cheapes-quickest self suffiency resident card in EU

Im an eu citizen in the Schengen area, working in Ireland, caught by the eu treaty rights visa huge delay for my non-eu spouse. We want to settle in Ireland.

Please share if any one has an experience or information about in what EU country has the lowest amount required for self-suffiency, to get the article 10 resident card for non-eu spouse? And the processing time for the card? How much is the health insurance needed for this process, what is the best option to get one?

So far i found Malta stated 23.300eur for the eu and non-eu spouse together, but i think Bulgaria should the cheapest one maybe. How about Spain?

I was recommended to get to France and try to cross on the ferry directly to Ireland, we will give a shot definitely , in theory, as the eu directive says they should stamp us in on the spot if we are traveling together and we can prove that we are married, it is not clear though if original marriage cert is enough or has to be legalized by my embassy or only the one registered in my eu country is accepted. I dont see a huge chance that they will actually let us board the ferry though...
So if that did not work i dont see other way to get my spouse in but to get the article 10 resident card, and travel back to Ireland, we are not gonna wait 1.5 years or more for this visa.

EDIT: we got married in my spouse non-eu country, the original cert is in English, will that be accepted if we go lets say Malta or Bulgaria or Spain when applying for RC or first i have to register our marriage in my eu country and get Apostille stamp on it?

Anyone?
I suppose many went to Spain on self-suffiency, and Bulgaria?

In Spain it's possible to get an EUFam Residence card for your wife with €8800. You also need full cover health insurance for both of you (sin copago). You set up a bank account and need to get a certificate from the bank stating your account balance.
First you need to apply for an NIE for you, then you apply for a residence card for your wife. It takes about 3 months to accomplish all this. You both need to register as resident (empadronamiento) for your wife's application (but not for yours as an EU citizen). You will need to provide an apostilled marriage certificate translated into Spanish not older than 3 months.

Thank you very much!
So i just have to show 8800eur, that is ok.

1, How much is for the full insurance for both of us?
2, Is it worth to get it from a private large insurance company or the spanish social insurance has to be paid (i mean like u can pay the PRSI for yourself in Ireland). I never bought insurance so i have no clue.
3, I guess i have to rent a full apartment legally to show some proof of address for the bank account. Is the contract enough or i have to wait until a utility bill comes on my/our name? In Ireland you need a proof of address to open bank account.
Only the Spanish bank account is accepted, Irish is not?

Also maybe we can collect info about from what country "family member of EU citizen" card was accepted to enter Ireland when traveling together with EU spouse. (Afaik UK only accepts German and Estonian resident cards, or maybe after the brexit not even those)
I know INIS website says all should be accepted but i read on forums that it was still declined for some, i hope that all immigration office was updated by now.
I got confirmation the article 10 card from Cyprus was accepted.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2014 ... e/en/print

3. It is hereby declared that the following classes of non-nationals are specified as classes the members of which are not required to be in possession of a valid Irish visa when landing in the State:

(c) non-nationals who are family members of a Union citizen and holders of a document called “Residence card of a family member of a Union citizen” as referred to in Article 10 of the Directive of 2004;

No probs.

1) Insuance is about €53 each per month. You need to get insurance 'sin copago', which means without co-payment, ie., the insurance covers everything without you paying towards hospital visits, prescriptions, etc. This is required and most insurances offer con-copago (with copayment). These insurances are cheaper but will not be accepted for your application as your insurance cover must match that offered by the state healthcare.*

2) There are lots of private health insurance companies. Some banks (such as Sabadell, who we bank with) act as agents for insurance companies, which is the route we took.

3) No need to rent a full apartment. For a bank account, you can open it with just your passport at some banks. Again, this was the case with Sabadell. Other banks may do the same. Irish bank accounts are accepted but it is more difficult because everything you submit must be in Spanish so you'd need to have your statements translated. Opening a Spanish bank account is easy, so there's really no reason not to.

You will need to rent somewhere, be it a room or a full apartment, in order to get empadronamiento, which is registering as a resident for census/tax/other purposes. This is easy and only requires either a rental contract and your passports/NIE if you are the sole tenant, or for the person who is on the lease of the apartment to be present with their ID (if you are subletting, for example) when you apply for empadronamiento. It takes about 10 minutes to do.

* If you have a job it's not necessary for you to have private health insurance as you will be paying SS and are therefore covered by public healthcare (which is fantastic here by the way). Your partner will need to have health cover, however, at least until she is working/paying into SS.

As regards residence cards, all are accepted since 2011 as per this Order:

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2011 ... e/en/print

Be aware that bigger cities take much longer to process everything given the bigger population. If you can move to somewhere smaller you should be able to get stuff done much more quickly. In Barcelona, where we are, it's necessary to make appointments for every stage of the process which can take up to a month for each appointment. In smaller towns/cities you can just walk in and submit stuff to local police stations, etc. I highly recommend the latter because it'll be cheaper and quicker. The downside is that it'll be harder to find work unless you can teach English!

We dont plan to work, just need the EU card asap to come back.
A smaller city would be perfect, cheaper rent, faster processing.

