Hello: Congrats on receiving your permit! i have received my permit to work in Geneva under a permanent contract, this was about 2 weeks ago. My employer sent me the letter approval from the OCP which expressly states that I has been approved for a B permit (they sent a scanned copy of that letter to me). Out of curiosity, have you received that letter as well? I have received two approval letters of each jurisdiction (Geneva and FOM). congrats again and see you in Geneva soon! Arriving at the end of the month.

My wife and I had the same thing happen in August. We got the letter from Thun saying that our B permits were ready for pickup. We excitedly bounced into the office to pick them up only to find out that they are L permits. This is our second year and the woman told us that the person who sent the paperwork made the mistake. She told me that as Americans we would have an L for 2 years regardless of our contract. We have an open ended contract, but it didn't matter. Back to "Loser" permits until next August.

We received visa approvals before we came here which apparently had a code on them ("1211" I believe) that one immigration specialist told us was a likely code for an L permit, but that was the only indication on the visa approval letter that we might be getting an L permit. Then when you get here and register is when you receive the Attestation de Residence that says on it whether you will be receiving an L or B permit -- and it sounds like the default is that they just always say B permit

I feel your pain, we had the same excited feeling

Interestingly enough, I have 2 colleagues who just received B permits (avec activite) in Vaud for a 3 year contract. It seems that 3 years might be the magic number to shoot for...

Has anyone ever had any experience in appealing the L vs B permit decision? I know it is possible in other areas, but wasn't sure if anyone had ever tried it relative to the L vs B permit issue...

That is one of these big low trucks that pushes out the air plane from the gate, i.e "pushback"

We asked about this and were told it was a waste of time and money as a non-EU arriving no matter the contract gets an L permit in most cantons now, no matter what companies may tell them has happened in the past. In reality, the L hasn't really mattered except in getting a cell phone and we had to put down a deposit in order to get a plan. Contrary to what you have posted, a B does not guarantee your other half from being able to work anywhere - the company still has to apply for a work visa for him. Whether he has an L or a B dependent, it is still a "dependent" visa and it is the same paperwork for the company. The non-EU factor has way more of an influence than the L on getting a job, but having him have a residence permit of any sort is easier than applying for a job from the US.

Hmm. I wonder if there are cantonal differences? DH is Swiss and I am American but I have a B-permit (I assume it's "dependent") with working permissions. Or maybe it's just different for me because DH is Swiss??

Yes, it's different if your spouse is Swiss (or EU).

Tom

can you give some details please? can't claim even with non-EU passport?

Wanted to share our happy update with everyone in case it helps others. My husband's employer's immigration lawyers contacted the authorities to talk to them about their "mistake". The admitted they made a mistake in issuing the temporary permit as a B and then sending L permits in the mail. They then reviewed his work application and resume in 24 hours and provided official approval for him to work, so he now has a n L permit "avec activite" that is contingent on my duration of employment in Switzerland. This whole permit and job journey for my husband has been really long and frustrating (we started the process in March 2012), but I'm so happy that it worked out and it gives me faith that although it is often really difficult for spouses to get jobs here, there is still hope for others and it isn't all doom and gloom! It certainly provides me with an interesting frame of reference for immigration/employment laws in my own country as well!

My employer just told me the same thing today when I asked why I had received an L instead of a B, but is there any way to be sure you'll get the B permit before the L expires? I am on a permanent contract and hope to stay here a while, so I must admit I was surprised when my permit said 'L'. Is there anything I can do on my own to try and switch to a B before the L expires, or do I have to rely on my employer and hope they can sort it out for me when the time comes?

Because of quotas, I do not think there is any way to be "sure" of what you will get.

Good luck,

It is simply not true. It must be the B quotalimit that was exceeded. A colleague of mine from Turkey received a B permit right from the moment he started working here, whereas I got my B after 3 years with L. (although both of us having a permanent contract)

Hello HGE,
We've faced exactly the same issues with my wife. With a 2 years contract (non-EU) you get an L permit and your spouse gets "sans activite" L permit; that's given (100% in VD, that's why my current company always offers a minimum of 3 year contract even if they want to keep you here for a year). If you really want to have a B, you should change your contract to show at least 3 years; no matter what you hear in this forum, I don't think you can change your permit from L to B (we couldn't).
Having said that, your husband can work with an L permit, provided that, the employer can prove to the "commune" that they cannot find someone from CH or EU to do that job; which is not that difficult (as long as their HR is capable and they are willing to do it - I've seen so many HR people in this country who have no clue about L permits). Then the commune will change your husband's L permit to "avec activite" (binded to the employer) and that's it.

As I've said in the beginning, we faced exactly the same issue when we came to Switzerland; my wife was an admin manager in our country and she agreed to come because we were communicated that "she can work"; but when we got the permits this "sans activite" was like end of days for us. She struggled for 2-3 months to understand how to change the permit to an "avec activite" one. At last the commune gave us a paper (I don't remember the name of it, sorry) to be filled by the employer if they wanted to hire her. Then the employer filled that in and voila

why?

I know of a few cases of Europeans receiving constant L permits for around 10 years, because they had a series of temporary contracts with a 1 year end date.


I'm surprised to not find more threads from Europeans about how frustrating situations like this are, as I can't imagine the cases I know of are the only ones.

This thread is over 9 years old and you dug it up to say nothing of interest...