Checking the Status of Your Application for Foreign Residence

International Wealth experts will be happy to assist you in acquiring legal residence in a foreign country. We will also gladly check the status of your application for you. Simply choose the country and contact us in any way you like (click on the Contact us icon at the top of the page).  

We are not going to talk about the methods of acquiring legal residence abroad here. Instead, we will discuss the ways of checking the status of your application for foreign residence. In most cases, it is easy to find out how your application is doing but there are some nuances and some differences between the countries that you should know about.

A legal residence permit in a foreign country

A legal residence permit or a residence card is a document that gives you a legal right to stay in a foreign country for an extended period of time. A residence card does not serve as a work permit in some countries. Please inquire about every particular case. In some instances, you will have to apply for a work permit after acquiring a residence permit. 

Why your application for foreign residence can be rejected

The task of acquiring legal residence in a foreign country has to be approached with caution. The application document package has to be as neat as possible and the information that you supply to the immigration authorities of a foreign country needs to be hundred percent truthful. Below please find some common reasons why applications for foreign residence can be rejected:

• An incomplete package of application documents has been supplied.
• The application documents to not meet the required standards (some documents have not been notarized and/ or apostilled, for example);
• Fictitious information has been supplied.
• The legality of the source(s) of income has not been confirmed.
• The applicant has failed to turn up for the (video) interview with the immigration service officer.
• The applicant has failed to demonstrate sufficient knowledge of the national language (applicable in some countries and to some categories of candidates for foreign residence).
• The due diligence checks have revealed that the applicant has had legal or administrative issues in other countries.
• The applicant has the status of persona non grata in the country.

Please be careful when compiling the document package needed to apply for residence in a foreign country. If you fail to meet one of the requirements, your application may well be rejected.

How you can check the status of your application for foreign residence in different parts of the world

There is no uniform method of checking the status of your application for foreign residence as different countries will have different requirements. However, most often you can do it without too much trouble. We will gladly help you check the application status anyway.

Checking the status of your application for residence in European countries

Most European countries though not all of them offer several opportunities to acquire legal residence there. A resident card can be granted to you if you marry a local person, if you sign a job contract with a local company, if you enroll in college in the country, if you start a business company there, if you bring some investments in the country’s economy, and so on. When you apply for foreign residence, you will be able to check the status of your application by placing an online request for it or by contacting the immigration agent whose services you used when applying.

Checking the status of your application for residence in the USA

The United States grant temporary residence permits (L-1, H-1B, and E-2 visas) and permanent residence permits (green card, ЕВ-5 and ЕВ-1 visas). Depending on the type of visa that you hold, you will or will not have the right to work in the USA. The H-1B visa does not serve as a work permit; the L-1 visa is normally issued to married couples and it allows the holders to work but the children are not allowed to hold jobs. Other visa types including the green card will serve as work permits in the United States.

You can check the status of your application for US residence at the Department of State official website. You have to go to the consulate services section and find the Entrant Status Check icon. You will have to enter your registration number to check the status. You may need your registration number for other purposes too so we suggest that you keep it at hand until the moment the residence card is issued to you.

Foreign residence-by-investment opportunities

We must admit that the COVID-19 pandemic has severely limited our freedom of movement. Everyone hopes, however, that the hard times are going to be over soon and we will be able to easily travel around the world once again. If you would like to relocate to a nicer place, it is not too early to start considering the available options!

But how can you acquire a legal residence permit in a foreign country? International marriages are few and far between and finding a job abroad is not easy. Every national state protects local workers from foreigners trying to ‘steal jobs’ from them. Your prospective employer in a foreign country is going to have a hard time proving to his/ her labor authorities that you would be an irreplaceable employee and that you have the skills that cannot be matched by any local person.

The more promising route to take would be to inquire into the possibilities of obtaining foreign residence by investment. The USA issues the largest number of residence permits to foreign investors year after year. At the same time, there are other countries that administer residence-by-investment programs too and they are worth your attention. The Portuguese ‘golden visa’ program, for example, is very popular with foreign investors. You will need to make an even smaller investment if you want to acquire a residence permit in Greece. Besides, Malta, Ireland, Bulgaria, and other European countries offer attractive residence-by-investment opportunities.

We would also like to draw your attention to the fact that some national states grant full citizenship (not just residence cards) to foreign investors. In particular, five countries in the Caribbean basin will charge you less for their passports than Portugal or Greece will charge you for residence cards! With a larger investment, you can also acquire citizenship of Turkey or Montenegro (only until the end of 2021, in the latter case).

Please apply for a free consultation on acquiring foreign citizenship/ residence by investment! International Wealth experts will be happy to bring the most attractive options to your attention. With our assistance, acquiring legal residence in a foreign country and/ or a second passport will be as easy as squeezing a lemon! And of course, we will monitor the application process for you and check the status of your application at any moment that you like.