1. How difficult will it be to speak English only? In the offices/bank should i take a Spanish translator with me or they can understand English?
2, 53eur/month/person for the insurance is absolutely acceptable
3, i think you mentioned you got the eufam card in 3 months, did you do that in Barcelona or just moved later to there? What city would you recommend?

Sorry for alte reply.

1. It would certainly help to be able to speak Spanish! But it's not totally necessary. For your residence card application, everything is done via forms and by having the necessary documentation. Nearly all of the forms have English translation versions online (only for reference - those submitted must be in Spanish) and it's simply a case of having all the right documentation with you when you apply. It's very straight forward. With banks, obviously the bigger the city, the more likely it is that someone there will speak English. But again, it's helpful to have enough Spanish.

It would be helpful to have a Spanish speaker with you when you are doing anything 'official', purely because stuff will happen and you won't know what's going on. There are people who provide a 'gestor' service, some lawyers, some laypeople, who will aid you with this. Or if you know anyone with spanish who can help you, all the better.

2. You must take the policy out for a year, so you can't just cancel when you leave. HOWEVER, the year is January to December so if you get a policy towards the end of the year you could conceivably cancel the policy before it renews (usually policies must be cancelled 2 months before their renewal date).

3. We did it all in Barcelona. Amazing city, but expensive (relative to the wage). It's also not too easy to find a place to live. Everything here required an appointment which can take up to a month. If you went to Girona, for example, you could just use the local foreigner's office without an appointment (I'm not 100% on this, best to check), which should cut down on the processing time considerably. Also much cheaper cost of living. Research where you'd like to live. We came to BCN because I had applied for a master's course here which would have led to employment in the area.

!!! Important is that you have a reissued marriage certificate, with apostille stamp, not older than 3 months. Look into this. I'm not sure where you guys were married but if it's somewhere that does not issue documents in accordance with the Hague convention (China, where my wife is from and where we were married, does not), you'll need to have the certificate legalised by the government and then legalised and apostille stamped by the embassy of Spain in that country. This can take some time. So again, look into this.

I was recommended to get to France and try to cross on the ferry directly to Ireland, we will give a shot definitely

Do they check your passport when you board the ferry from France. If not, then you got a great chance of entering into Ireland under the directive.

Has anybody crossed ferry from France to Ireland?

If you could do it in 3 months in Barcelona that is great, than it should be done the same time or maybe less in a smaller city, but not too small. We dont want to work so the best would be 50-100 thousand population city where officers know what are they doing cause they have day to day experience, and rent is cheaper and probably easier to find.
Im registering the marriage in my eu county but it takes months... unfortunately her country is not in the apostille system.
If we want to cross the ferry i would need a french and in spain a spanish translation and legalization, that is a hassle, maybe i just wait for the registration in my country, that will be also english and french by default so just have to do the spanish one , and i think if they put the apostille on it in my country than it should be accepted all over eu.

1, Will the immigration actually go to your place to check on you?

2, Maye we go in January, so if i take the insurance i have pay it for the year? If we have the RC we want to come back to Ireland so i will just stop paying it, once we are here we dont need it, and if they cancel the resident card (can they??) its fine, we will apply for irish one and settle here anyway.
3, How did you sort the accomodation when you arrived, hotel or hostel, i want to keep the costs down but a hostel with loads of poeple in one room would be too much for us, maybe some kinda B&B ?

This seems a somewhat bizarre plan, to spend such an amount of time, effort and expense to go somewhere you don't want to be, just to get a RC to get you into Eire.

Why not just get yourself to a channel port, get on the ferry and go from there?
Why all this focus on the path less-travelled?

Hi Noajthan,

Can the non eea dependent board the ferry using the type C visa issued by another country? If they don't check the visa at boarding time then entry can be obtained in Ireland using directive.

zahmed05 wrote:Hi Noajthan,

Can the non eea dependent board the ferry using the type C visa issued by another country? If they don't check the visa at boarding time then entry can be obtained in Ireland using directive.

Members and others have reported doing this.

So why not waste a day at ferry port rather than 3,4,6 or 9 months in Spain.

I'll strongly second you on it.

This is what actually I plan to do. I'm planning to get Type C visa from Belgium and then try going to Ireland via ferry. I would then move my kids and wife to Ireland and hope to take it from there.

as i said the ferry will be the first thing we try before moving anywhere.
Maybe i was reading the immigration forums too much with too many people where they were declined even though they had the RIGHT to do something, in my mind i have to prepare what happens if we are gonna be declined.
If traveling without visa would be so accepted we could take a flight here but they wont allow my spouse boarding even though we have the right, and this is confirmed by loads who tried it.

Anyway, if anyone had a success to get to Ireland on a ferry only with a Schengen visa (or RC issued on local immigration rules, not article 10) and marriage cert please share, and we all will be confident to try this route!

The direct ferry to Ireland from France is one way.
The other way is the ferry from Calais to Dover and than from Fishguard or Liverpool to Ireland. The british border control is in Calais on french ground and it should be possible to get a EEA dependant stamp. As far as I know there is no border control in Fishguard or Liverpool.

