Letter codes on Swiss residence permits

Visas, Permits, Passports and Naturalization
1

Hi!
It’s one of useless/absurd thoughts I am sporadically having on my mind, that I’d like to unload here =)
While we all know the purpose of each permit (or at least it’s easy to find this information), does anyone know if letter codes correspond to an actual first letter of a word in German/French/Italian (or perhaps Latin)?
My hypothesis,

  • B: Basique? Bewilligung?
  • C: Continuité? No idea for German =)
  • Ci: Continuité (intergouvernementale) No idea For German?
  • L: Limité? Limitiert?
  • S: Securité? Schutzbedürftige?
  • N: Necessité? Notfall?
  • G: Grenzgänger? No idea for French=)

And the bonus question is if anyone knows how this system emerged historically?

2

Sorry, can’t help you. But I support your suspicion that they make no sense at all as an F permit stands for “Vorläufige Aufnahme”.
We always joked that it must have been analphabet inventing this, as lots of clients asked the same quesion.

3

Indeed I’ve missed the F =) Flüchtling/Fugitif?

PS So you must be working in the migration consultancy of some sort.

4

Did. For a long time. And a long time ago.

1 Like
5

When I arrived:

A - Guestworker. Permit for 8 months, in theory non-renewable,
B - initial Permit for 5 or 10 years depending on country of origin.
C - Permanent Resident.

There may have been others, but I wasn’t aware of them.

2 Likes
6

There are all kinds of B permits:
Married to a Swiss as long as they stay with the spouse. But also recognized refugee…

Hey, I just found a permit, where the letter actually fits (at least in German): G = Grenzgänger. An boom it no longer fits: frontalière, frontalieri.
Which is the cross-border commuter permit, people living abroad, coming to work in Switzerland regularly/daily.

1 Like
7

Interesting, I did not know the permit A existed.

8

That was ‘85 ish. The Geneva Control des habitants actually asked me to wait to register for my B until the end of April because they were overwhelmed with issuing A permits. I had this flimsy piece of NCR paper justifying my presence. I used that to sign my lease and open a bank account. Nobody blinked.

1 Like
9

A was for so called Saisonniers, people just allowed in for a few months (started at 11 months, then it was shortened several times).
It was stopped for non-EU in 1991 and 2002 for EU members as then the contract “Personenfreizügigkeit” (free movement of persons / people) was signed with EU.

2 Likes
10

Oh, did I mention that I had to have a chest x-ray? That was a precaution against TB.

2 Likes
11

I think some British Commonwealth countries are still doing it like Australia? Or I am mistaking something.

12

Hm, so if there was an “A” then it makes A,B,C look clearly alphabetic, yet other letters are quite apart =) Interestingly enough, Lichtenstein seems to follow the same pattern.

13

That was the case for asylum seekers for a very long time after as well. I’m not sure if it’s still done now. In spite of that may TB-patients were transferred to asylum-centers which made you wonder what the “precautions” were actually for.

1 Like
14

Me too, in France, in this century.
I was waiting with two women wearing a headscarf. We each had to undress our upper bodies (no modesty gown) and walk over to an X ray machine manned by a male technician.

I don’t mean to start a fight here, but it’s not the best way to encourage integration.