Marriage for a foreign residence-permit holder and a tourist

Visas, Permits, Passports and Naturalization
1
Hi,

I want to check whether we would be able to get married in Switzerland, and would my future wife be able to get the residence permit in Switzerland.

Our situation is as follows:

I am a non-EU national (Israeli), going to move to Switzerland (Zurich) in a couple of months, and I am going to get a B or L residence permit (The employer said I will get the residence permit in about a month after getting there).

My fiancee is also non-EU national (Israeli and Russian), coming together with me as a tourist (no visa required for 90 days) with a one-way ticket.

We wanted to get married before the move to Switzerland, but we do not have enough time to arrange it at home, so we want to get married in Zurich.

Would my fiancee have any difficulties entering Switzerland with a one-way ticket?

Would we be able to get married in Zurich (while she is a tourist) ?

What's the process and how long can it take? What do we have to do to arrange all that, get married, and get the residence permit for her?

I saw many pieces of information on the forum here, but some aspects of the situation are still unclear....

Thank you very much

2
Getting married in Switzerland either needs residency or a fiance visa, for both.

With you being a new resident as well, getting the paperwork done for a fiance visa will be very challenging in a period of three months. I would say cant be done.

Even then, your partner will probably be asked to collect the fiancee visa at a Swiss embassy, and it might even have to be where she has residency, i.e. in Israel or Russia.

As for entering with a one way ticket, if there are questions at immigration, just be prepared to answer them.

3
Thanks

Do we need a fiancee visa? Can't we just get married there while she is there as a tourist?

4

Technically, probably. Recommended? No.

As a non EU you do not have an automatic right to family reunification

5
Nope, cant get legally married as a tourist.

People already married have come here as a tourist, and then applied for family reunification successfully, but you're not yet married so doesn't apply to you.

Incidentally, the paperwork to get married here is not trivial, even if you try the fiancee visa route.

Decent, but probably not comprehensive, list here:

http://www.expatica.com/ch/family-es...nd_106051.html

The complete list will be available from the town hall where you end up living in CH.

6
In a situation like this, I would normally suggest to do a quick courthouse/city hall marriage before you leave (which takes 15 minutes) and a family party later. However, I know you can't do civil weddings in Israel, so this is not really an option. The Israeli common law marriage/domestic union card won't help you with Swiss immigration either, but I am sure you know that.

Given these peculiarities, here is my suggestion: arrange your papers, take a trip to Cyprus, get married civilly, courier the paperwork back to Israel, get the recognition stamp of approval = done. That way you will be a married couple already, making the dealing with the immigration/family reunification visas from the Swiss side a little less complicated (I think).

I don't have direct experience but I have a friend who has done exactly that because they, although both Jewish, did not want a Rabbi to perform their wedding ceremony and were relocating to the USA and, for USA visa purposes, wanted to be married before starting the process. The whole Cyprus thing, from gathering the paperwork to getting the stamp of approval/recognition from Israel took a little over a month I think.

Mazal Tov!

7
I do not know much about getting married in Switzerland, but I can share a complicated story I know about.

Two very close friends holding a long-distance relationship for a while, she from South America and her European boyfriend (from an EU country) already living and working in Switzerland under a B visa decided to marry and have her moving to Switzerland. After she arrived in Switzerland, they were told by a lawyer that she could not get a fiancée visa because the husband to be was not Swiss. I would strongly advice you to check carefully if you are entitled to get a fiancée visa specially considering the visa which you will be given by your job. And the people at the Gemeinde might not be able to give you the correct information (as it happened to my friends: she came to Switzerland hoping to get a fiancée visa during her 90-day tourist stay and this was not true for her), so you must find a knowledgeable lawyer.

They were adviced by the lawyer to marry at his EU country, get a permit for her to live there (which got ready less than one month after their wedding), then register to live with him in Switzerland. She stayed as a tourist in Switzerland while they organized the wedding (what took them almost 2 months of paper organization and bureaucracies, proof of no criminal records for her, etc -- including the presence of an official translator at the meeting when they just scheduled the wedding AND ALSO AT the wedding because as she did not speak his mother language, because even though they could, they refused to speak English and they did not allow her to schedule the wedding or to marry without a translator who could tell her what was being told to both regarding all the legal stuff involved, separation regimen, etc), but she had to leave after 90 days and stay for two months out before returning to Switzerland and presenting her EU document at the Gemeinde to register as his wife.

Basically, it was quite a complicated situation. Their lawyer suggested to marry at his EU country because she would get an EU document (what unfortunately does not apply to both of you). It was also told to them that in case they would marry in Switzerland, they would get constant checks (calls in the middle of the night and random visitations) to see if it was a real marriage.

So, I think, after all the hard things they went through, and as her best friend I saw all the craziness involved, if you could plan to marry preferably at one of your home countries and apply for your Swiss visa already married, she would have the right to have the same visa as she will be already your wife, therefore, the process of getting a permission for her to live and work in Switzerland would go much smoother.

I understand you don't come from an EU country, so be prepared that things could be even more complicated than it was for my friends.

In any case, I wish the best of luck to both of you and MAY LOVE PREVAIL!!!

8
Get married in Vegas.

My late wife and I got married on a vacation to the US, albeit in upstate NY. Returned to CH, and for six months, I was married and she wasn't.

Lots of paperwork and CHF 35 later, they back-dated her wedding date to coincide with mine!

(fortunately, the same had happened to a Swiss friend's sister when she got married in Germany to a German, so he knew what to do)

Tom

9
Thanks everybody for your great replies,

So I understand that getting married in Switzerland is not a recommended option.

So, we will probably get married in a country where we can quickly arrange it (probably Cyprus), and will submit a family reunification visa request for my wife (since my own visa application was already processed).

Do you think there are any risks associated?

Does it matter whether we do the wedding before our arrival in Switzerland or shortly after that?

Is it ok that my future wife will be in Switzerland as a tourist while her application is being processed?

How long can the whole thing take?

Thanks again