What Will Happen to Ukrainians' Status in the EU After Temporary Protection: The EU Council Adopts a Recommendation on the Transition

In brief. On 16 September 2025, the EU Council adopted Recommendation 2025/5129 on a coordinated approach to exiting temporary protection status for displaced persons from Ukraine (the document was published in the Official Journal of the EU on 23 September 2025). Temporary protection itself officially lasts until 4 March 2027. The main point for Ukrainians: despite active discussions about "EU long-term resident status" with the years of protection counted, the final document did not introduce this. Instead, the EU advises countries to move people in advance to other, already existing residence statuses.

What exactly has changed

This is not a new directive with direct effect, but a recommendation — political guidance to Member States. It does not create automatic rights, but advises national governments on how to organise the transition of people from temporary protection status to more stable grounds of residence while this protection is still in force.

Key dates:

• 4 March 2027 — the deadline for temporary protection for Ukrainians in the EU. This date was enshrined by Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2025/1460, adopted on 15 July 2025 (ministers of the Member States reached preliminary political agreement at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 13 June 2025).
• 16 September 2025 — the EU Council adopted Recommendation 2025/5129 on a coordinated transition (published in the Official Journal on 23 September 2025).

Who is affected

All Ukrainian nationals and their family members who are residing in EU countries under temporary protection status (officially — temporary protection under Directive 2001/55/EC). This is the vast majority of Ukrainians who left after 24 February 2022 and legalised their stay precisely through this mechanism, rather than through national asylum or work proceedings.

Which transition routes the EU Council advises

The Recommendation proposes that Member States allow displaced persons to apply for other statuses even before protection ends, in particular:

• national residence permits — on the basis of work, self-employment, vocational training or education, scientific activity, family reunification or other grounds under national law;
• statuses under EU directives — the Blue Card for highly qualified specialists (Directive (EU) 2021/1883), the single permit for work and residence (Directive (EU) 2024/1233), as well as the status of students and researchers (Directive (EU) 2016/801).

The document also reminds that temporary protection cannot be combined with another legal EU status at the same time — that is, the transition means precisely a change in the grounds of residence.

Why "EU long-term resident" status was never granted

This is the most important and often misunderstood point. Public discussions and analyses did indeed consider the idea of opening access for Ukrainians to EU long-term resident status (under Directive 2003/109/EC) and counting the years they spent under temporary protection towards the required period. However, in the final Recommendation this is absent: the document does not mention the Long-Term Residence Directive and does not introduce any mechanism for counting time.

Moreover, in February 2026 the EU separately confirmed that the years under temporary protection do not count towards the EU-wide long-term resident permit. Whether to take this time into account for national residence permits and citizenship is for each country to decide on its own.

Under the current rules, this means the following:

• persons with temporary protection status are excluded from the scope of the Long-Term Residence Directive (Article 3(2));
• the years spent under temporary protection do not count towards the 5-year continuous period required for EU long-term resident status (Article 4).

In other words: there is currently no automatic "conversion" of the years of protection into long-term residence. To accumulate the period for long-term residence, you first need to switch to another legal status (work, study, family, etc.) — and the counting of the period will, as a rule, begin from that status.

What this means in practice

• Temporary protection is guaranteed to last until 4 March 2027 — there is no need to panic over a "sudden" end of status.
• You should not wait for an "automatic" EU long-term resident status — it is not provided for under this Recommendation.
• If you plan to stay in the EU for the long term, it makes sense to find out in advance which national permit (work/study/family) you can switch to in your country of residence, without waiting until 2027.
• The specific conditions, the list of permits and the filing deadlines are determined by each EU country separately — the Recommendation only sets a common reference point.

What to do now

1. Check until what date your particular temporary protection document is valid in your country of residence.
2. Find out on the official migration portal of your EU country which grounds for transition (work, study, family) are already available.
3. If you work officially — clarify the possibility of a single permit or Blue Card; if you study — student/researcher status.
4. Follow national decisions: states may announce their own transition rules closer to 2027.

For documents for these new statuses (national permits, resident cards, student and work visas), a photo meeting EU biometric requirements is often needed — you can prepare such a photo online in a few minutes on Anfas.Pro.