I am a Belgium citizen, living in Lausanne for 5 years with a B permit. I've applied for a C permit recently, and my application is being processed (they told me it can take months...). My B-permit expires Jan. 10. I'm planning to visit some family in France (Lille) from Dec. 24 to Jan 3. I'm now getting a bit worried that if I end up having to quarantine because of this new Omicron variant, I may be able to go back to Switzerland only after my B-permit expired.
(1) In the current border situation, can it be a problem? My understanding is that as a EU citizen, I have freedom of travel and therefore this shouldn't be a problem.
(2) If borders were to be closed (say, like in March 2020), would I be able to enter with an expired permit? The website from Vaud mentions the existence of "visa de retour" (return visa), but it seems to be only for non-UE nationals, right? Alternatively, would a copy of the email acknowledging that they received my documents for the renewal do the trick?
I'm travelling by train if it makes any difference.
As things stand now, you will not have any issue. Only in case of returning to spring 2020 situation when you needed a Swiss passport or a residence permit and just a residence permit of a EU or Schengen was not enough, I would bother checking with the embassy/consulate.
When renewing my permit, I asked to get a sheet of paper stating that it was in renewal. The city hall printed out a page stating exactly that and said it was not 100% proof but should cover me in case someone asks and I need to travel abroad in the meantime.
I've not had any cause to show the paper to anyone, so no idea how it works in reality.
Thank your for your replies! I called the "Bureau des étrangers", they indeed confirmed that all should be fine.
@AbFab I got the form to renew the B permit, send it back filled with all documents, and in that form I indicated that I also would like to apply for a C permit. My understanding was that they would give me a C permit right away, but in any case, they have the form and documents they need for the B one if they needed to establish one before. :-)
I went through that process a couple months ago, but in Kanton Zürich. I went to the "Personalamt", I filled the form and said I wanted a C permit, they gave me there an appointment at the SEM to get my biometric data, in the meantime I received a letter asking for some additional documents and after 1.5months from the first visit, where I stated that I wanted a C-permit, and 2weeks after sending the documents for the C-permit, I received it.