I have a rather convoluted question. The story goes as follows: I (Permit B holder, living in Vaud) want to close the distance with my gf (long distance, from Belarus).
After a bit of research I have gathered there are three main ways to achieve that:
1. Marriage abroad (Turkey) and going through family reunification.
2. She applies for language course and stays on a student visa / tourist visa for some time.
3. Going through the "concubine visa".
Obviously, the fourth option, quite risky, application for Master's here with my sponsorship. However, that is slightly unfortunate due to many courses requiring French c1 or German c1. Additionally, we don't know what might happen in next 6 months in Belarus (will there be exit ban or not). Are there any other options that I might have missed?
And nope, those are the only options and I wouldn’t think 2 would work really unless she already knows a bit of a Swiss language and wants to improve on that with a full time course.
I would go for language course option. The max duration a permit can be issued based on language course attendance is 1 year. After that she could go for Masters. That would allow some time to test the relationship and decide upon marriage.
There some challenges to consider though. The question is whether she can obtain a visa in Belarus at all, it could be that it is suspended, she could always go through Poland I guess. For language course/Masters visa she would need to show bank statement with appx. 25‘000 if I am not mistaken. Depositing this amount in Belarus obviously not an option, opening an account elsewhere would be problematic due to Belarus pass.
In my case (I am non-EU, came fir studies) Swiss embassy did not accept any sponsorship letters, they wanted to see the entire amount on my bank account. In Switzerland, local authorities then requested to transfer the money to a Swiss bank before they would issue a permit. And this was a nightmare because I could not open a bank account without the permit
Thanks for the information, albeit a bit gloomy one. If you would be so kind and share how long the whole process was from signing up for the course to getting into Switzerland? Is this more like a 3 weeks or 3 months type of endeavor?
Thanks for all the information. It is a bit of steep price of 12'000 for 6 months to be deposited in a branch of Swiss bank. That's a quite unfortunate.
Given all that, the riskier and more straining on the relationship choice seems like a safer bet. Has anyone gone through applying for a family reunification visa in similar scenario?
Do you still mean the language course? Because that wouldn’t be a family reunification permit anyway, it would be a student permit since she’d be studying.
Well, I think we would definitely prefer a language course path but fulfilling financial requirements from Belarus seems like a fool's errand at this point. Therefore, I think the family reunification via a third country seems like a rather sub optimal but viable option, which we will have to pursue. So yeah, I am asking more about the wedding than the language course. It is what it is.