Vilnius
A city learning that attraction and retention are the same story, told from different points in the journey
A professional from Brazil moved to Vilnius not because of a campaign or a recruiter, but because of online communities of Brazilians already living there. He spent weeks reading their stories, asking questions and following their experiences. Complete strangers gave him the confidence to move.
When Indrė Laučienė, Head of Foreign Talent at Go Vilnius, heard that story, it confirmed something she had been working towards: retention and attraction are the same thing seen from different points in the journey. The people already in Vilnius are among its most credible voices. If their experience is good, they tell others. If it is not, they do the same.
That insight now sits at the centre of how Go Vilnius approaches talent.
Vilnius is featured in TPBO's special edition on Talent Attraction Leaders Europe & North America, having received a nomination from our international expert community.
A CITY THAT WANTS TO FEEL EASIER TO ENTER
Go Vilnius' 2026–2030 strategy frames Vilnius as an "intuitive city": easy to understand, logical to navigate, digitally responsive and human-friendly. For foreign talent, that becomes something more concrete: can a person understand the city quickly enough to trust it?
The city competes on access rather than size: a capital where institutions can be closer, daily life more manageable and the path from arrival to participation less fragmented than in larger, more saturated hubs. Foreign talent has become one of Go Vilnius' core areas of work, alongside tourism, business and conferences. International House Vilnius remains the service centre; the Foreign Talent Department adds a more deliberate attraction and retention layer, connecting the full journey from first awareness to arrival, from settling to the harder question of staying.
VISIBILITY BEFORE ARRIVAL
More than 75,000 foreigners live in Vilnius, making it Lithuania's most internationalised city. Yet it is still not an obvious choice for many people comparing European destinations, and closing that visibility gap is now central to Go Vilnius' strategy.
The new Foreign Talent strategy begins with four audiences: senior deep-tech specialists, international founders and hub leaders, scale-up workers looking beyond larger Western capitals, and foreign graduates and prospective international students. The student segment is furthest advanced, and Vilnius' first international student attraction campaign starts narrow, targeting Portuguese high-school graduates, Master's candidates and their parents. The campaign builds on the city's earlier "Unexpectedly Amazing" positioning, with a first wave planned for autumn 2026 to build awareness, and a conversion-focused second wave held back for spring 2027 once the team knows what resonated.
THE PRACTICAL SYSTEM BEHIND THE PROMISE
The attraction work is credible because Vilnius has already built a service base. International House Vilnius, established in 2021 by Go Vilnius and Invest Lithuania, brings key government services under one roof: the Migration Department, the Employment Service, the State Tax Inspectorate and the State Social Insurance Fund Board all delegate staff to IHV, so relocating talent can get what they need without travelling between offices or repeating their story at every desk.
Work and Live serves as the main online entry point, with International House Vilnius as its offline counterpart. When a question falls outside one specialist's area, a warm handover passes the client to the right colleague with all relevant background attached. In 2025, International House Vilnius served 15,626 clients, up 12.6% on 2024. Between 2022 and mid-2026, it recorded more than 60,000 consultations in total.
WHERE INTEGRATION BECOMES BELONGING
As Vilnius’ international population has grown, so has the city’s understanding of what talent attraction requires. Relocation support has expanded into community-building, career guidance and practical routes into local life. Vilnius Is My City, for example, has grown roughly 32-fold in turnout over four years, while the number of partner communities has increased eight-fold. The Pathway Programme takes the same logic into the student population, addressing a persistent problem: only 7–9% of international students currently stay after graduation. Through orientation, career consultations, employer visits, mentoring and internships, the three-month pilot tests whether retention can begin well before graduation.
The latest data suggests these efforts matter. Overall satisfaction among international residents rose from 6.5 to 7.3 out of 10 between 2024 and 2026, while the Net Promoter Score for recommending Vilnius as a place to live and work improved from −30 to −12.
One finding is particularly striking: in the latest survey, foreigners who had used International House Vilnius services rated the city around 20–25 NPS points more favourably than those who had not. For a place brand, that is a practical lesson. Perception is shaped less by the message a city puts out than by what happens when people actually arrive and begin to build a life.
Behind the Scenes — Interview with INDRĖ LAUČIENĖ
Indrė Laučienė reflects on how the city’s approach to place positioning is evolving: from helping international talent settle after arrival to shaping a more connected talent journey, one that links attraction, relocation, integration, career development and long-term retention.
Why Vilnius Matters
Vilnius shows that a smaller capital can compete for talent by making itself easier to enter, rather than louder. Its case is built around a practical sequence: visibility before arrival, then arrival support, then integration, then career pathways, then the harder question of staying. A warm handover at a migration desk, a festival, a mentor from the fintech sector, a plain-language explanation of a residence permit; none of it looks like brand work. Together, it decides whether the city feels navigable and navigability, for internationally mobile talent weighing several places at once, is a form of competitive advantage.
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