here), take someone with you who can. This can be a friend or family member or a professional translator. For most tasks, this need not be a certified legal translator. Officially the staff are not supposed to communicate with you in any other language than Slovenian.
What to take to your appointment
There is no single source of correct and up-to-date information on what you need to take to the UE for various tasks. The best thing to do is to send an email to the UE to ask what you need to take with you. Then, take that with you every time you have to go to the UE. That way, you should always have what you need.
Although documents are usually scanned, you should take copies of your documents in case if they want a paper copy. Pay attention to dates: some documents can not be more than 3 months old.
You can obtain photographs for residence cards from photo booths or professional photographers. Be careful if renewing documents and supplying more photographs: you should have new photos. They will notice that you are trying to use the two spare photos from your last photocard!
Typically you will need:
- Passport or EU ID card
- Proof of where you are living in Slovenia – either property purchase, rental contract or a letter from a friend or family member you are living with
- Proof that you have health insurance in place (for residence applications)
- Tax number and Emšo number (for residence applications)
- Proof of income (for residence applications): this can be an official printout from your bank (check with the UE how recent this must be), proof of employment in Slovenia or proof that you are retired and have a pension
Final tips
Foreigners coming to live in Slovenia have wildly different experiences of dealing with the red tape. However, we wouldn’t want this to be a horror story, so bear in mind that tackling the bureaucracy in Slovenia does become easier. By following the advice we’ve given in this blog post, you can take steps to make it go more smoothly.
- Check in advance what you need to take with you.
- Make sure what you take is within the dates requested
- Go with a Slovenian speaker if you are not confident in communicating in Slovenia
- Make an appointment or check the opening hours before you go
- Ask the assistant dealing with your enquiry whether there is anything else you need to do or provide. There can be an assumption that you know what is required, so do ask. This will avoid getting a letter or call asking you to urgently go back to the UE with a missing document.
