My next arrival in Yerevan was in October, this time with the purpose of settling here. I wanted to start paying taxes and obtain a residence permit.
In my case, the procedure was as follows:
- Find an accountant.
- Register as an individual entrepreneur (IE).
- Open a bank account.
- Apply for a residence permit.
- Obtain a social card.
- Obtain an IT certificate for a 0% tax rate.
A crucial step in this process is finding an accountant. They are necessary for handling monthly reporting. Some say you can do this on your own, but you’ll have to physically submit the paperwork since electronic signatures are either limited to citizens or accountants, and everything has to be done in Armenian.
Searching for an accountant online is a mistake as you’ll only find extremely expensive options. I found one by asking a friend, who, in turn, found someone from the list of all accountants in Armenia posted at the office where you register as an IP. And, to be honest, you can stop there because accountants can take care of everything, and you’ll only need to visit administrative buildings occasionally. But let’s continue.
Based on reviews, registering as an IE is straightforward. You need to notarize your passport’s translation, visit a certain address, and fill out a form. Alternatively, like I did, you can write a power of attorney for the accountant to handle the process. An essential aspect is the address. The IE is registered at a specific address, and you can indicate any address you like, and no one will check. However, if you need a residence permit, you must reside at that address for a month.
The next step is opening a bank account. In the past, you could do this with just your Russian Federation passport, even an internal one. But now, banks fear they might be used for money transit and require proof of your commitment to Armenia. Having an IE is often sufficient, but not for everyone. The funniest thing I saw was for IT IEs; they asked for a GitHub profile or proof of successful previous projects.
With the obtained set of documents, you can apply for a residence permit. For this, you need to go to the specified address, wait in line, state that you want a residence permit based on your IE, submit the documents, and wait. You’ll wait for a representative from the migration service to come to the address indicated in the IE to verify your activities. In my case, the officer didn’t come to my home; I wasn’t there, so we arranged to meet somewhere between my location and theirs, near a supermarket. There, I explained what I do, and that was it. To get the residence permit, you have to come again, a month or two after submitting the application, wait in line, and collect it. Or, like me, find out it’s approved but not ready yet.
Getting the social card is the easiest part. You need to visit the passport office, hand in your passport, and receive an A4 paper. That will be your social card. It unlocks access to various bureaucratic procedures, such as registering at a clinic to receive medical treatment, supposedly even for free, though I’m not entirely sure about that. As far as I understood, it formally requires registration, and there’s a probability they might ask for other random but non-trivial documents. In that case, you can go to another nearby passport office.
With the IE and social card, you can apply for IT benefits. This will waive the 5% turnover tax, leaving only the military tax, which is 5000 drams (around $10). For this, you’ll need the accountant to prepare some extensive document and email it to the Ministry of High Technology. The email doesn’t require a subject or text, just the file. They will call you at the provided contact number to invite you for an interview. The interview takes place at the Ministry of Industry and High Technology. You’ll be seated at a round table with a commission, they will ask you what you do, and you reply with something like, “I write algorithms, interesting ones.” If that’s satisfactory, they immediately approve the benefit. However, they might not approve it if your activities are not related to algorithms, like running a kiosk, for instance. About a week later, you can collect the certificate, but what to do with it, I still haven’t figured out.
And then there was a silly incident. We moved into a private neighborhood, and upon arrival, we heard a plaintive meow of a cat. We searched but couldn’t find it. Every time we got close, the sound would stop. We went for a walk, and when we returned in the evening, the sounds were still there. But this time, we managed to pinpoint their source – a pipe sticking out among construction debris. With the owner’s permission, we dug into the trash and found a kitten.
The poor one was barely alive, and the host even thought it was dead. But the stray turned out to be alive and even attempted to scratch me when I reached out to him. We wrapped the kitten in fabric, put him in a bucket, and took him to the vet. They said he was freezing and needed to warm up and, perhaps, receive some treatment. So, for the next four days, he stayed at the vet’s. During that time, we tried to find his owners, but it didn’t work out. The vet called and said we could pick him up as he was fully recovered but scared. So, we took him back to let him go. Yerevan is much warmer than Moscow, and that area likely had people feeding stray cats.
But the kitten turned out not to be well. He didn’t want to come out of the carrier and was clearly afraid of us. We stepped back so he wouldn’t see us, and he finally came out. However, he could barely walk, and his strength seemed to have increased significantly. For some reason, I thought the crippled cat wouldn’t run far, so I called the vet again. But the vet said we shouldn’t let him go and that he needed another month to recover. We had to take care of him and feed him if needed. But while we were on the phone, the kitten crawled under a car and refused to come out. As a result, he was just fed. A little later, our hero crawled under a fence to the neighbors, where a couple of cats and a group of kittens lived. Since then, we haven’t seen him, but I hope he returned to his own. Either way, we left cat food nearby every day and arranged with the owner to take care of the poor one. Additionally, we bought a month’s worth of cat food just in case.
