I am sure you will get far more intelligent sounding replies than mine .... But for now I just assure you of a couple things, the details of which you will have to seek out for yourself, maybe on the internet.
My son married a Swiss girl in South Africa, they lived there for about 4 or 5 yrs, had 2 children, with Swiss passports. They moved to CH, and my son received his Swiss Passport after 2 years.
The Schengen Visa? I know he did not have to apply for that, he merely got some sort of card from a local authority stating that he lives and works in CH, and this was sufficient for access to EU..... until he received his S/Passport.
Sorry I cant give more details, as my son is presently very busy studying, and I dare not interrupt him for the exact story....Mothers are not allowed to do things like That!
You would qualify for a Swiss passport by being married to a Swiss national for at least 6 years, irrespective of where you were living. You can apply through the simpler federal facilitated naturalisation process. You will probably still be asked to have an interview for the purposes of confirming that your marriage is stable and (usually) to see if you have a basic ability in one of the official Swiss languages.
For now, the visa rules for visiting EU countries will be the more favourable of what you qualify for as the spouse of a Swiss or as applies to your SA passport. If either of these do not exempt you from obtaining a visa, then Shengen probably will, provided that you have applied for and been issued a Swiss B-permit (residence permit).
This is probably a weird question, but I've been thinking of citizenship and its rights and obligations and so on, and this thought came up. My husband is Swiss, so if things stay on track, I would be eligible for facilitated/simplified naturalization through him and his commune/canton in 2-3 years. The thing is that we live far (in Swiss terms, hehe!) from his Heimatort which I've visited only a couple of times. His parents don't even live there. I understand practically nothing of their dialect (not that I understand much of the Aargauer/Zürcher either, but I manage to get by). So, if I were to become a Swiss citizen, it would make a lot more sense to me to be associated with the Gemeinde I live in in the Brugg area. Has anyone here gone for local citizenship even though they've been married to a Swiss from another canton? I'm assuming that would require the 12 years of being resident in CH, or does anyone have any other information?
Facilitated Naturalisation is decided in Bern, your husband's heimatort will have only an administrative influence on the process (ie. how fast or slow they process the required documents).
Seeing as this thread is still alive, I have a question
For the 'Lived in Switzerland for 5 years in total, completely for the last 1 year, married to a Swiss person for 3 or more years' version of naturalization, does anybody know if that means exactly that or not?
i.e. 1.5 of my 5 years were on an L permit back in 1998-9, I wondered whether this counts or whether it is only B and above
Thanks for the reply (and also for moving the post to the right place!)
My question was really about where *my* Heimatort would be. The eda.admin.ch site says The applicant will receive citizenship of the canton and commune of his/her spouse. If I go the facilitated route, can I do so by involving the Gemeinde where we have our residence, rather than my husband's Heimatort? The answer appears to be a clear NO, but I thought I would ask anyway, just in case someone has had a different experience. One never knows...
your town of origin, so to speak, would be registered to match your husband's. You can email the BFM and they will send you the forms - links are in the thread.
Actually, they will both be involved, but they will only be able to comment as the application grinds it's way accross the respective desks at sub-tectonic speeds.
Later after you become a citizen of your hubby's heimatort you may be able to transfer it to where you live. Many places have such "offers" from time to time sometimes as cheap as 25CHF (plus document re-issue costs).
My ex's Dad and Mum were from BE and GR so she and her sis "bought" their Kt. ZH citizenship where they'd grown up later.
No interview in Bern. If your wife was born in Switz. someone from the local Police will come by to look you and your wife over and ask a few questions - no language test.
Hi guys, didn't write anything on here for ages so here goes!
I started the whole Facilitated Naturalisation process last year in September/October, received a reply in November from Bern stating that all was in order, accepted to process and not to contact them!
Finally received some more documents in the post on Tuesday, seems that it's gone to the next stage now as these docs are from my home town of Geneva, I'm now starting to get excited about it again!
Question is, how long should it take now?
Anyone got a general idea on this particular situation?
In general, it takes anywhere between one and two years. It could depend on the basis for requesting the naturalization: your ancestors were Swiss, you are married to one, you have lived 120 years in Switzerland , etc. What is your case?
Could you share with us what the process was like? Did you have to submit to an interview? Show native Swiss language proficiency? Show knowledge of Swiss history, geography and current events? Pay significant money?
The whole basis for the facilitated naturalisation process I'm going through is because I married a Swiss, have lived in Switzerland for over 6 years and married for 6 years also.
So far the process hasn't been so taxing, just filled in the relevant forms that I demanded directly from Bern and supplied the documents which as always is the most time consuming part.
It is only this week that I have received confirmation and the request from Geneva (The Canton where I live) that I fill in another yellow coloured document which also required me to attach a photograph of myself and my wife.
On the main form I have basically been asked to duplicated some information from the first document I sent to Bern and also add schooling history and full employment history. I also have to write a few sentences on why I came to Switzerland, why I want to be Swiss and more importantly for Geneva why I want to become Genevoise...
So far no interview, no need to supply proof of language skills - of course the documents have to be filled out in the native language. But perhaps all this is going to come soon....
Has anyone been through this process, as in receiving more docs from their local authorities? If so It'd be interesting to see how long, on average it should take from this particular stage of things... especially for Geneva (hint, hint)
I'm mid-process with this in Basel. My situation is a bit more complicated, as my husband moved to the UK a bit before the time I applied (we weren't sure if he would stay or if I'd go there, but he's got a good job so I'm moving there now).
I sent off everything to Bern in May 2008 and received a confirm at the end of the month that my application was received. In January, I heard from the Basel office. We had a lot of discussions, because of my husband and I living apart (but not separated!), and had to give a bit more proof of things (copies of plane tickets, etc.). We also met (voluntarily) with the woman who is processing things for us in the Basel office in April. She has sent off her report to Bern, and now we're waiting to hear an answer. We're told this answer can take a while, as my husband's home canton is Zurich and they may also want to have a say in things. I'll be moving over to join him in the UK in January, and we hope to hear something before then, but no guarantees.