Hi,

But this way don't we need stamps from both Irish and British authorities?

There may not be a border on Fishguard but is there a border on Ireland side?

The problem is to reach the border.
Due to the eu directive border officers have to issue a visa/entry stamp on the spot if the right documents are presented.

I agree. This is true!!

If one is in the UK then it's easier to reach Ireland. Take a ferry from Fishguard and go commando.

Has anybody every tried this on this forum?

mgb wrote:The direct ferry to Ireland from France is one way.
The other way is the ferry from Calais to Dover and than from Fishguard or Liverpool to Ireland. The british border control is in Calais on french ground and it should be possible to get a EEA dependant stamp. As far as I know there is no border control in Fishguard or Liverpool.

Hi.

The direct ferries from Ireland to France are not one way.

There are 4 ferry routes operating between Ireland and France offering you combined total of 10 sailings per week. Irish Ferries operates 3 routes, Rosslare to Cherbourg runs 2 times per week, Rosslare to Roscoff about 1 time weekly & Dublin to Cherbourg about 1 time weekly.

Check the Irish ferry website they will give u the prices from France to Ireland.

The question is are there any passport controls on the French side?

I have travelled from rosselar to Pembroke by ferry. Where there were no passport control. But on the advertising screens it was saying passenger traveling to France keep your passports ready. But I couldn't see any passports control. Maybe they will check passports before boarding the ferry.

if we enter to UK, we get the UK stamp, do we need one for Ireland too?
I mean she has to go to get the GNIB stamp in garda station, but will they give that seeing that we entered from UK?
or when we are in Ireland just apply on EU1 without GNIB stamp? For EU1 they want the copy of all pages in our passports even if it is empty so they will see the stamps

Is not UK even more strict about visas? So should be easier to go to Calais - Dover?
Keep in mind that every trial will cost us like 1000eur or more, have to fly to France, take train/bus, take ferry, if fails buy the return tickets, or buy return tickets in the first place for 2 person...

also i found some horror stories, but that is from like 2008, that even with the article 10 card some one was deported!! from Spain back to UK, they stamped deported in the passport, is something like this possible in 2016? Are the immigration officers "educated" enough about EU directives?

i asked solvit about this, they said they can refuse the couple if they suspect marriage of convenience, so how will we prove them we are genuine couple? Do we need proof of same address, joint bank accounts? The directive says the marriage cert should be enough...

jul1 wrote:i asked solvit about this, they said they can refuse the couple if they suspect marriage of convenience, so how will we prove them we are genuine couple? Do we need proof of same address, joint bank accounts? The directive says the marriage cert should be enough...

The aim here is not to find a gap in the fence or sneak in when backdoor is open.

Presenting at border means you have to present same or similar evidence as you would if applying for FP/visa.

You should not expect to be waved through; expect questioning to detetmine your circumstances.
So take your bundle of documentary supporting evidence with you.

And whatever you do its going to cost you. Settling into a new country is going to cost too.

there is a chance to get resident card to my wife in my country, but that takes like 3 months, so it would be better to wait for that rather than just trying to cross on a schengen visa?

BTW i asked my embassy issuing the visa and that is not the normal schengen visa what she will get but it will say "family member of eu citizen", we just had to provide the original legalised marriage cert and some other formalities and they will give the visa for free.
Also interesting that the normal 90/180 days rule wont apply, they said if she goes home after 90 days she can get a another visa right away and come back, and that "family member of eu citizen" visa is possible to exchange to resident card in my country, but that would not be possible with a normal schengen visa.

jul1 wrote:there is a chance to get resident card to my wife in my country, but that takes like 3 months, so it would be better to wait for that rather than just trying to cross on a schengen visa?

BTW i asked my embassy issuing the visa and that is not the normal schengen visa what she will get but it will say "family member of eu citizen", we just had to provide the original legalised marriage cert and some other formalities and they will give the visa for free.
Also interesting that the normal 90/180 days rule wont apply, they said if she goes home after 90 days she can get a another visa right away and come back, and that "family member of eu citizen" visa is possible to exchange to resident card in my country, but that would not be possible with a normal schengen visa.

You have a bit of a jumbled picture.

To get your head round free movement start here:
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/citizen/doc ... 013_en.pdf

yes i read that already.

My embassy told me we can apply for the resident card for my wife without me moving home permanently (im still working in Ireland), local immigration rules allow me to claim self-sufficiency (with permanent address, full health insurance) to get the resident card there, it wont be of course article 10 card, but than she can have government issued proof of address and we can open joint bank account.
If that gives much better chances i want to rather try the ferry with those papers than just marriage cert and schengen visa, if you know what i mean.
Of course i really dont want to quit my job only if really necessary.

We are waiting for the registration of the marriage cert in my country which takes months anyway. I cannot get an apostille stamp on our original marriage cert cause her country where we married is not in the apostille convention. At he border afaik we have to show apostille stamped marrige cert.

Please bare with me If we can find a sure way to enter Ireland it can help thousands of people stuck in that damn visa queue.