Example of obtaining a Greek residence permit for doing business in Austria

  The clients are a Moscow family of 4 people: spouses and two minor children. Yuri, the head of the family, heads a trading company. He has good business partners in Austria. His future plans include opening a branch of the company here. In addition, Yuri wanted his family to be able to live in Austria for a long and unhindered period of time.

The clients' request was to obtain a residence permit in Austria.

The couple applied in April 2020. The consultant explained to them that for financial reasons the most suitable option was a residence permit as an FNL. But in this case there were two objective obstacles:

• This type of residence permit is distributed in Austria on the basis of quotas, which are sorted out at the very beginning of the year. For quotas there is a queue, and in April free places are no longer available.
• To apply for such a residence permit, it is necessary to pass an exam in the German language. The couple were not ready for it.

The family was offered the following plan.

1. First, we register a residence permit as an FNL in Greece. For this you do not need to pass the exam, it is enough to show the level of passive income (the necessary level the clients had). And also to have in Greece their own housing.
2. The status obtained in this country allows the family to reside in Austria without additional conditions. In the future, the clients can obtain a residence permit for Austria on the basis of long-term residence.
3. Thus, they achieve their goal in a more acceptable and simplified way.

How the case work progressed

End of April - beginning of May. Collected the necessary package of documents, carried out their processing and verification.

During May:

• remotely issued TINs for the couple in Greece; 
• also remotely opened an account for Yuri in the Greek bank Pireus; 
• with the help of a lawyer in Greece, they arranged a virtual lease. 

In the same month, applied for visas for the family. Despite the quarantine conditions, thanks to the work of the lawyers, the clients were authorized to travel to Greece in early June.

In June, the family visited Greece to surrender biometric data. Also with the assistance of the lawyer, they submitted the original documents to the immigration office.

At the beginning of August, the residence cards were ready. By power of attorney they were picked up by the lawyer and sent by courier service to the clients' place of residence in Moscow. The whole work on the case took 5 months.

With these documents in hand, Yuri and his family could go to Austria to realize their future plans there.

Results of the work: The case was successfully completed, the family received a residence permit for Greece as FNL.