New member. Moving to Fiji

Hello Rick and welcome to Expat.com!

I hope that other members will soon advise you and share their experiences with you.

Good luck,
Harmonie.

Thank you Harmonie,

I hope so as well.  Do you live in Fiji.  If so which island/city?

Among many questions, I am in need of a school for my 13 yr old and 15 yr old.  Private but not as expensive as the International school in Suva.  There are so many items to take care of.  Just trying to get organized.

Hi!

How do you get your papers so you can live in Fiji?
I want to move to Fiji with my wife and start a business, but we can`t really figure out how to get a permit to stay?

The immigration said i could apply to get citizenship after 5 years of staying there legally, but how do i stay there for 5 years legally?

Hi Lost Vikings

This is not as simple as it may seem and then again quite simple if very time consuming if you are actually in Fiji.
Here are the steps we took (and are still taking).

1. Find a Lawyer in Fiji (preferably Suva as this is where most/all of the documents will have to be submitted).

2. Register a Company. The tricky part is that you have to reserve the company name and this costs FJD5.75 and must be paid to the relevant office in Suva. If you engage a lawyer, they will be able to do this for you. This will also require the Reserve bank approving you as shareholders. It is advisable to have a local/Fijian as a director and a lawyer can arrange for this (one of their office staff) and they can resign later and be replaced by yourself or your wife - whoever was not originally a director.

3. Apply to FTIB which theoretically you can do online and also pay online. Don't count on the online payment actually working. Again a lawyer can submit your application for you along with the payment. You will need the documents that FTIB advise will be required on their website.

4. Wait for FTIB approval. They say 5 working days but this could take 4 to 5 weeks (or possibly even more).
Once you have FTIB approval you can open a Bank account!! This will help keep costs down.

5. Also once you have FTIB approval you can apply to Immigration for Residency. This is basically a formality and Immigration actually go back to FTIB to ask for approval!

This is it in a nutshell if you are not being sponsored by an employer but as you said and as we are doing, starting your own business.

If you bought a business the process would be a little simpler but you have to be careful to make sure you are allowed to own that particular kind of business - there are some "restricted and reserved activities".

There are ther things you have to do such as register for a Tax File Number (in Fiji called a TIN). You can do this before any of the other stuff above.

Again a local lawyer can do all this for you but they will charge you for it - some as much as FJD20,000. This will include such fees as FJD500+ for each TIN registration which if you were in Suva would take 1 hour of your time and cost you nothing.

I said at the start that it is not as simple as it seems but it is really just the process and the waiting that makes it difficult and the fact that you cannot do online all the things that you are used to doing online. But don't give up. Just be prepared to wait.

All the best.