An Indian colleague was in a similar situation a few months ago and as I recall it he was told:

- You can continue to live and work in CH while your permit is being renewed

- You are not allowed to enter the Schengen area as a tourist while your application for a work permit is being processed. The fact that your work permit is being processed by CH is available to all Schengen countries.

- If you are refused entry to the US or Schengen, you will be deported to your country of origin and you risk being banned from the Schengen area...

- If you are deported, you will have to pay for the privilege

- Being deported is normally a good reason for CH to refuse the renewal of a work permit

If it was me, I would not risk it, as you could loose a lot more than the cost of the flights to the US.

Good luck with that,

Jim.

Don't risk yourself. Last week we travelled to Amsterdam from Basel by Night Line train of DB. On return to Basel by the same Night Line train of DB, we found 3 cops stopping people (obviously those who are not Swiss) and asked for both residence card as well as Passports. Thankfully we had all and so they left us immediately. But another family, who had residence cards but not passports were stopped and they went on explaining something to the cops. I don't know what happened finally as we left before their discussion got over.

The Schengen visa thing also confuses me (as a Canadian), but from what I can tell, since you are from the USA, it doesn't really affect you anyway, you are exempt for stays up to 90 days (which may explain why I have been asked for my permit when travelling back to Switzerland without a return ticket to the point of departure). You shouldn't need to worry about that at all. It does sound like the best thing would be for you to have some sort of official letter saying that your application is being processed, but I don't think that they will do this here. Otherwise, you just have to take your chances if you have already made up your mind to go. However,I think your plan to purchase a ticket to somewhere else (if something happens) will fall under the same rules as Switzerland...if the person selling the ticket or the people at the airport know, and/or care about, the rules. I agree with the previous post...if you get caught trying to skirt the rules here, you are very likely at risk of losing your visa.

Isnt there something called "Multiple Entry Visa of Type-D" which acts like a psuedo work permit (ofcourse while work/residence permit is under renewal)?

See page-1 of link below:

http://www.bfm.admin.ch/content/dam/...engen-dfie.pdf

My work permit is under renewal and couple of weeks back I had been to Kanton and they gave me this "Multiple Entry Visa of Type-D" stamped on my passport.

I think with this "Multiple Entry Visa of Type-D" stamped on passport, one would be allow re-entry into Swiss?

Has anyone here tried this procedure and faced a difficulty in re-entry into Swiss?

- Cheers, Randy

That is correct.

Into Lufthansa as well I should hope.

Well, I went to the Immigrationsamt and that's not what I was told. I think there may be a difference because my permit is not up for renewal, I literally don't have a permit because my L expired and my B is not yet available.

At the Immigrationsamt, I was told point blank, without a "Volkswirtschaftsdirektion des Kanton Zurich" saying I am allowed to work, they can't issue me a visa. When they have that, they can do it the same day and stick a thing into my passport.

I recently was in a similar situation - waiting for the renewal of my L permit for *several* weeks after my original permit expired. I had to travel outside the country, and wanted to make sure I would have no problems when re-entering Switzerland. The HR department had been told that it was legal for me to continue to work while waiting for my permit, but we had no written confirmation yet. I was told I could pick up a 'return visa' from the Migrationsamt, with a photo and passport, until I received my new permit. I dont understand how it could be a different situation going from an L to a B, but I suppose there's a lot we'll never understand about the permit process here.