Eu-citizen Residence card with Non-Eu Spouse in Hungary!

American Citizens do not get a Schengen visa. An American citizen can enter any Schengen country and can travel for tourism or business within the entire Schengen zone for up to 90 day. This time can not be extended. If your wife wants to be in a Schegen country for other reasons, then she needs an appropriate visa issued by that country:

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_t … _4361.html

She can not just join you in Hungary "no questions asked". She has to apply for a residence visa here too if she stays over 90 days.

Curious : Why is your wife still on a visitor visa? Why not help her apply for a residence visa in the UK first? Or am I being terribly naive about UK bureaucracies?

We don't plan to stay in the UK so it makes sense just to get the visa where we plan to stay. The UK visa costs 500pounds and has to be applied for outside.... So she would prob have to travel back to USA, apply there and then get back to UK just to end up not using the Visa!!!!

I found out after that the Schengen can be gotten at the border for Hungary.... Interested in the atual process of applying for residency for both her and I.

Forest Parks wrote:

The UK visa costs 500pounds and has to be applied for outside.... So she would prob have to travel back to USA

Hungary also typically expects, for Americans, that the visa to be applied for before entering Hungary. You can try to "explain" and petition why the return trip to the US is not an option for her (i.e. hardship expense, she has no home there anymore (more likely if she had UK residence permit already), etc.). But the immigration office can reject this petition.

Given all the official translations I had to pay for, and the government paperwork stamps I had to buy, it was not exactly cheap here either to process my application for a Hungarian residency visa. Not only will your wife have to show some fiscal ability to sustain herself in Hungary, but she may have to show proof of health insurance and other mandated requirement of residency. It is complicated.

Thanks Klsallee, because I am EU she actually just has the right to join me and I know this can be done in country after coming in on Schengen, and gain the same rights as me.

I understand we would both actually need health insurance and prove our earnings. I work on the internet, she will work with me once settled too so that shouldn't be a problem.

We went throug an immigration lawyer and it was a painless and fast experience although expensive for me to obtain my residence permit. The fact that my husband is an EU citizen also of course made it much easier.

Good God, you need to research some previous links.
No easy street for us Americans anywhere to stay in the EU.
I have been legally married to a HU/ EU citizen for more 40 some years, am physically in Hungary, our adult son is a HU citizen and I was given a 90 day notice to leave HU .
We also have income from the US every month coming in, own outright our flat in Budapest and are totally 100% self contained .
No need to work , only spend in HU.
All good now, I finally received a 10 permit to stay but it is not going to be easy with entering on a tourist visa.
That's what I did and it was insane the stuff we went through for me to stay.
We nearly just left HU, never even fixed up our flat even to this day because of the sour taste in our mouths.
Immigration services 101 , start from there and good luck.
Of course we did all the paperwork and running around ourselves, hire a lawyer.
It is true, need to show funds, show health coverage and make sure she will not ever be a burden on the gov. of Hungary. They seriously have no issue in breaking up a family if your papers don't jive.
How hard is the process, hard to say, it all depends on who has your case and how fast they work, took me over 6 months . Means zero that my family were citizens. She had better have all her papers too, have to get everything translated into Hungarian and they have only one place that they take translations from.
Need the seals and stamps.
All details may be found from getting in line at immigration or through your lawyer.
You must also prove you can afford to have a wife here with your monthly income and show bank accounts. That's the easy part too.

Things are about to change for UK people in relation to settling in the rest of Europe.  This change may take a year or so but I imagine that pretty soon UK citizens will have to make different arrangements,  similar to other incomers  like the Americans.  Paying for a 90 day visa could be a possibility.

anns wrote:

Things are about to change for UK people in relation to settling in the rest of Europe.  This change may take a year or so but I imagine that pretty soon UK citizens will have to make different arrangements,  similar to other incomers  like the Americans.  Paying for a 90 day visa could be a possibility.

I am not sure it's going to be as bad as that.  There are so many Hungarians and others in the UK, they will not kick them out as the Hungarians etc would kick out the British.  But there could be a cut off point, perhaps before the referendum.  I doubt anyone will need a paper visa as the hassle of it would be absurd.

If Marie Le Pen gets into power in France, she could do something as well.  She's got an agenda to leave the EU as well.  Could be a snowball effect.

Let's hope proper agreements can be made but everything is potentially revenue raising and e visas are smooth running these days and bring in the pennies.

anns wrote:

Let's hope proper agreements can be made but everything is potentially revenue raising and e visas are smooth running these days and bring in the pennies.

I think visas do not even cover their costs.  It's almost always on a reciprocal basis.   There's no point in introducing visas for UK citizens or Hungarian citizens.  There are plenty of countries that allow visitors without visas and their legislation already allows visa-less entry for X days.   Why bother with e-visas or any other nonsense like that!

Well let's see. No one knows what will happen. As for current affairs, there is lots of information and MIS information around regarding securing residency so getting proper legal advice is crucial.
I took a Hungarian speaking agent with me when I applied for my address and residency card. Worth paying for.

Im just glad I was granted a residence permit, at least i can travel visa free to and in europe, its a real pain to obtain a visa everytime one wants to visit europe causing problems between me and husband because I do not want to travel bacause I have to obtain a visa everytime - far to travel to embassy, spend an hour or more at embassy, have to prepare a stack of documents for embassy, finger prints everytime, pictures everytime, travel far back home, wait 3 weeks for visa, travel far to embassy, travel far back home . . . And in the end 4 weeks have passed from when you actually wanted to travel.

Dont think I can visit UK on my residence permit as UK is not part of Schengen area but thats OK.

Yip agree 100%, best to make use of the services of an immigration lawyer to help with residence permit, they speak the language and know the process, expensive but the only way I'd say.

fluffy2560 wrote:

There are so many Hungarians and others in the UK, they will not kick them out as the Hungarians etc would kick out the British.  But there could be a cut off point, perhaps before the referendum.  I doubt anyone will need a paper visa as the hassle of it would be absurd.

Anyone living legally in an EU country for 5 years, can apply for permanent residence in the EU country of their residency. That permanent residency permit should be good even post Brexit. I have one, as an American Citizen, and can remain here as long as I wish now (assuming I do not break laws that may allow for my expulsion). So this might be an option for some British people in Hungary to remain living in Hungary and the EU. But not for Hungarians in the UK since EU rules will no longer apply. So in fact, the Hungarian Government has less power as an EU member state to kick out some long term UK citizens than the UK may have to kick out Hungarians.

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/re … dex_en.htm

There are some caveats however, and you must have physically resided in that country for five year (so if you are a globe trotting tourist, rarely here, you may be out of luck):

    - temporary absences (less than 6 months per year)
    - longer absences for compulsory military service
    - one absence of 12 consecutive months, for important reasons such as pregnancy and childbirth, serious illness, work, vocational training or a posting to another country.

klsallee wrote:

....Anyone living legally in an EU country for 5 years, can apply for permanent residence in the EU country of their residency. ....

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/re … dex_en.htm

...

That's useful to know.  I never actually knew that, certainly never applied nor was  I invited to apply for it.  And I've lived for extended periods in other EU countries. I had more or less equal treatment and no-one in the public administration ever said anything at all to me about it.

I definitely will look into a permanent residency visa in Hungary.  I've been using my EU passport alone for now...