Hi,

My Swiss wife, daughter and I are planning on moving to Zurich and had a few questions for others who were or are in our situation.

Here's the skinny.

I have sent my resident application (family regroupment) to the Montreal Consulate who in turn have forwarded it to the Zurich immigration office. I've emailed the Zurich office concerning the status of my application and received the following request:

We need a copy of your Schweizer Familienausweises (Swiss Family Book).

Swiss Family Book? What's that? So I put two and two together and figure it out - gotta love university education. I then call the consulate to enquire about this document and am told that when you marry in CH you receive this book for free but that it isn't issued outside of CH. They then tell me that I can order one for $50. I also enquire about my daughter's birth registration and they inform me that the office in Schleitheim is causing the delay thus I cannot order the Familiy Book. The timeline the consulate gave me was another month for the birth registration (which was sent at the beginning of the year) and then another for the Family Book. What gives?

When I read the resident application it asked for passport copies of the entire family, completed application form for myself, photos, big toe, etc. Being very diligent, I sent everything they requested, including the toe. However, nowhere does it mention sending a copy of the Family Book.

Does anyone know if I'll have to acquire this book prior to the Zurich office approving my application (even though having this copy wasn't mentionned in the application documents) or will I have to continue to delay things by waiting? I'm hoping they'll give me an exemption since this document isn't issued to Swiss marrying outside of CH.

Thanks,

J

PS: I'm a little disappointed as I had planned to use some paternity time-off while we were transitioning to CH, however that time keeps dwindling away.

do they have a copy of your marriage certificate?

From my experience (British married to a Swiss) whoever you ask, however official, will give a different answer.

Essentially if you are married to a Swiss citizen and have the paper to prove it, you can turn up in Switzerland with you family and live here. This family book business is a bit of bureaucratic nonsense. Just say you don't have one. As Lob says, it would have been a good idea to have informed your wife's Heimatort (birth town) of the marriage, hopefully she did at the time.

As long as your wife had that red passport and you have a marriage certificate from somewhere sensible, you just need to turn up here. Finding somewhere to live will be the hard part...

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My wife is Swiss and we married in the UK. My wife advised the Swiss embassy in London of the marriage.
When we moved to Switzerland we just arrived and registered our presence with the local commune and I received my B permit within a few days.

We registered our marriage in the London embassy when we married and yes they have a copy of our marriage certificate. In fact, we've registered with the local Swiss embassy in all of the countries in which we lived.

As AdFab says all you have to do is come here and apply for your permit when you're here.

You will also be able to apply for naturalisation in due course. See this.

That's interesting. When I spoke with Swiss officials here in Canada I specifically asked if we could move and obtain the permit while we are there and they said "no". If I had known this before I'd likely be in Zurich as we type.

In terms of naturalisation I believe I qualify under Article 28 as we meet the requirements. Along those lines, how should one proceed? How long do I need to wait after receiving the resident permit? Or would I need to wait at all to apply for citizenship?

Thanks,

J

as your wife was Swiss the day you married, you can apply for facilitated naturalisation (search as there's a big thread on it). The Admin.ch site has some mention of what's required for a non-resident married to a Swissie.

Time-wise, you're hosed. You'll need a permit but it is a formality.

As stated, I arrived here in 1989 with my Swiss wife, went to the commune office and I had a B permit within a few days. I've certainly known other cases of Swiss bring in a foreign spouse. Perhaps the embassy are getting confused with some work permits that have to be collected in your home country. I'd check with the embassy again about this.

As far as applying for nationality, I would wait until you're here. There's a e-mail address on one of the links I posted and you can just ask them to forward the application form when you have a Swiss address. It costs CHF 750 for you but I don't know how much it will be for your child.

My child is Swiss by birth so there shouldn't be any cost there. I'll call the consulate again on Monday and apply some pressure to see what gives with their answer.

Lob,
What do you mean by I'm hosed? Are you implying that the time I've already been married won't count? A bit confused with that.

So let me get this straight. I can move to CH acquire the B permit and then apply for CH citizenship almost immediately? If so, how long of a process is the citizenship application?

J

PS: Thanks for answering my many questions.

Yes. As the spouse of a Swiss national you can just turn up when ever you want with her and your family and live here.

To get obtain Swiss citizenship yourself you will have to live here for 5 years...

The link I posted says: and it also says: All a bit confusing !

If you're married six years, you can do the facilitated process. It's double what you'd need to qualify if you lived here - three years

Hosed means you can't get citizenship before you get here given the timescales involved...

I believe I understand both conditions, however I seem to fall in-between both. Married longer than 6 years and living outside of CH so I could apply for FP. However, if I move to CH I'd then have to be a resident for at least 5 years to qualify?

This seems to imply that it takes 5 years of residence or am I missing something? One would think that after 6 years of marriage living outside of CH then one could apply on the same grounds if the couple decided to move to CH.

J

The way I understand it is that you already qualify having been married for more than 6 years.

Yes you are correct on this matter, this is the situation that applies to me. I have been told i can apply for this on 6th October 2007 - 6 years to the date from when I got married

What AbFab said

I originally tried to apply through the embassy in London and they had me scared I wouldn't be admitted to the country if I didn't have permit in hand when I arrived. Not so!

Long story, but we had been married for years, and had a child, overseas and neither our marriage or our child's birth had been registered with the Swiss officials. We got our child registered before we came over but still did not get the (red) passport till after we arrived here. Our marriage finally got registered as our move was in process (you have to have official certified documents that are no older than 6 months, so our original marriage certificate, birth certificates, etc. were not sufficient and we were not living in the US so I was having to request all this long distance or have other people do it for me and then forward them - took months to get it all).

Anyway, I just came, and we told the gemeinde (local gov't office) that I didn't have my Ausweiss and they were responsible for filing the application for my Ausweiss (resident permit) [which they didn't do, and it took me 8 months to get it in the end. Then they said come back in 6 weeks to apply for your renewal . Since I am eligible for facilitated naturalisation I am now in the process of applying for that so I can be done with Ausweisses. But my experience is not typical from what I understand; I would just check on your permit if you haven't gotten it after a couple of months].

Bottom line though, to get the permit, just go to your local gemeinde with your wife and register as a family and tell them that they need to submit the Ausweiss application for you and they will.

Best of luck with your move.

BTW: the familien ausweiss - we still don't have one. I think our local gemeinde was supposed to issue us one, but we will have to follow up on that :-P. They are not the most efficient folks out there. But it hasn't hindered us at all not having it. My understanding is that it is something you show to a gemeinde when you move in and register, but we just used passports.

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Thus far you have been adrift in the sheltered harbour of my patience. ~ Cobra Bubbles

Quick follow-up:

I called Zurich today and even had my sister-in-law call on my behalf (she speaks fluent Swiss-German) and they are insisting on the Family Book copy - yippee. She also called Schleitheim (place of origin) and they were very accomodating in having this issued and sent to her so she can send them a copy. So after 15 emails and about 6 calls to CH things seem to be moving along. I wish I had found this forum 3 months ago as I'd be in Zurich now, likely having found employment, accomodation and preparing to bring my family over - ahh such is life.

J

Just need to send my passport (if I can find it among my papers) to Montreal to have the permit/visa included, have my daughter's CH passport issued and we'll be one step closer to leaving.

hello swiss
i live in lausanne city and i want bring my wife 2 childs f^rom my host countrywith regroupment family.
i have also B permit and i dont have work right now because od medical reasons(i have a certficat the doctor wrot to me)
because of my illness i must demendent from social
so what can i do to re unioon with my wifes kids to here?
danke
merci