Thanks in advance
Hello! I’ve tried searching and most threads seem to be quite old, so please go easy on me! I’m an Irish Citizen, married to an American Citizen and I’m transferring to Zurich through work, will my wife be able to fly with me at the same time or will she need to apply for a D visa beforehand (Correct me if D is the wrong visa).
Welcome to the Forum.
There are two answers. The official/legal answer is that she needs a D visa because she's coming to stay for longer than three months. Which means flying separately and applying for family reunification after you are here.
The reality on the ground is that Zurich is super tolerant with Americans. So she could fly with you, enter as a tourist, and you go register together at the municipality. If they really want to be sticklers, they'll make her apply for the D visa while she's here as a tourist and she'd have to go to Germany or France (or maybe back to the USA but that's unlikely) to get the visa stamped.
Thank you very much for the information 3wishes! After going through the entire US Immigration system, It sounds like this should be much more straight forward. So it’s just a matter of entering together (as tourists) and then heading to the ‘Migration Office of the Canton of Zürich‘ within 14 days? One thing I’m not certain of, would we need a permanent address when registering, my plan is to stay in an AirBnB for the first month whilst looking for rentals.
Check with the Zurich canton migration office, not all cantons accept AirBnB addresses for registration purposes.
Seeing as it almost impossible to find permanent accommodation on 14 days notice I would expect the larger, if not all, Cantons to accept temporary addresses.
Not saying that a temp address isn’t accepted, but AirBnB’s have been refused by several cantons far as I know from reading posts here.
An AirBnb might especially not cut it for the requirement to prove suitable housing for the family reunification application of the spouse.
This is good to know, it might be worth going over beforehand to get a permanent rental and then getting my wife to follow, I had a feeling an AirBnB/hotel might be an iffy situation
Hotel should be okay (worth checking to make sure though), but AirBnB’s are a bit iffy for some cantons.
Just contact Zurich’s migration office and ask then you’ll know exactly.
There are also temporary accommodation that will be accepted, like Vision apartments for example, but will cost more that an AirBnB but less than a hotel. There are several of these apartments and the ones out or town center will cost less.
Some AirBnBs may not be completely legal.
My experience is from many years ago, but my bed and breakfast - recommended by my employer - was ok for registration. I stayed there for three months while apartment hunting. I was non-EU.
You might find parts of this thread useful:
Thanks everyone for the great advice, Just in case it helps others, I emailed the Zurich migration office and received this response (translated)
Good day
In principle, an application for an entry visa for the purpose of family reunification must be applied for at the Swiss embassy in the home country. If you are entering the country together, you can submit the application for a residence permit to the residents' registration office. The application is sent by the residents' registration office to the Migration Office of the Canton of Zurich for verification.
Enclosed we send you the link to our cantonal directives. You can find further helpful information under "Application for an entry permit" and "Family reunification".