I am about to move to Zurich to start a new job. I am an EU citizen (Danish) and is moving from London. As such I understand that I within the first 14 days from arrival will need to apply for my residence and work permit.
I have a unlimited permanent contract with my new Swiss employer and therefore understand that I will be able to get a b-permit. Is this correct? Is it also correct that I will get my work permit along with my b-permit?
My biggest issue is that finding the right apartment has been difficult, and I am therefore contemplating initially to move into an Airbnb apartment. However, my understanding is that usually you will not get a lease contract, so my question is whether I can still apply for the permit while living temporarily in the airbnb apartment?
Furthermore, will my girlfriend (Italian, and hence EU, citizen) be able get a permit on the back of my permit despite being unemployed? She is about to finalize a contract to provide a single company with services, but this might not be completed at the time of our move.
Best regards,
Rune
Ps. Apologies if this has already been answered in another thread I didn't find.
The Swiss residence permit doubles as a work permit when you have an employment contract to hand. You don’t have two separate ones.
AirBnB’s are tricky. Some cantons accept them if you have a lengthy booking. I would check with the Zurich cantonal migration office and see what they say.
As for your girlfriend, no. She can be here as a tourist for up to 3 months so hopefully she’ll finalise her contract in that time. But she can’t piggyback your permit since you’re not married. The only way to do it would be for you to apply for a concubine permit for which you would have to agree to be financially responsible for her for 5 years.
My advice: stay far away from using AirBnB for this.
I tried this on the advice of a lawyer when I moved to Ticino, but it was a world of pain when I discovered that legally it was fine, but the person renting out the ABnB wasn't doing so with permission, and my registration would put them in immigration jeopardy.
Long story short I sorted it all out, but it was tricky and involved a lot of hasty apartment finding and fighting with ABnB about refunds. No fun at all.
In theory you can stay where ever you want. Campground, hotel, BnB, etc. Also, you must register and apply for a permit before take up work for longer than 3 months. In theory you can work up to 3 months w/o a permit, but you need prior submission of a notification. https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home...n/ref_faq.html
In actual reality the authorities are reluctant to register your residency and issue a permit if you cannot show a long term rental contract (longer than 3 months). It could be beneficial at least to try to register and request a permit as this is what the law mandates even though you have no long term rental contract, in addition you might request a written, official denial.
Despite I signed a permanent contract with a large company in Bern, my application for a long term work permit was not considered because I have a temporary AirBnB accommodation (4 weeks).
According to what the operator at the immigrant desk said, I would need a 3 months rental contract.
Now the employer is requesting a 90 days work permit so I can start working next Monday.
Just a side note: the documents related to the procedure do not mention the type of rental contract (AirBnB or whatever it is)
"Residence - What determines the length of the residence permit? If your employment is to last less than a year, you will be a short-term resident. If you have an employment contract which runs for a year or more, or has no fixed term, you will be eligible for a residence permit. "
So,from my point of view, the information are inconsistent and to my eyes this decreased the reliability of the immigration office . Now I am quite reluctant finding a long term apartment (3 months or longer) as I don't want to bind myself to an apartment without a long term permit.
Before relocating here I even asked both the HR and the immigration office whether AirBnB was ok as a temporary accommodation and they said it SHOULD be ok.
a) find an apartment before the 14 days limit (1 week more is not a catastrophe).
b) a shared flat?The problem with AirBnB is that there's always an explicit date you leave. Shared flats don't have this problem. You may find ads about shared flats (tutti.ch, flatfox.ch) for short periods of time. 1-3 months. Pros: (i) the person subletting the flat just needs to fill out a form and sign it stating you live there (no questions about how long) and provide a copy of an ID, (ii) you get the permit and remain flexible to look for the ideal apartment. Cons: (i) sharing the flat =)
Unfortunately, you cannot avoid surprises. You may get a long term permit (B type) and your employer can decide to finish your contract before the trial period ends.
So, getting the long term permit guarantees nothing. You may end anyway in a long term rental contract, without a job and without a permit. Living in another country requires a minimum level of risk tolerance, it's never going to be the same as home, ever.
I partially agree. Risks can be controlled/reduced or you will spend time in dozens of similar problems, getting fines etc... if you are not prepared. I don't like the cowboy approach.
We are talking about basic staff here, which are the documentation requirements and a entry level procedures that it are not clear to me and, apparently, to other people, (including my employer).
Beside that, I am the only one who provided a reference document , and apparently is not even valid/complete .
Anyway, these are personal approaches/opinion that may lead to endless debate about philosophical topics so I would suggest to stick to the main point of this discussion.
I have been to the immigration office in BERN again.
I really had the impression that they did not allow me to register to save administrative work, especially considering that if you are going to find an accommodation in another "village", even next to Bern, there could be different rules and you would need to get a NEW PERMIT(work/residence) even if you got one for your short/initial stay in Bern.
The main point I collected were:
-You can stay in the city for 90 days without registering (ref Anmeldung bei der Wohnortsgemeinde).
- The employer registered me at the link below so I should be able to start working from next week (I am waiting for the confirmation yet) , even if I have a permanent contract (sounds more like a workaround):
This gives me 90 days to find an accommodation and the possibility to start working. Once I find I stable place where to live I can apply for a residence/work permit (hoping that there won't be additional issues in this phase).
The employer just confirmed that I can start working this way from next monday.
As a side note, I think AirBnB could still be a solution, at least for my case in Bern , but you need to book the apartment for 90 days (at least). This should trigger the registration procedure (=long term work permit) that in my case did not started. This is what the operator at the immigration office said (I forgot to add it in my previous message).
In any case, as suggested by other users , a standard rental contract for at least 3 months would be the preferred solution
Now I will wait for the 90 days to expire in conjunction with the probation period of my work contract before finding a long term accommodation. I could try to extend my current AirBnB accommodation that should allow me to register (I suppose that even if I move to another AirBnB apartment I should still be able to prove that I am here since 3 months), but if the permanent accommodation will be in another city nearby, I will have to register again and probably pay 90 CHF. The advantage would be to get the long term work permit sooner.
Please note that the operator at the immigration office could not manage to show me a written evidence that a 3 month contract is a requirement (I waited for 20 minutes while he was trying to find this information then I gave up and moved to the next question) for the registration procedure . He only showed me a written confirmation (ref Anmeldung bei der Wohnortsgemeinde) that if I wanted to stay for more than 90 days in CH , I needed to register which is a different matter.
Having just helped someone out two weeks ago, the Migrationsamt is unbelievably inconsistent with what documents they will accept or require. Furthermore, it's up to the whim of the Fremdpolizei to choose to accept your documents.
(Relevant example)
Two weeks ago we had two new employees, both non-EU from same country, with the same multi-year contracts in hand, same credentials, both with sublet contracts + original rental contracts from their subletter (different addresses). Contacted the authorities, they said yep that's all you need. First person was accepted no problemo. Second person went in and was told flat out that the canton never accepts sublet contracts as a form of residence and was told to get an actual rental contract. They went in the next day with another person saying that they now only accepted sublet contracts with official correspondence from the owner of the building.
After some very annoyed correspondence with the owner through the Verwaltung, they managed to secure a letter and with that they were allowed the B permit.