Possibility to move to another EEA country on EEA Family Per

[PAVA10]

Hi,

I am a dual national Irish / British citizen living and working in the UK. My peruvian wife and I used my Irish Citizenship to gain an EEA Family Permit allowing her to join me here.

My wife applied for her 5 year residence card at the beginning of December - this is still being processed.

Would it be possible for both of us to go to another European country to live and work (Spain or France) and how could we achieve this?

Thanks in advance

[Wanderer]

Hi,

I am a dual national Irish / British citizen living and working in the UK. My peruvian wife and I used my Irish Citizenship to gain an EEA Family Permit allowing her to join me here.

My wife applied for her 5 year residence card at the beginning of December - this is still being processed.

Would it be possible for both of us to go to another European country to live and work (Spain or France) and how could we achieve this?

Thanks in advance

Just go, there's nothing stopping you at all!

[PAVA10]

Thanks for the quick reply. ?


I understand that the EEA Family Permit has a duration of 6 months and that a condition of the UK permanent residence card is that my wife is unable to leave the UK for more than 6 months each year. If we went to live in another country we would therefore break this rule and I presume the residence card would be invalidated.

If this happens upon what basis would my wife be allowed to stay living in France / Spain? Would she need to apply for permanent residence in that country?

[yankeegirl]

Have a look at each countries embassy and see what their procedure is. Currently, your wife is in the UK based on being a family member of an EU (Irish) citizen exercising a Treaty right in the UK. She would apply to remain in France or Spain based on the same thing, only you would be exercising a Treaty right in that country instead of the UK. Each member state has some form of the 5 year residence card. You just need to find out what the specific application process is for that country. They all have slightly different procedures and call it something different.

You are correct that if you guys move to another country, the UK 5 year residence card would no longer be valid. She has that based on you living/working in the UK.

[PAVA10]

Thanks again.

I presume that we therefore need to start all over again. We would need to apply for a new Family Permit (and would need to do that from Peru as opposed to the UK). I wonder whether the fact that we have already had an EEA Family permit in one country would somehow hinder the 2nd application.

[yankeegirl]

Since your wife is legally in the UK, she can apply from within the UK. You'll just have to wait until she gets her passport back from the Home Office with the residence card.

Do you know definitively what country you would like to move to?

[runie80]

I applied in December too and still waiting

I think we shouldn't be expecting a reply before April or March.

and thats correct once you get ur 5 year residence card you can apply for any other EU country if u want to.

[nordiclatina]

Ive looked into this too - I'm an EU national, my husband is Latin American and we've thought about moving to Spain.

I think, like everyone says, you both have the right to live and work in Spain. You can both apply for a "tarjeta de residencia" - I think this is not a legal requirement but it makes life easier for work, social security etc. see here (in Spanish)

A huge advantage of moving to Spain is that all Latin American nationals have the right to Spanish citizenship after 2 years of residence there - see here

[JAJ]

A huge advantage of moving to Spain is that all Latin American nationals have the right to Spanish citizenship after 2 years of residence there - see here

Are those on EEA permits eligible to apply for citizenship in the first place?

Either way, it's normally not smart for a non-EEA member state citizen to keep moving from one country to another without getting citizenship.

Whether Britain or Spain, pick a country, stick with it, and make sure to get citizenship before moving on. Life is much simpler that way.