I can t believe I have not been able to find an answer to this very common situation. Please help me- It s easier to bring my cat than my husband with me!
My husband and I are both Canadians; I am starting next week a contract with a UN agency in Geneva. I have my visa and will obtain a Carte de Legitimation H once I arrived. I already signed a sous location for an appartment.
My husband has applied at the Swiss Consulate in Canada for a long term visa under "regroupement familial". He will enter Switzerland as a tourist, and we hope that he will receive his visa before the end of the 90 days he is entitled.
The Swiss consulate mentionned that he need to apply for some permis de sejour in the Canton. But when I read their website , I am very confused. They seem to say that with regroupement familial, he should actually apply for a carte de legitimation.
Does anyone knows what he needs to get appart from the visa, and if he can apply only once in Switzerland?
We are leaving next week, and are getting no help from my employer with this.
Thanks,
Julie
Sorry, but it sounds like you’ve left all this very late. The NGO should have applied for the family regroupement carte de legitimation at the same time they applied for yours. Technically your husband should wait in Canada until the family regroupement carte de legitimation application is approved and his Type D visa is issued to him. He may need to return to Canada to get it if Geneva decide to be stroppy about it. Have you also got your Type D visa, you’ll need that to enter Switzerland legally long term, i.e. more than 90 days?
Yes, it’s a carte de legitimation, not a residence permit. All NGO staff and their families have cartes de legitimation.
http://ge.ch/population/prestations/…-international
Contact the Swiss Mission for the best way to deal with this.
https://www.dfae.admin.ch/missions/m…rculation.html
I'm not an expert, but AFAIK it's your employer that handles all the paperwork. Why they aren't helping is a mystery. They submit your paperwork to the Swiss Mission to get your carte de legitimation, and along with that they submit your husband as your dependent.
See page 9 of this document:
https://www.eda.admin.ch/content/dam...ly-2015_EN.pdf
and this quote from page 10:
Whether that means either of you can arrive as tourists, I don't know.
Thanks guys.
Yes I have my visa D already.
The reason I am so late for is because we were living outside Canada and just came back this week, so i couldn't appky fornthe visa before. but I have been in touch with the consulate and WHO about this for. more than 2 months without getting any clear info about ehat to do for my husband.
The consulate told me that my husband could enter as a tourist and wait for his family reunion visa, which takes 6 to 15 weeks (but was requested as" urgent" by the consulate).
As for the carte de légitimation, being a consultant (8 mts) i am considered non staff by WHO, and
" Family members of non-staff members (e.g. consultants), are not eligible for a legitimation card ." This. is where I am. unsure what to do....
You didn’t need to return to Canada to apply for the visa, it could have been done in the country you were resident in at the time.
I see your point and it’s clear in 3Wishes link that that’s the case. In which case I would urgently contact the Swiss Mission and ask them (trying to call or e-mail Geneva usually gets you nowhere from reports on the forum here). He may be able to get a Swiss residence permit or it may be the case that as the contract is a short one, he’s not allowed to come with you - which is why I say urgently. It may be that he can only visit you as a tourist which would mean a maximum of 90 days in and then 90 days out of Switzerland/Schengen again. Hopefully the consulate is correct and he can apply for the residence permit once he arrives.
Then it sounds like he can only come as a tourist for three months.
Tom
If you are receiving a carte de legitimation "H", that means its an intern/short term consultant carte, and as far as I know, means that you are not entitled to bring dependents on such a carte. As such he has no right to join and live with you here. I guess he can only visit as a tourist then will have to go back and abide by schengen tourist stays, sorry.
This was my exact situation - UN consultant, CDL H, contracts less than one year, non EU with a non EU spouse. I was never able to get her a CDL, she had to come on a tourist visa for 3 months and then go back for 3 months. We did this for nearly 2 years. We had a son recently and had had enough - I had to quit and find a new job.
Let me know if you are able to figure it out from your side!