Hello all,

Portuguese citizen here who will be moving to Zurich from California. Family members are non-EU citizen.

I'll be checking this forum for things like:
- wait times for B permit processing since we're planning on getting temporary accommodation ~3 weeks before my work visa.
- details about the family reunification process that I might have missed after reading the official documentation.
- understand exactly what is needed from the temporary accommodation renter in order to register at the Kreisburo and whether or not we should go to a serviced apartment or an AirBnB.
- recommendations of shipping companies with full packing service since we want to take our furniture with us and hold it until we get long term accommodation.

Thanks for having me in this forum!

Welcome to the Forum! My understanding is that one cannot use an AirBNB as a "residence" to register with their Gemeinde (at least not in Zurich). That said, there are many short term furnished apartments available.

Take a look here:

https://en.comparis.ch/immobilien/default

I am afraid I can't provide any assistance regarding moving companies from the US to Switzerland (we moved from Singapore). Maybe other members can weigh in here?

Best of luck with your upcoming move!

Thanks for your message. Some of my coworkers rented rooms on AirBnb and successfully registered. I want more than a room for my family

Based on superficial reading, the renter needs to be registered and should be able to provide a document stating that I am renting for a certain duration (2-3 months). The serviced apartments I checked have incredibly small kitchens which makes it a challenge since we are going to have all the meals at home cooking for 3...

I'll take a look at the link you provided. Thanks again.

Comparis is very good as is Immoscout.ch and homegate.ch. Comparis apparently "pulls" listings from the 2 mentioned websites but we found a great apartment in Zurich, listed on Immoscout which, for whatever reason, was not listed on Comparis.

Be aware that most apartments are listed for rent in April and October and to a lesser extent, June. We arrived in mid-April not knowing this and it made our search tricky to say the least (most of the "good" apartments were already rented) . But we got there in the end and have stayed in our current flat for 4+ years.

It is not easy at all to find large kitchens -notwithstanding eat-in kitchens in Zurich - especially in serviced accommodations. Much depends on one's budget!

Good luck with your search...

That's also what might make us go with a serviced apartment. The uncertainty of what we've been reading with regards to AirBnB not providing the required documentation for registration upon arrival is something that would have a critical impact on our tight deadline.

Thanks!

Check out the website movingscam.com - it is US centered, but with international advice and recommendations for moves. It’s not just about scams. The recommendations and user forum which was pretty useful to us when we came here in 2007. The site‘s been around 20 years, so hopefully it‘s still useful.

We actually moved into our current flat in December, so it just depends on what you find.

The name of that website really got me wondering. Thanks for the suggestion! It looks like it has good information.