Bratislava launches permanent residence campaign

Bratislava's city council is calling on people from other parts of Slovakia who live and work in Bratislava to register their permanent residence here. The council wants to increase its revenues as the state allocates money to municipalities based on the official number of citizens.

“It is unfair [to live here without permanent residence] to Bratislavans as well as the city, which lacks money for roads and other needs,” said Bratislava Mayor Ivo Nesrovnal. “When somebody lives somewhere, he or she should participate in the costs.”

The city council launched the campaign Prihláste sa (Register!) on May 3. It will last until the next census scheduled for 2021.

Bratislava has been underfinanced for a long time. Nesrovnal ascribes this to a badly prepared and communicated census in 2011 when a lot of Bratislavans did not attend. He estimated that this ‘cost’ the city about 70,000 citizens or about €10 million annually. Nesrovnal hopes that the next census will bring a more realistic picture and better financing to the Slovak capital.

Registering permanent residence in Bratislava has several advantages, including a residential parking card, easier placements for children in kindergarten and elementary schools and better access to medical, daycare and other services. Bratislavans can also enjoy various advantages with the Bratislava card like discounts with public transport or cheaper entrance to the zoo or swimming pools.

Currently, Bratislava has less than 450,000 citizens with permanent residence. The number of those commuting to the city for a working week is about 200,000. They have their permanent residence somewhere else and pay their income taxes here. But they use services here in Bratislava and if all of them register their permanent residence in the capital, each of them would bring more than €300 to the Bratislava’s coffers or €60 million in total every year.

With this campaign, the city council wants to call on owners of residential real estate in Bratislava to enable their tenants to register for permanent residence as this brings them neither duties nor entitlements on the side of the tenants.

Those who wish to register permanent residence must go to the council of the Bratislava borough in which they live. They need to submit a valid ID card, an extract from the property deed and if they have children up to 18 years of age, the original of their birth certificate. New ID cards are not issued by these offices, but by the district police headquarters.