Blog - Permanent residence permit

First off, I know this is a long post. But I'm the one actually doing all this, so bear with me ;)

Almost a year ago I received my temporary residence permit. A year after that you can apply for a permanent residence permit, the process of attaining of which I've just started. Now, a temporary residence permit is valid for three years, so there's no direct need, but a permanent one has a few benefits:

• You don't need an exit visa anymore;
• You don't need a work permit anymore, which otherwise has to be prolonged every year;
• You can work anywhere in Russia in any profession, not just in your region and in your own profession;
• You can (apparently) get a mortgage;
• You can eventually attain Russian citizenship.

So I've decided to go for it as soon as I could, which is now :) Thanks to more experience in Russia and one very friendly Belgian from Expat.Ru, I know a lot better what exactly needs to be done when, and what documents are required. In order to show the magnitude of Russian bureaucracy, I present you what I need to do:

Yearly visit to migration services

Having a residence permit (temporary or permanent), you are obliged to pay the migration services a visit every year in order to show where you've been outside of Russia and from when to when, as well as to show where you've worked and what your income was over the past year. This is to make sure you are actually living in Russia, because if you don't, and they can check by the stamps in your passport, you lose your residence permit.

Now this doesn't sound like a big deal, but this being Russia, it's never exactly clear when you have to do what and using which documents, so you better prepare for the worst…

I've heard people say they paid this visit before having had their residence permit for a year, others claim you have to do it after. Some people take the bare minimum of documents and are fine, while others needed to make a notarized translation of every single page in their passport, even the empty ones.

I've decided to prepare:

• Statement in duplicate;
• Income statements from Parallels and Yandex, plus copies;
• Statement about my tax number, plus copy;

Plus, to be on a somewhat safer side:

• Two empty forms;
• Overview of my trips abroad, whereto, from when to when, and on what pages of my passport the stamps are, in duplicate;
• Employment contract with Parallels, plus copy;
• Termination of employment contract with Parallels, plus copy;
• Employment contract with Yandex, plus copy;
• And copies of all the main pages in my passport and those with stamps on them.

At the end of your visit, you'll be given a statement, which you'll need when applying for your permanent residence permit.

Health check

Russia doesn't want to let any severely ill people in, so I once more have to prove that I'm healthy enough. It doesn't matter that this entire year I've been living in Russia, and if I had caught anything serious, it would've been here. The process is exactly the same as last year, except that last year during the tuberculosis check there were no people in line who actually had tuberculosis and who were being treated :(

Application

When applying for a permanent residence permit, you need to hand in:

• Application form in duplicate;
• Passport, residence permit, registration;
• Notarized passport translation;
• International marriage certificate, plus apostille, plus notarized translation;
• Spouse's passport, plus copy;
• Income statements over the last year, plus copies;
• Proof of re-registration (from yearly visit to migration services), plus copy;
• 4 passport photographs;
• Passport of the owner of the flat you'll be registered at, plus copy;
• Ownership document of this flat, plus copy;
• Purchase document of this flat, plus copy;
• Notarized statement, saying all those already registered at this flat agree to me being registered there as well.

Somehow it doesn't seem as bad as last year. But then I'm forgetting about the lines. Oh the lines… Wish me luck ;)