Lithuania EU Blue Card Salary: Does Your Offer Qualify in 2026?

You have found a specialist you want to hire in Lithuania and are ready to set the salary. Is €3,000 gross a month enough for an EU Blue Card? It can be for a qualifying occupation on Lithuania’s high-value-added shortage list. For a role outside that list, the current Blue Card floor is higher. The difference comes down to the actual job, not how urgently you need to fill it.

For applications accepted from 12 May 2026, Lithuania’s published EU Blue Card salary benchmarks are €3,617.10 gross per month for the usual route and €2,893.68 gross per month for a qualifying listed occupation. These are salary conditions for the Blue Card, not a guarantee that an application will be approved. Last reviewed: 29 October 2026.

The 2026 salary thresholds at a glance

The €2,411.40 base is Lithuania’s 2025 national average monthly gross wage, published in May 2026. The Migration Department published the resulting immigration figures and applies them to applications accepted from 12 May 2026. It is not the statutory minimum wage or an employer’s total payroll cost.

Which threshold applies to your job?

The 1.5-times figure is the general Blue Card rule. The lower 1.2-times figure belongs to highly qualified work in an occupation on Lithuania’s current list of high-value-added shortage occupations. “Hard to hire” is not itself a category on that list, and a familiar English job title is not enough to establish the match. The occupation code and the work the employee will actually perform need to line up.

For example, the current list includes software developer (Programinės įrangos kūrėjas), code 251203. A role genuinely built around software development may therefore use the lower salary test if the other Blue Card conditions are met. A company should not relabel an unrelated IT coordination job as “software developer” simply to reach the lower figure. The job description in the offer and immigration file should tell the same story.

There are other Lithuanian occupation and shortage lists used for different purposes. The relevant one here is the high-value-added shortage list tied to the Blue Card’s 1.2-times rule. Likewise, an average-wage number used for a standard work-based residence permit is not automatically the Blue Card salary floor.

Put the proposed offer against the right number

Suppose your company offers a software developer €3,000 gross per month. If the actual duties fit occupation code 251203, that offer is €106.32 above the listed-occupation floor of €2,893.68. It clears the salary element for that route. The same €3,000 would be below the ordinary €3,617.10 floor, so the occupation classification changes the answer.

Now take a highly qualified role that is not on the current list. The company proposes €3,600 gross per month. It is close, but still €17.10 short of the ordinary Blue Card threshold. Raising the guaranteed monthly salary to at least €3,617.10 would meet this salary element at the published 2026 rate; paying €3,600 and describing the balance as a possible annual bonus does not make the monthly offer clear.

Use gross monthly pay before employee deductions when making this comparison. An annual figure alone can obscure the result: €43,200 a year divided into 12 equal monthly payments is €3,600 a month, which still misses the ordinary floor by €17.10. Employer social contributions, recruitment costs and a provider fee are outside the employee’s monthly gross salary.

What if the package includes a bonus or allowance?

A clean offer states a guaranteed gross monthly wage that reaches the applicable Blue Card threshold without needing a sales target, year-end award or housing benefit to close the gap. That makes the salary promise straightforward to present in the employer’s file and to deliver through payroll.

This is a practical way to structure an offer, not a claim that every bonus is legally excluded from wages. Lithuanian employment law recognises several wage components, but the public Blue Card guidance reviewed for this article does not settle the treatment of every variable payment. If your proposed base salary falls below the threshold and the case depends on commissions, bonuses or allowances, resolve that treatment for the specific offer before describing it as Blue Card-eligible.

Why the date of the application matters

The euro figures are not permanent: the multiplier is applied to the latest published calendar-year average monthly gross wage. The current €2,411.40 base reflects 2025 wage data published by the State Data Agency on 12 May 2026. That is why a guide quoting an older euro amount can be misleading even if it correctly says “1.5 times the average wage.”

The change can affect a file already in preparation. When the May 2026 figure arrived, the Migration Department said earlier paid and submitted mediation letters would not be rejected just for showing the previous amount, but employers would have to confirm pay at the new level. Letters still showing the old figure after its correction date were returned. The sensible moment to compare the offer is before it is issued, then again when the application is accepted if a new wage release has intervened.

Salary is one part of Blue Card eligibility

Meeting the salary floor is necessary, but it does not turn any position into a Blue Card role. The work must be highly qualified, and the candidate needs the relevant higher education or qualifying professional experience. The usual experience route is five years; for specified ICT managers and specialists, three years of relevant experience gained within the previous seven years can suffice. Lithuania also requires a binding job offer for employment of at least six months. The employer named in that offer should be the one supporting the immigration file. Work in Lithuania’s 2026 overview explains the wider eligibility routes.

If the offer is below the relevant Blue Card figure, that does not by itself mean the person cannot be hired in Lithuania. A standard work-based residence route may be available under its own conditions. It should be assessed as a different route, not by borrowing the Blue Card’s lower listed-occupation threshold or assuming an ordinary job qualifies as highly skilled work.

Before the offer goes out

Put six items in one offer file: the actual duties and occupation code; whether that code appears on the current high-value-added list; the candidate’s qualification basis; the latest published gross-wage figure and resulting multiplier; a guaranteed monthly gross salary in euros; and a proposed term of at least six months with the correct employing entity. That gives the hiring team a clear answer before the salary is promised to the candidate.

NNRoad can help align the role, salary, employing arrangement and residence route for an overseas company hiring a foreign specialist in Lithuania. If your offer sits near the floor—or the listed occupation is decisive—start with our Lithuania Expat Employment service before the offer and immigration file are finalised.

Quick answers for employers