Regulation 2017/1954 of 25 October of 2.017 amending Regulation (EC) No 1030/2002 of the Council establishing a uniform model of the residence permit for third-country nationals has been approved.

The Regulation comes in to affect as of November 20th 2017, the States may continue issuing the old permit for the next 6 months, that is, until May 20, 2018, from there, we will have a new model.

The main decision causing the change in the residency model is due to there been serious incidents of falsification and fraud, the current residency model that has been used for the past twenty years has been considered unsafe, therefore adopting a new common design for the residency permits for third-country nationals that has more modern security features to make these permits more secure and thus prevent counterfeiting.