Applied for a residence and work permit within the Host-Country and been forced to leave the country after 90 days? What has happened?
As a third-country national with the right of visa-free stay in a Schengen state, you are allowed to apply for a work and residence permit within the country.
In our consulting agency, we have repeatedly had special cases of clients who were allowed to submit their application within the country. And yet, at the end of their 90 visa-free days, they first had to leave the country, only to be handed their visas after re-entering, in this case in Austria.
What had happened?
There is an EU-wide law that allows third-country nationals to apply domestically if they have a nationality that can enter visa-free. Each EU member state has its own treaty partners. Find here our lists of visa-free countries for Germany and for Austria.
In principle, a length of stay of 90 days per 180 days that a traveller may stay visa-free in GER and AT applies. The entire Schengen area applies as a residence area. Travelling from AT to D to stop the 90-day period is therefore not enough.
Now it happens from time to time that the competent immigration authority does not complete and approve the application for a residence and work permit within 90 days. There are numerous reasons for this. Additional requests for documents, for example, often delay processing.
Then it's a case of leaving the Schengen area. Until last year, it was possible to leave the Schengen area for Croatia or England shortly before the 90-day deadline. Both countries are not members of the Schengen area. Here, the clients then waited for a few days for their residence permits to be approved, and then travelled back to receive the permit.
If the visa-free period had already expired, the clients could apply for a visa D in a country outside the Schengen area with an invitation from the immigration authorities to collect the residence title and re-enter the country.
This loophole has now been closed and every applicant whose visa-free period has expired is forced to travel back to his or her home country and apply for a D visa to collect the residence permit there with an invitation from the immigration authorities and travel back again, e.g. to Germany or Austria.
If you are also entitled to stay in Germany or Austria without a visa and plan to apply for a residence and work permit, then you must pay attention to the 90-day time limit.
You only have 2 options here:
If the time limit expires, you must travel back to your home country and apply for a visa D there. Only with a D visa a work and residence permit your permit will be handed out to you.
So if you have at least 2 days left, leave in time for a Non-Schengen country such as Croatia, Turkey or the UK (if flights are allowed to land again). As soon as you receive your invitation to collect your residence permit, you can return without any problems and collect your residence permit in person.
If you have any questions about this article or about immigration to Germany or Austria,
please contact us at www.moves-consulting.com.