Work Permits: 7 Numbers Behind Hiring a Chef From Outside the EU

In this article

1. Why "just hire from outside the EU" isn't a free fallback
2. The 7 numbers
3. Check your own offer against the band
4. The route works — if you run it as a process, not an afterthought

Your sous-chef vacancy has been live for three months. The agency has nobody. And the one candidate who actually replied — qualified, available, motivated — lives outside the European Union.

Hiring from outside the EU isn't a workaround or a last resort. It's a full, legal route with its own rules — set at EU level, then implemented differently by each member state. Which is exactly why nobody explains it to you in one place.

Two directives do almost all the work. The EU Blue Card Directive (recast, (EU) 2021/1883) for roles like head chef or sous-chef that require a higher qualification level. And the Single Permit Directive (2011/98/EU) for the combined work-and-residence permit most other kitchen roles go through instead.

This article is the 7 numbers behind that process — not a substitute for your own immigration lawyer or your national authority (every member state implements the directives differently), but the structure so you know what to ask.

Why "just hire from outside the EU" isn't a free fallback

Hospitality has one of the tightest labour markets in the EU. Kitchen roles specifically — cook, chef — sit on the official shortage-occupation list in a growing number of member states. And that's exactly what unlocks the faster route below, but only if you know to ask for it.

The instinct is to treat a non-EU hire as a slower version of a normal hire: post the job, interview, sign a contract, done. It isn't. The permit process runs on its own clock, has its own paperwork, and starts BEFORE the employment contract can take effect — not after.

Handled well, it's a predictable, budgetable process with real deadlines the EU has committed its member states to. Treated as an afterthought, it's the reason a candidate you found in March starts in October — if at all.

The 7 numbers

Two EU directives set most of what follows. Your own country's authority pins down the exact figure inside the ranges they allow — always confirm that with them before you commit to anything — but the ranges themselves are EU law, not a rumour from a recruiter.

1. 1.0x–1.6x: the salary band that decides whether a Blue Card is even possible

The EU Blue Card Directive doesn't hand member states a free number to pick. Article 5 requires every member state to set the Blue Card salary threshold somewhere between 1.0 and 1.6 times that country's own average gross annual salary — a floor and a ceiling set at EU level, pinned down exactly by each government.

Offer below the floor your country actually applies, and there's no Blue Card application worth filing, however well-qualified the candidate is. Offer comfortably above 1.6x, and you clear the threshold in every member state, with no exceptions to chase.

2. 80%: the discount that exists specifically for a role like chef

The same directive lets member states drop the threshold to as low as 80% of their general figure, for two groups: roles on the national shortage-occupation list, and workers under 35 with a recently completed higher-education qualification.

Chef and cook sit on that shortage-occupation list in a growing number of EU countries — check that BEFORE you assume the higher, general threshold applies to your hire. It's a real discount, not a technicality: it can be the difference between an offer that clears the bar and one that doesn't.

As a percentage of the average gross annual salary in your own country — never a fixed euro amount, because that differs by country and goes stale immediately.

0–80%80–100%100–160%

under 80% — no route clears this 80–100% — shortage-listed roles only 100–160% — the general range

Your country sets the exact figure somewhere inside 100–160%; the shortage-occupation discount brings the effective floor down to 80%. Confirm the current figure with your national authority.

3. 6 weeks: the labour-market test the Blue Card route skips

Most standard national work permits require a labour-market test first: the vacancy has to stay advertised for a set window — commonly around six weeks — so the authorities can confirm no local or EU candidate applied before a non-EU worker is authorised.

The EU Blue Card route, and most shortage-occupation routes, typically waive this step entirely. That's not a loophole — it's the directive doing exactly what it says on the tin: fast-tracking roles the labour market has already proven it can't fill.

4. 4 months: the legal ceiling on how long the decision can take

The Single Permit Directive (2011/98/EU) requires the competent authority to reach a decision within four months of receiving a complete application — extendable only in genuinely complex cases, and the member state has to tell the applicant when that happens.

Four months is the LEGAL CEILING, not a promise of four months. Some authorities decide faster; almost none decide instantly. Budget from the ceiling, not from a recruiter's best-case estimate, and add the labour-market-test weeks on top if your route requires them.

5. the cost stack that lands before a single payslip

Before your new hire earns a euro, four cost lines are typically already spent: certified translation and legalisation of their documents, recognition of their professional qualification, immigration counsel or an agency retainer to actually run the file correctly, and a medical exam plus relocation admin.

None of these are optional extras — skip the qualification-recognition step, and a chef's diploma may simply not count for the role you're hiring them into. Price the whole stack before you make the offer, not after.

Illustrative ballpark figures — get a quote from your own translator, qualification-recognition body and immigration lawyer for the exact amount.

13.8%16.9%50%19.3%

translation & legalisation — €189 qualification recognition — €231 immigration counsel — €683 medical exam & relocation — €263

Together, the full amount the calculator below uses as its default — and one you can always overwrite with your own quotes.

6. 12 months: how fast a Blue Card holder can move to your second EU country

Once granted, an EU Blue Card gives its holder mobility rights a standard national permit doesn't: after 12 months of legal residence in the first member state, they can move to take up highly-skilled employment in a second EU country under a faster procedure — shortened from 18 months under the directive's 2009 predecessor.

Family reunification is similarly favoured: a Blue Card holder's spouse and children can typically apply to join at the same time, without the waiting period a standard permit often imposes. For a candidate weighing your offer against a competing one, that's a real, comparable number — not a footnote.

7. the sunk cost if it's refused

By the time a decision arrives, translation, legalisation, qualification recognition and often legal fees are already spent — whatever the outcome. Refusal rates vary enormously by member state and by case, and no single figure here would be honest, so that's not the number to chase.

The number that matters is sequencing: file the qualification-recognition and translation work as early as legally possible, keep your candidate's current employment or residence status intact until a decision lands, and never book relocation or let them give notice on their current job before the permit is actually in hand.

Check your own offer against the band

Type your own country's average gross annual salary — not a EU-wide guess — and the wage you're offering, and this checks it against the band above.

It also adds up the realistic timeline and the admin cost stack, using the defaults from the numbers above. Every field is yours to overwrite.

This is a sanity check, not a filing — the exact threshold your country has actually set, and whether your specific role is on its shortage-occupation list this year, only your national authority (or an immigration lawyer who works with it weekly) can confirm.

Use it before you make an offer, not after: it's far cheaper to adjust a number on this page than to renegotiate a signed offer once the immigration file is already open.

The route works — if you run it as a process, not an afterthought

None of this makes hiring from outside the EU as fast as hiring the cook who already lives three streets away. It doesn't have to be — it has to be predictable enough to plan a start date around, and the two directives behind it exist specifically to make that possible.

Know your band, know whether the role is shortage-listed, budget the real ceiling and the real cost stack, and sequence the spending so a refusal doesn't cost you the whole recruitment budget.

The kitchen that gets this right isn't the one that avoids hiring from outside the EU — it's the one that stopped treating it as a mystery.