Anyone here 47 and German? You have a fan club.

Hello everyone,

I'm back, slightly more optimistic, to report that I received confirmation from the canton that civil status is now registered and the canton has issued a favorable prior notice. Last month, when calling them about status, I was told that registering civil status has a backlog of 15 months. Surprisingly for canton VD it turned out to be only 12.

The letters from the civil status and the canton also state that they are forwarding to SEM, which should take between 4 and 7 months, prior to a final canton call for a swearing in ceremony [which, as of today, I believe is still covid-suspended in canton VD].

The 4-7 months seems to be a bit more pessimistic than what I've seen reported on the thread, although I understand that French and Italian speaking naturalizations are managed by a different division than German speaking ones. Care to bet which one moves faster?

Rounding up my timing:
Sep 2019 -> sent folder to the canton
+7 months wait
Apr 2020 <- Canton requests civil status documents + cantonal bill 450 CHF
May 2020 -> sent civil status documents to the canton
May 2020 <- Canton replies all documents are complete, confirms end of first part, sends folder to Commune
Jun 2020 <- Commune confirms receipt of folder
+3 months wait
Sep 2020 <- Commune notifies me for enquete + test
+2 months wait
Nov 2020 -- pass both enquete and test.
Nov 2020 <- Commune notifies the communal collection process is complete (avis de cloture) and will be submitted for decision
+2 months wait
Jan 2021 <- received bill from commune, 250 CHF
Jan 2021 <- Commune notifies that during a session in Dec 2020 the commune gave a green light and that the folder returns to the Canton
early Feb 2021 <- Canton notifies that a procedure to register my civil status is starting (they start processing the documents sent in May 2020 into their systems)
+ 4 months wait
late May 2020 <- Civil status division notifies of civil status registration completion
late May 2020 <- Canton gives favorable prior notice and sends application to SEM

waiting for my SEM bill and final outcome, this time slightly more optimistic that I will receive the golden letter sometime this year...

cheers!

corrected for Uriano

Yeah obviously the last ones are 2021 but I noticed too late and I'm still too "newbie" to be allowed to edit my posts

Most interesting, canton never notified me of approval. Commune wrote “we’re good, we push your case to canton, and if you’re fine there, off to the SEM you go”. And 2 month after I just got the SEM bill.
Otherwise your timeline quite mirrors mine, some steps take longer, some less, but I sent all out in Jan 2019, and I was last November in the stage you’re now.

Yeah... You are already 28 months in... and have a good chance of reaching 30. Maybe you were slightly more unlucky to have your commune efforts postponed due to them falling right into the maximum corona hysteria, but overall I feel your pain. I'm 20+ months in, too.

It seems that between your SEM bill and your call confirming the SEM authorization was issued, it took about 3.5 months? Am I right?

I admit it's pretty weird how you didn't get a prior favorable notice letter from canton (just before SEM). Also people here mentioned that SEM sends out several letters directly to you, including receipt of application, issue of authorization, besides the bill... few to most of which you didn't seem to get in spite of the fact that your call confirmed that your authorization, for one, was issued...

On my side I am pretty happy with the way they kept me informed to the slightest of details... most of my disappointment comes from the long waiting times...

Oh and here's a good one: I remember the good ol'days when I had my B turned into a C. There was a SEM authorization issued there, too. The canton took 14 months (!!) to process, but guess how long it took SEM: 1 DAY! [it may well be that my comparison is irrelevant, since quotas for foreigners seem to be issued for B+C regardless so a conversion means nothing for that sort of research SEM might had to do, but still...]

Cheers !

I am fast approaching 4 months since I paid my SEM bill and haven't heard a peep (and that's in ZRH).

For the sake of my sanity I have bit the bullet and emailed the SEM to enquire on the status...hoping they'll be kind to me!

Yep, just a bit short of 4 months. But I don’t know when was the SEM approval actually given.
I would imagine that SEM doesn’t start to look at your application until you pony up, and from there it can take an more or less arbitrary single-digit number of months. Now imagine that the naturalization ceremonies will be reinstated, so we may need to wait for that as well, and depending on the backlog maybe not on the first session of them either

“Almost”, sighs the dark-caped figure in the Bern underground and flips the almost finished hourglass with the prominent “L” mark upside down again

I’m actually not in an extreme hurry because the Motherland isn’t quite compatible with the concept of dual citizenship yet. This should however change in a matter of a month or so.

I've read up quite extensively on naturalization before starting the process for my child, but I'm still surprised with how different it is for everyone.


