My wife is pregnant, and we are wondering whether we will have problems for getting a permit for the baby. We already have two children (this will be the third). We have been living in Bern since almost two years. We have B-permits (non-EU), which we have to renew each year. I have a working contract for four years. Our monthly income is around 6000 CHF net, which is enough for us, but not sure if that will be a problem when getting a permit for the baby. What could be the possible scenarios?
My experience is that if you have current B-permits, a permit for your newest arrival will be issued automatically within a week or so of his/her birth. It will have the same validity as yours.
Yes, it is pretty much guaranteed if you both have valid permits...but "a week or so" is probably unrealistic. In our case (also non-EU B permits) we needed the Swiss birth certificate to get citizenship by descent from our home country, followed by a passport from our home country, and only then, with these documents could we finalise the B permit.
In my experience first we needed a Birth Certificate from the Standesamt, then we went thru the stuff for the passport from our embassy, then once we had the passport we brought it to the Gemeinde and within a couple weeks the permit arrived.
Does anyone know if a newborn can travel outside of Switzerland to other EU countries with only the Swiss birth certificate before the arrival of the home country passport and issue of the B - permit?
From my understanding you cannot.. Since the birth certificate is kind of a chicken and egg scenario. It will be the first thing you receive but it will state Staatenhorikeit Ungeklärt meaning they cannot determine what nationality the baby has yet because they haven't registered at the embassy or received a passport to indicate. Once you get the passport then the birth certificate will get reprinted to indicate the nationality of the baby.
Really? I've never known anyone who had the birth certuficate reprinted with the nationality printed on it. In fact I've never seen a birth certificate which indicates the nationality of the baby. ( none of ours do)
There is 2 different Birth Certificates. The standard Swiss one and the International version. I believe it is listed in the International version which is needed for most things. Also the Family Book it is listed. Not sure if you have one of those but I got one after my wife and I got Married in CH and it clearly lists our nationalities plus the nationality of our baby.
The international birth certificate we have for our son which was issued in Belgium does not state the nationality of the baby anywhere only the parent's nationalities.
The two friends I have helped in obtaining the birth certificates for their babies here in Switzerland received the international birth certificates on the spot when they registered the births ( about a week after the births). I'm not sure whether the nationality of the child was stated or not but they definitely didn't have passports or ID cards by then so the registration office had no proof of nationality for the child and neither of them have had to get the certificates reprinted later (one child us now 3 years old and the other 18months).
It makes sense that the natinalities are recorded in the family book but we don't have one of those.
Hmmm. I second BM's query. Maybe it is because I'm EU, but we left the hospital with a temporary birth certificate that could be used locally, i.e. cross border travel around Basel.
Now, that may be because we're EU-nationals (although UK, so not Schengen ) and Basel is pretty open to travel between France/Germany, but we were told it was OK. I doubt you'd be able to get on a flight though as they get quite arsy about photo ID there...
To be honest, I didn't even realise what the piece of paper was until our 3rd child... it was a little pink A6 sheet!!
We were told that we could leave the country so long as we had a passport for the baby (non-EU), but without a valid Swiss permit, the baby wouldn't necessarily be allowed back in....go figure!
"Bestehende, vor 2005 ausgestellte Familienbüchlein bleiben aber weiterhin gültig. Sie werden bei einem Ereignis (Geburt, Tod, Einbürgerung etc.) auf Wunsch auch noch weiter nachgeführt. "
Family Books delivered before 2005 remain valid. They can also be updated after a birth, death, etc.
But there is no obligation to go back and have a new one printed ( and pay the 30chf) just to have the nationality inserted. The baby will have other identity documents as proof of nationality anyway.