Contract roles on NATO programmes
Your national clearance is not a NATO clearance
This is the single most expensive misunderstanding in defence hiring, and almost every candidate we speak to arrives with it. On this page: what counts as the right clearance and what the levels actually mean, why a national or an EU clearance does not stand in for one, how a clearance can be dead while the date on it says otherwise, how long each country really takes, and why a contract role will go to somebody who is already cleared. Everything here concerns contract work, because we do not place permanent staff.
Which national clearances carry over to NATO?
In the work we handle, a British or an American national clearance is the one that travels into NATO roles, because both countries publish how their levels convert. For the other countries on this page we have found no published route that turns a national clearance into a NATO one, and in practice the NATO clearance is run from the beginning, so the national one you already hold does not shorten it. An EU clearance does not stand in for it either, although the two are confused constantly.
We hear the same sentence every week: I have a clearance, I have a Polish national clearance, I have an EU clearance. It is said in good faith, and it is the moment the application quietly ends, because the requirement in the vacancy is not «a clearance». The advert means a specific NATO clearance at a specific level, and nothing else satisfies it.
If you hold a British or an American clearance, the next question is which of yours converts, and to what. Not all of them do, and the two that look closest to a NATO level are often the ones that do not.
| Your clearance | Converts to | How |
|---|---|---|
| eDV enhanced Developed Vetting |
Yes, NATO COSMIC TOP SECRET | Through the UK authority. |
| DV Developed Vetting |
Yes, NATO COSMIC TOP SECRET | Through the UK authority. |
| eSC enhanced Security Check |
Yes, NATO SECRET | Through the UK authority. |
| SC Security Check |
Yes, NATO SECRET | Through the UK authority. |
| CTC Counter Terrorist Check |
No | Built from the beginning. |
| NPPV Non-Police Personnel Vetting |
No | Built from the beginning. |
| AC Accreditation Check |
No | Built from the beginning. |
| BPSS Baseline Personnel Security Standard |
No, and it was never a clearance | It forms part of the request for SC and NATO SECRET, or DV and COSMIC TOP SECRET, so it is a step rather than a dead end. |
| DBS Disclosure and Barring Service |
No | It is the service through which you obtain your own criminal record copy, which the request for SC or DV needs. |
| SIA Security Industry Authority |
No | A regulator of the private security sector, not a vetting level. |
Where a clearance converts, the NATO level is requested through the British national security authority. Where it does not, whatever the advert asks for has to be built from the beginning.
| Your clearance | Equivalent NATO level | What else is required |
|---|---|---|
| Top Secret | COSMIC TOP SECRET, and COSMIC TOP SECRET ATOMAL | A final eligibility determination at COSMIC TOP SECRET, plus a NATO security briefing before any access, repeated annually. |
| Secret | NATO SECRET, and NATO SECRET ATOMAL | A final eligibility determination at NATO SECRET, plus a NATO security briefing before any access, repeated annually. |
| Confidential | NATO CONFIDENTIAL, and NATO CONFIDENTIAL ATOMAL | A final eligibility determination at NATO CONFIDENTIAL, plus a NATO security briefing before any access, repeated annually. |
One thing in that second table catches people out. The clearance alone is not access: the American regulation requires a NATO security briefing before you touch anything, an annual refresher, and a signed debrief when the work ends. That regulation binds employers in the United States, so if you are being hired in Europe the same steps come to you through your own employer and its national authority instead. Arranging it is their job, not yours, and it is worth asking about it before you sign, because a start date can move if nobody has booked it.
What does the right clearance actually get me?
A vacancy never asks for «a clearance». It names a level, and sometimes it adds a marking on top of that level. Read the two tables below against the advert you are looking at, because the difference between two lines here is the difference between being considered and not.
| Level | What it is | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| NATO UNCLASSIFIED NU |
Alliance property, but it carries no classification | Not a clearance. Nobody is vetted to see this, so a role that only touches NU material is the one realistic opening for an uncleared candidate. |
| NATO RESTRICTED NR |
Material whose disclosure would be disadvantageous to the Alliance, without being treated as classified in the strict sense | The bottom rung that still involves a formal process. Rare in the vacancies we work on. |
| NATO CONFIDENTIAL NC |
Material whose disclosure would damage the interests of the Alliance | Where the real process starts, and where the national timelines further down this page begin to apply. |
| NATO SECRET NS |
Broadly the equivalent of a national Secret | This is the level most of the roles we place ask for. If you hold anything, this is the one worth checking first. |
| COSMIC TOP SECRET CTS |
Material whose disclosure would cause exceptionally grave damage; broadly the equivalent of an American Top Secret | The top of the ladder. Held by few people, and the process behind it is the longest of all. |
| Marking | What it covers | How it is written |
|---|---|---|
| ATOMAL | Atomic information released to NATO by the United States and the United Kingdom | NATO CONFIDENTIAL ATOMAL, NATO SECRET ATOMAL, COSMIC TOP SECRET ATOMAL, also written NCA, NSA and CTSA. |
| BOHEMIA | Communications intelligence | Added to the level named in the advert. |
| BALK | Used only alongside COSMIC TOP SECRET, and takes the place of BOHEMIA on exercises | COSMIC TOP SECRET BALK. |
| CRYPTO | Key material | Added to the level named in the advert. |
A marking changes who may hold the job, not just what the job touches. Two adverts can both say NATO SECRET, and the one that says NATO SECRET ATOMAL is drawing from a far smaller group of people.
