your roadmap
One page, start to finish. Two questions decide how easy this is: where you lodge the visa, and what your work rules actually say.
September is the main intake. The visa decision is quick — about fifteen days — so the legalisation chain and the channel question are what set your timeline.
Shortlist and apply
Vilnius and Kaunas hold most of the international provision. For medicine, check the Nepal Medical Council's recognised list first.
Settle the visa channel, and start legalisation
Ask your university in writing whether Nepali applicants lodge in Kathmandu or travel to New Delhi. Meanwhile begin the legalisation chain — it does not depend on your offer.
Confirm the translation requirement
Lighter than Poland's or Spain's, but confirm the language and certification your university and the Migration Department expect rather than assuming.
Accept, MoEST NOC, arrange funds and insurance
Insurance must be in place before the visa is issued — not on arrival. Confirm the current subsistence figure with the Migration Department.
Lodge the Type D visa
Decision commonly in about fifteen calendar days, with a state fee of around €140.
Apply for a dormitory place and book travel
Dormitories from around €70 a month are the biggest single cost lever here. Apply as soon as you are admitted.
Apply for the temporary residence permit
Promptly. It carries you past year one and it is what gives you your work rights — until it exists, you do not have them.
The twelve-month job-search permit
Or self-employment. A full year, which matches Spain and beats Hungary.
One ordering rule and one financial reality.
Health insurance must exist before the visa is issued, not on arrival. And your work rights attach to the residence permit rather than the visa — so plan the first months with no earnings in them.
Everything else is ordinary preparation:
Accommodation
Dormitories from around €70 a month are dramatically cheaper than the private market. This is the single biggest cost lever you control here.
Warm clothing
Baltic winters are long, dark and genuinely cold. Buying on arrival is expensive, and a Kathmandu wardrobe will not do.
Money for the first months
Not just the first weeks. Your work rights do not exist until the residence permit does.
Copies and scans
You will need your documents again for the residence permit application after arrival.
One task dominates, and it is the one that unlocks everything else.
The sequence: apply for the temporary residence permit promptly, register your address, open a bank account, then a phone
The temporary residence permit is the hinge. It carries you past your first year and it carries your work rights, so starting it promptly rather than at leisure is the single most useful thing you can do on arrival.
Your university's international office runs students through this every September and is the right first call.
Holders of a temporary residence permit for study need no separate work permit.
The term-time hour cap is reported inconsistently — Lithuania's own agency for international workers describes full-time work as available, while other guidance still cites twenty hours a week.
We are leaving this unresolved on purpose. Lithuania's own agency for international workers and other guidance describe different positions, and the difference between twenty hours and full-time is the difference between a supplement and a funding plan.
Get the current rule in writing from your university or the Migration Department before you build a budget on either version. And whichever it turns out to be, remember it starts with the residence permit rather than with your arrival.