This is happening to me soon and I am bricking it to put it mildly. I have worked for Swiss company's who use English as the business language since I arrived. Like most, Switzerland is now regarded as my home. I even stay here for Xmas and vist my old home, England, for about 1 weekend a year. That is enough.
Equiring about the C permit today I am told by the Gemeinder the following below. Has anyone just done the B to C conversion and can tell me what level of German they expect?
Email from friend: You will receive a letter in January 2011 (automatically) for prolonging your B permit, thus changing it into C permit.
You could also go to the Gemeinde and fill out a form which would force them to prove your request earlier than January. But that wouldn't make sense because you would have to pay an extra express fee on top and there are only 2.5weeks left until January anyway.
You will get that letter from the federal office for migration in January. This is an automated letter to you. You will fill it out and bring it together with your B permit, which is ending in March, to the Gemeinde. There they will help you to fill out your application to receive the C permit.
Federal office for migration will then review whether your request can be granted. (they check your entering date and issue date of the permit). AFTER that they will send you more papers to fill out. You will need to give them:
- Criminal record
- Debt record
- GERMAN test!!!!!
- Proof of work etc.
- Plus some other papers.
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You will receive all these papers AFTER they granted your request automatically. You will not have to do anything and Gemeinde does not issue those papers, it's the federal office for migration who sends these papers to you.
I asked them about a German test and she said, yes they have a little test to fill out but you will receive this test after they granted your C permit request. However, if you do not speak German then it will be a bit tricky.
I have done one but three years ago when I moved apartments, memory fails me but logic says it was something instigated my apartment agaency. try yours as a starting point.
The level required was A2 but I heard that they might increase it to B1 (Zertifikat Deutsch level). As a non-EU, non-American I had to do a test and present a certificate when applying for my C-permit. My husband with an EU passport didn't.
OK, this is going back a few years, but when it was time to issue our C permits, we just received the forms in the post. Didn't have to provide any other information. EU BTW.
It's not quite "automatic" - if you work at a university then those years don't count towards you getting a C permit. I just got denied for this reason. Grrrr!
It is automatic. You need to put in 5 years of proper time. If you work at a univeristy then the years most certainly count. If you are a post doc or other studenty type then not. If you are a professor you can have a C from the start.
Last time my B was due for renewal, and change to C, I just told the Gemeinde that I prefer to keep the B, mainly as I'm too lazy to do my own taxes, and being single, was very little advantage I could see. So I'm still on a B, but may think of changing at some stage.
Not in my case. I was more than 6 months into my PhD at Bern when we were upgraded to C permits exactly 5 years after our arrrival. I had worked for a shade over 4 years previous to that, but my time at the Uni certainly counted.
They have to say how much and for what period on the form. According to the info sheet for Zug, you might not get the C it if you had social assistance in the last five years.
Also I see on the same sheet that you need to have A2 level German - although they never asked for proof of this yet in my case.
I've seen a lot of different info here about changing to a C-permit for Non-EU Americans. Some say they didn't need to take a German test, others say they did, It depends on your town? The Federal Government?
Are they any links that show that a German test is definitely a requirement?
I received my c permit last week, there was no German test required (Non EU passport holder) just the other papers mentioned above. I have not had any social assistance so can not say what effect this will have.