My clearance has not expired yet, so am I still cleared?
This is the trap that costs people interviews they were otherwise going to win. A clearance can lapse long before the expiry printed on it, in a number of countries roughly a year after you stop actively using it. You can be holding a document that says you are good for another eight years and be, for hiring purposes, no longer cleared at all.
You cannot check this yourself in any reliable way, and neither can most recruiters, which is why the answer people usually get is a shrug. We check it. If your clearance has not been in active use, or if it runs out soon, we find out what state it is really in and we deal with the renewal, which has to be started at least five months before the end date, because starting later means the gap arrives anyway.
Why do contract roles go to people who are already cleared?
Put two numbers side by side and the whole market makes sense. A contract usually starts about three weeks after the interviews. A clearance takes months. No client holds a seat empty for that long, so the shortlist is drawn from people who already hold the right clearance, at the right level, in a state that still counts.
That is not a reason to give up if you are not cleared. It is a reason to know where you actually stand before you spend three weeks on an application. Every figure below comes from the authority that runs the process, not from an estimate. Three countries are on the list precisely because they publish no timescale at all, and that is worth knowing before you plan around a number you found somewhere else.
| Country | How long the check takes | How long the clearance lasts |
|---|---|---|
| Belgium* | From the day the request is accepted: five months for confidential, six for secret, nine for top secret, and eight, nine and twelve when another country has to be consulted, which for a foreign candidate is the normal case. | Five years at most, across all three levels |
| Netherlands* | Eight weeks by statute, at level A, B or C. The service says openly that it can take longer when it has to gather extra information about time you spent abroad, so eight weeks is the floor rather than the expectation. | No end date, but it is tied to the post and the employer. Re-screening every five years at A, every ten at B and C |
| Poland* | Three months by statute, for both the ordinary and the extended procedure. | Ten years at the lowest of the three classifications, seven at the middle one, five at the highest. The employer must ask for a new procedure at least six months before it runs out |
| Italy* | Not published. The central office describes the procedure and gives no timescale, and for urgent and proven cases it allows a temporary authorisation to be requested alongside the main application. In our own experience the real wait has reached two years. | Five years at the highest level, ten below it. Not required at all for the lowest classification |
| Norway* | The authority works to three months, and says openly that it can take longer depending on its own workload, the complexity of the case and whether anything has to be requested from abroad. | Up to five years, with an extension of up to one more year in particular cases |
| Germany* | Not published. The federal authority sets out the three types of check in detail and gives no timescale for any of them. Figures you find elsewhere are somebody's estimate. | An update after five years, a full re-check after ten |
| United Kingdom* | Not published, and stated as policy: the vetting service says it is unable to give exact timescales, because every application involves different agencies and any of them can hold it up. | Ten years at SC and CTC, seven at DV, five for an accreditation check. If the company sponsoring you has no facility clearance of its own, SC drops to seven years and CTC to five |
| Portugal* | For a foreign candidate it depends entirely on another country: the file is forwarded to the security authority of the state whose passport you hold, and that authority decides. | Not published. Clearances are issued under separate national, NATO and EU marks, rather than one document covering all of them |
Can I start the clearance process myself?
Almost nowhere in Europe does an individual apply for their own clearance. The request is made by the employer for a named post: in Belgium only through the company’s security officer, who is the sole point of contact with the authority, in Poland by the head of the organisation or the person authorised to fill the position, and in Germany by the authority the work is being done for. Portugal is the exception that proves the rule, because its own nationals do apply themselves, through a government portal, while a foreign candidate there cannot: the file is forwarded to the security authority of the country whose passport you hold, and that country decides.
Which means the sequence people imagine, getting cleared and then looking for work, does not exist. It runs the other way round, and the only way into it is a company already holding the contract.
What can you do for me if I am not cleared yet?
Everything above is the part that can be written down. The rest is judgement about particular authorities, particular posts and particular timing, and it is applied to one person at a time rather than published.
What that looks like in practice: we find out what state your clearance is really in, we handle the renewal when it needs one, and we tell you plainly whether a role is worth your three weeks. And we do not push the work back onto you. No matrices to fill in, no rewriting your entire career from scratch, no forms invented to make our life easier. Send the CV as it is and tell us where you would go.
* Where these figures come from, and when we last read them. Every line above was taken from the authority that runs the process in that country and checked on 18 August 2026: Belgium, the National Security Authority; the Netherlands, the AIVD; Poland, the Act of 5 August 2010 on the protection of classified information, articles 24, 29 and 32; Norway, the NSM; Germany, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution; the United Kingdom, UK Security Vetting. Italy is a partial exception: the central office sets out the procedure and the rule that the lowest classification needs no clearance at all, while the years each level lasts are fixed by the decree that governs it, article 31 of DPCM 5 of 2015, whose text we could not open on the day of checking. Portugal describes its own route for its own nationals through the Gabinete Nacional de Segurança and gives no timescale to anybody, which is why the line above says what happens to a foreign file rather than how long the wait is. If any of this has moved since we read it, tell us and we will check it again.
This page describes how national clearance procedures work in practice. It is not legal or immigration advice, and the rules change, so everything we quote here carries its source and the date we checked it.