For example, in Basel you cannot start the process before you have your civil status documents entered into the system... so however long it takes, it all happens before submission of the naturalization file, not, like for Uriano, smack in the middle of the process.


Caleb and I submitted our documents the same week in different cantons. He already had his locality interview, we are still waiting for the date for the first interview (cantonal, after which there is another wait for the locality interview). Add Covid to the mix, it's really anybody's guess when any of this will happen. No wonder so few people actually apply for naturalization, the process can mess with one's head.

This is an interesting topic about the civil status documents. I've seen someone posting here saying that married w/ children (obviously married in their home country) took them half the time to have their data in the system compared to how long it took me.

Some people may already have their data in the swiss / cantonal civil status before applying for citizenship, maybe in their case things go faster.

To me it's not yet clear what's the deal with the civil status in the swiss system, I mean I still can't figure out whether you are allowed / not allowed / required / not required and when can / should one submit them? It's quite obvious you should have them in the system before you get citizenship, but every other use is unclear to me.

Also, there seem to be certain differences in how they treat people belonging to different country groups. For example I am from EFTA and they never fingerprinted me for my work permit, but I have colleagues who are from outside EFTA (e.g. Asia) and whom had to get fingerprinted almost as soon as they landed... But this is probably off topic so I won't diverge.

Haha, your imagery always makes me laugh! I was thinking more "no soup for you!" but yours is better.



Even within a canton/gemeinde there are differences. There are two posters here who paid their SEM bill a month after me got the SEM confirmation after a month. So it is more of a dice roll than anything else!

YES ! I e-mailed our Gemeindekanzlei, who told us at the end of our interview that we would hear back from them between 1 and 2 weeks from that day. That was a bit over 2.5 weeks ago, thus my e-mail. They apologized that it took a little longer, but that they would mail TODAY the letter with their (positive) decision.

It's pretty simple actually. You must be officially entered in the Swiss civil status register if anything civil status-relevant happens to you in Switzerland. Civil status-relevant events are birth (duh), wedding / the equivalent for registered partnership, having children born / adopted, and getting Swiss citizenship if you're not Swiss initially. Probably death, too, though in this case the paperwork burden would not fall on you personally.

So for example, I got married in Switzerland some years ago so I had to produce the paperwork to get entered into the civil register back then. When I apply for citizenship in a few years that checkbox will have been checked already.

Thanks for the info. I was also curious if someone can preemptively ask them to record their civil data also when no particular events take place, to avoid delays during naturalisation like I had. May help fellows in their future applications.

This may be slightly off-topic but not entirely. I would like to know how the military tax worked out for any of you who got their citizenship through naturalization. The last change to the law requiring one to pay military tax if they don't do the military duties was made fairly recently, in 2019. This impacts most people getting citizenship through naturalisation, for example those getting it in their early 30s, who are in general no longer obliged / eligible to actually go through the military service.

I have read both the law and a few lawyers' websites, and I can't really say the law is too clear, it does not specifically say anything about people who get citizenship thorugh naturalization, or whether the tax applies retroactively, but mixes information like:
- you have to pay for at most 11 years
- you have to pay until the end of the year in which you turn 37
- expiration / limitation on what I understand to be something like "missed payments / retroactivity" to 5 years (art. 38) - not clear if / how this has an effect

What I would like to understand, if anyone has been through this, is what happens to someone, say, for the sake of argument, gets citizenship during the year when turning 33:
A) they count only from there on so he pays 4 times? (33 - 37)
B) they count retroactively so he pays the full 11 times?
C) they count retroactively but are limited to 5 retroactive years (art. 38) so he ends up paying 9 times?

if B) or C), is the total due distributed over the remainder 4 years, or all retroactive comes in with first year bill?

Thanks a bunch!

It is not possible, federal civil status guidance (whoever is interested can look it up) explicitly says entering a foreigner into the Swiss civil status registry must be driven by a set number of duly motivated reasons which were mentioned above (marriage, birth, death, naturalization)

Did you hear back? what did they say?

Nothing yet. I only sent it late Thursday, so hoping to get a reply by COB today. Otherwise the hourglass scenario presented by Juraj007 might actually be credible.

As Limegrass said you'd be probably refused if there's no ground at all and nothing in the near future, but you could start the civil data entry process, say, 6 months before the time for applying for citizenship comes. I doubt that they'd make you wait until the 10/12/whatever years mark required for citizenship. This way you should be all set by the time you're eligible to apply for citizenship.

At least in BS, you need to give the civil registry office a copy of the filled out naturalization application form with the required civil status documents; the lady checked ours (including time in CH requirement). YMMV.