We are informing the foreign citizens who have the status of student in Bosnia and Herzegovina that they are obligied to regulate their temporary stay, if they intend to reside in Bosnia and Herzegovina longer than  period of visa or non-visa stay validation.
An application for approval of temporary stay must be submitted in person at the competent field office of Service for Foreigners Affairs, no later than 15 days prior to the expiration of deadline visa validation for longterm stay (visa 'D') or non-visa stay. The students who already have approved temporary stay on basis of education shall submit application for extension of temporary stay 60 days prior the expiration of period of approved stay,or no later than 15 days prior to expiration of period of approved stay.
Any stay upon the expiration of right to non-visa stay, expiration of period of visa duration or stay upon expiration of deadline of approved stay shall be considered as illegal stay, thus in this sense the Service for Foreigners Affairs may sentence the measure of expulsion from BiH toward foreign citizen.
In that respect, the Service for Foreigners Affairs shall conduct in following period the scale operation of control of foreign citizen at the univeristies across BiH in order to prevent irregular stay of foreign citizens who study in BiH.
Bosnia and Herzegovina becomes more and more interesting destination to the foreigners, so the SFA is registering high number of applications for obtaining temporary or permanent stay from year to year, and the most common reasons are education, marriage, work with work permit, and other basis for stay stiplated by the law.
SFA has issued in the last year to the foreign citizens  11.519 permits for temporary stay. Of this total, the issued permits for temporary stay in 2016, the highest number reffered to citzen of Turkey (2.727), Serbia (2.239), Croatia (1.038), Montenegro (718), FYROM (629) and China  (503), which is 68 % of the total number of issued permits.
It is issued 3.550 permits on basis of education, which are 1.406 extended and 2.144 of approved temporary stay. The highest number of permits on this basis is issued to the citizens of Turkey, then citizens of Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro.
If we compare these data with data of Service for Foreigners Affairs for the year 2015, it is evident significant increase of number of foreign students in our country. Namely, it has been issued 1.914 permits for temporary stay in 2015, based on education to the citizens from 69 countries. The highest number of permits in 2015 has been issued to the citizens of Turkey, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro.
Given that the enrolement of studies in academic 2017/2018 year is ongoing, the Service for Foreigners Affairs invites all students foreign citizens to make their registration and to regulate their stay in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
