I'm in the final stages of bringing my South African wife to Switzerland. While I am not Swiss (American, C-permit holder, here since 2001), I believe the process is nearly identical--the process is mostly interested in the immigrant.
Start with the
Swiss Embassy for Pretoria website and this document:
Resident Visa Requirements
You can follow up with other bits here on the forum, like a recent thread of mine:
Documentation to bring my non-EU wife to CH
The rough break down of the process is like this:
- Gather your documents
- You apply for visa outside of Switzerland
- Your spouse provides more documents
- Visa issued
- Come to Switzerland
- Organize your residence permit
- Find a job
- Organize your work permit
My wife and I are between step 4 & 5.
Things we learned about this that you should pay attention to:
- Organize a criminal records check with the SA police now. This can take weeks and weeks. I think we waited over seven weeks for it.
- Organize your unabridged marriage certificate now. This can take weeks and weeks.
- (Somewhat in contradiction to Ebony's advice...) The Consulate and Embassy are not 100% accurate all the time on the finer points. They may give bad information. They may contradict themselves from one day to the next. E.g.: A Civil Union marriage is not legal in Switzerland because it is for gay people. Like a police clearance letter is not required when you apply at the embassy, even thought the documents say it is required.
Point is, be prepared to be a bit flexible and work with the system.
Send me a PM if you get frustrated with this thread or want to chat about it confidentially.
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