British Considering Moving to Swiss - Wife Thai

[Millenial]

Wife and i spend a lot of time in Europe back and forth, and to be fair she has no problem obtaining the tourists visas, over the next year or so i have decided to purchase either a chalet up by Ollon (Montreux) or a lake view home / land plot to develop around Lausanne - Rolle.

To be clear on a couple of points.

I do not have employment as such but am the lead in a tech startup where i have personally pumped 500k USD over the last year or so and i am involved in this day to day whilst it is being developed. - The company is UK, HK registered but ideally will also/end up being Swiss based.

My bank balance is not shaky, also i can directly show on my spending account 3 mthb in the last year on my UK card in Asia (only been here 6 months roughly this year rest in Swiss), basically i am Bank Bond (not wise right now) based and Asset rather than balance and the family finance manager deals with most of it for us.

The wife on the other hand is a senior resort manager for one of the big chains 160 hotels + and has a contract that will need to be bought out, so before we make this jump i want to make sure as best i can at the initial level the obstacles we may come against with a full residency visa for Swiss (or France at worst case) for her, for me i do not believe it will be a problem.

We have begun liquidating assets and transferring the funds over ready for home shopping.

But i am now interested to hear of any obstacles and hoops that others in a similar position had to go through.

British (me though not a resident for 6+ years for tax reasons).

Wife Thai (wants brit passport but does not want to reside there to get it - same as me).

Wife studied in Swiss and is well educated and likely will go in to the European hotel chains as had offers already or on the SY's out of Monaco so she is not going to be a welfare case.

Thanks.

[ubonjoe]

Moved to the visas for other countries forum.

[Donutz]

Should be straightforward since she's the spouse of an EU national. I assume you know about the free, minimal hassle visa, see the Schengen sticky.

Residency should not be much harder, but ofcourse you'd need to prepare:

- http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?langId=en&catId=457

- http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/worker-pensioner/non-eu-family-members/index_en.htm

- the immigration website of Swiss or whichever country you will move to, checking info on traveling/migrating as an EU/EEA national with your non EU spouse (directive 2004/38/ec freedom of movement)

Edit: generally it is best to apply for the free C visa (short stay) and start the immigration/settlement procedures after arrival. In specific cases it might be better to apply for residency in advance (type D visa) and wait for the procedure -which takes months for many EU countries- to be completed. As EU/EEA family covered by the freedom of movement directive you can chose either route. Some memberstates prefer you to apply for the D visa (Germany for instance) but you have no obligation to do so and go for the C visa instead.

Edited July 10, 2015 by Donutz

[Maestro]

It should be noted that Switzerland is a member of neither the EU nor the EEA, but...

"The European Economic Area (EEA)

The EEA includes EU countries and also Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. It allows them to be part of the EU’s single market.

Switzerland is neither an EU or EEA member but is part of the single market - this means Swiss nationals have the same rights to live and work in the UK as other EEA nationals."

Source: https://www.gov.uk/eu-eea

[Maestro]

The above-mentioned rights also apply to family members of EU and EEA nationals and are, of course, reciprocal. The apposite Swiss regulation is available on the website of the Swiss Federal Government in German, French and Italian. See Art. 5.

[KamnanT]

On February 9, 2014, a "Referendum on Stopping Mass Migration" was passed by a majority of Swiss voters and cantons. The Swiss Federal government is now in the process of implementing the aims of the referendum, one aspect of which is renegotiating the Freedom of Movement Agreement between the EU and Switzerland. The terms of the referendum give the Swiss government 3 years to bring international agreements (like the FMA) in line with referendum's aims, which effectively means the re-imposition of quotas and limits on EU migration into Switzerland. The practical upshot for the OP, as a British citizen, is that it would be better to move sooner rather than later. The EU has already stated that they see freedom of movement without quotas and equal treatment of all EU/EFTA nationals as key principals of the FMA and it is not out of the question that Switzerland will have to unilaterally terminate the existing agreement in order to abide by the terms of the referendum.

https://www.bfm.admin.ch/bfm/en/home/themen/fza_schweiz-eu-efta/umsetzung_vb_zuwanderung.html

https://www.bfm.admin.ch/content/dam/data/bfm/eu/fza/personenfreizuegigkeit/umsetz-mei/20140725-schreiben-ashton.pdf