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Residence permit for foreigners in Ukraine in the ID-card form. First year – So far so good…

A year ago, on June 1, 2018, cardinal changes in immigration legislation came into force. Ukraine adopted the experience of many countries and legally replaced the passport-shaped residence permit with a biometric ID card.

Being familiar with the implementation of innovations in Ukraine, there were a lot of expectations, hopes and fears. Let's get through some of them in retrospective.

Expectations 

The most naive of us hoped that foreigners' book residence permits would disappear along with the last day of spring. As soon as the birds start singing, the expats will immediately start receiving ID-cards, on which all information will be saved - passport number, fingerprints and the registration of the place of residence which we are so tired of.

Pragmatists tuned into scandals, long lines, lining up in the night next to the Migration Service. They were ready for a long delay in issuing documents, and raising the price for the right to reside in the country in several times.

Reality

Innovation number one - the electronic system.
To get a ticket, it was necessary to register at 00.00 on the website of the Migration Service and get a ticket for submission very quickly ... in two weeks! At 00.02 tickets were gone.
Alternatively, it was necessary to stand next to the Migration Service at night and to be the first who got a ticket. Thus, you could get an appointment to the inspector on the same day or exactly a week later. Rumor has it.
Everything solved quite fast. A few months later, it was possible to apply through an intermediary - the State Enterprise “Document” in Kyiv. A year after it became possible to submit documents for registration / replacement / exchange of a residence permit to the State Enterprise “Document”, which are submitted to the State Migration Service independently in almost all large cities of Ukraine.
We still see admiration on the faces of foreigners, who are surprised by the new opportunities to conveniently get an appointment, not jostling in the corridors, not tangling in the cabinets. Even the increased cost of filing doesn’t scare them as indeed the comfort worth it.

Innovation number two – residence permit form.
Until autumn expats were surprised to get all the same books. What has changed is that when extending the residence permit they did not deliver a stamp with new terms but issued a new booklet. Following the new law, perhaps, in which the formal procedure of "renewal" of a residence permit is replaced by a "changing".
With the arrival of autumn, they started issuing of ID cards. The first forms were sometimes printed with mistakes in the data, some were with defective chips - they had to be reprinted, but by the new year the system was adjusted.

Innovation number three - terms.
According to the new law, the terms for obtaining documents when applying for a residence permit or renewal (exchange) is 15 working days. There were delays. A lot. For a long time. But fortunately, for several months now, foreigners can count on actually receiving their TRP after 15 working days from the date of submission. Not without unpleasant exceptions, but still.

Innovation number four - registration of the place of residence.
Perhaps one of the most painful questions so far is the adaptation period. We described it earlier here. We will not take your time by repeating, until nothing has changed.

Innovation number five – families of foreigners.
The more things change the more they stay the same as they say. After a short ban, the spouses can again apply for an extension of the TRP at the same time. These are very good news because when the family applies for a residence permit due to reunification with the spouse, the last one must be personally present when submitting the documents. In order to reduce the number of visits of expats to state bodies, apparently.

Next time, we’ll tell about the greatest fear of all foreigners who come to Ukraine - the lack of children's documentation requirements: what they were most afraid of and how the practice was formed.

 

Svetlana Mozharivska
Head of Legal Department