As the wife of a Mauritian, I am allowed to live here without a visa. However, there is a procedure to follow to obtain a residence permit. As well as speeding up the immigration process at the airport, it means I don't have to carry my passport on me at all times, and I can benefit from resident prices when visiting tourist attractions. Sounds good, right? Shortly after we settled into our new house, six months ago, Merv and I headed off to the immigration office in Port Louis to get the ball rolling...
An incompetent official, a hefty amount of money, several hours of internet research, a return visit, and some help from my parents later, and I still haven't been able to submit the necessary papers. Below is a list of everything you need to apply for a residence permit. Bear in mind that I can only go to submit the papers or collect the permit with my husband. I happened to have picked one who works abroad a lot.
- Application form
- Two passport size photos of applicant
- Full birth certificate, duly legalised/bearing the seal of "Apostille" of the Hague Convention of 5th October 1961(whichever applicable)
- Marriage certificate, as above
- Recent Certificate of Morality/Casier Judiciaire/Certificate of Previous Convictions which should bear surname and forenames as per your Birth Certificate
- Birth Certificate of your husband, who should be a citizen of Mauritius and has not lost or renounced his Mauritian Citizenship + his National Identity Card.
- Letter from your husband, stating that he supports the application and whether he has/has not lost or renounced his Mauritian citizenship. If he has acquired any foreign nationality, Certificate of Foreign Nationality to be produced.
- Photocopy of the data pages of your passport
When we were first handed this list, we had a few questions; What is an apostille? Where do we get that done? What is a certificate of morality? The official looked confused and point to a seal on a piece of paper which simply said "London" Not that helpful. He also told us to get a certificate of morality from the police in my country. Seeing we were not getting anywhere, we decided to leave and do some investigations ourselves. We headed off to the British High Commission* where we were greeted by a friendly policeman. He informed us that they couldn't really help, but he gave us very useful information about where to get our documents legalised.
I didn't want to take the risk of sending my original birth and marriage certificates on a return trip across the world, so I asked my Mum to get certified copies from the registry office in the UK and send them directly to be legalised. Seemed simple, until we realised that, as we hadn't been married for a whole year, the certificates were not in the same place and to get a copy of the marriage certificate, we had to go back to the church. After several weeks of chasing, my super Mum finally managed to get the 2 certificates and with the help of super Dad, paid online (£30 per document + international courier) and sent off the certificates. The legalising process turned out to be incredibly speedy and efficient and within about 4 days, we received our DHL package.
In the meantime, I was working on the issue of the recent certificate of morality, which doesn't really exist outside Mauritius. Born in the UK but having lived in France for 10 years, I had no idea where to get the right paper from, so I went with the free option - an "extrait de casier judiciaire" which can be applied for online and arrives within around 10 days.
Fortunately Merv's Dad had an original birth certificate for Merv and, having written the supporting letter and copied all the documents, we headed back to the immigration office, only to be informed that we were missing some papers. Only one of Merv's two middle names features on our marriage certificate so he needs an affidavit, with two witnesses, to prove that it's the same person as on his birth certificate. My police certificate from France is not enough as I need one from my country of origin, as well as place of residence. The official (not the same one as last time) showed me a copy of the certificate I need, and the website to download an application form. If only his colleague had known about that back in March...To get the certificate, I need to fill in a 10 page application form and send it off, with an endorsed passport photo and a UK cheque (£54 including secured return delivery), which obviously I don't have, having not lived there for over 10 years.
Hopefully this will be the last of it and the next time Merv is home, we'll finally be able to get the permit, which takes two months to deliver from the time you apply. By the time it actually gets here, we'll be ready to leave again.
Alternatively, if I had £350,000 available to spend on a luxury villa here, they'd hand me a permit for free.
For any desperate people who stumble across my blog having googled "help with Mauritian residence permit", the sites you need are :
Good luck!
*In a country belonging to the Commonwealth, there is no Embassy or Consulate, but a High Commission
Thanks for this information.
ReplyDeleteWe are actually thinking of moving to Mauritius in the New Year, and we are in the same situation, the difference being my wife is Mauritian and I'm from Manchester.
Very interesting blog and a very good read.
Take care
David & Preeti