Hi All,

Just wanted to let you guys know that I have discovered how fantastic the swiss embassy/consulate general is here in Sydney, Aust.

My husband's work permit and authorisation have been approved for Canton Zurich, but they forgot to lodge the paperwork for dependent spouse and child.

Our employer is getting the run-around in Zurich for the dependent spouse and child, but had previously been told that my husband's was fine,

No joy from the immi. police. So this morning we phoned the consulate in Sydney.

The first person who answered the phone, took our surname and date of birth, noted that our paperwork had been lodged and not yet approved, checked my husband's info, confirmed that it was ready to go, took our email address to send us a procedure and forms for his visa, and told us we can come any time in person to have it issued...

The handy bit of information was that the consulate often receive notifications without any contact info for the person in their current location (in our case, Australia) - so they don't contact us, they just wait until we contact them. Now that I have done that (and given them our contact info) they will automatically contact us when/if the other authorisations come through...up to 48 hours before we have to leave the country (she has noted our travel date as well). She also told us it was fine to enter Switzerland as dependent spouse and kids on Aussie passports, and worst-case if the immigration office in Zurich gives us a hard-time, they will require us to go to another consulate to pick up our visas (and she told us Germany is closest)...which we already knew...

So, sounds to me like it's worth dealing with the local embassy, and not relying on the employer/immigration office in Switzerland to somehow make it happen...YIPPEE!

Dear Swissspe,

I have dealt in the past with Swiss, French, Russian and the Netherlands Embassies in Moscow, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad, China, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.


So quite a bit of variety.

All Swiss embassies where always responding quickly and very, very friendly and helpful. It's simply an amazing service they provide

French usually don't answer, and if then several months later.
By phone you can't reach them, even if your French National

The Dutch don't answer, on the phone they are a bit picky

Russians, it depends on the Officer, from friendly to

I think Swiss are blessed with the friendly staff. Just go shopping in Switzerland and you're thrilled how everybody is friendly.

The worst is Russia, you'll see never anybody smile in public - if you see one, he is a foreigner...