[Bonus information at the end of this post regarding obtaining dual citizenship for our son.]
The intention of this post is to document what the process looked like for me, as the American spouse of a Dominican citizen, to become a Dominican resident, with the hope that it can help anyone else in the same situation. In time, when we pursue the citizenship process, I will add a Part 2 and link to that in this post.
The process seems to change frequently, and depending on who you talk to within what department, different documentation or steps are required. By the time I publish this, it may very well already have changed, which is why I highly, highly recommend using a Dominican lawyer to help with the process, especially in the DR after obtaining the visa from a Dominican consulate in the U.S. They know with which departments to file what and have contacts who will update them on things when necessary. In essence, we pay them to carry the headache for us!
I would confidently traverse the process of obtaining American residency again without the help of a lawyer, but at this point, I doubt that will ever be the case for obtaining and maintaining Dominican residency. Best insight I can give: Use a lawyer!
A bit of background, insight, and information
In October of 2019, we were in the throes of filing for my husband's American citizenship (find that process documented here) and our son was barely two months old. We were in Maryland visiting a supporting church and took advantage of being in the vicinity of the Dominican embassy/consulate in D.C. to finally, after having lived in the DR for 4 years, get a residency visa for me - the first step in obtaining Dominican residency.
There are limited types of visas available in the Dominican Republic. My count while writing this in 2020 came to: residency visa (4 or 5 different qualifications), two types of business visas, student visa, diplomat/official visa, and tourist visa (there's also the "dependent visa" for dependents of certain types of visa holders; and I've heard there used to be a missionary visa but that it's no longer available since 2015 or may be available only to the Catholic community). Visa information can be found at: http://drembassyusa.org/visas/.
Basically, as our lawyer told me, most missionaries have very limited options that avoid a long, stretched out process of residency due to the limited visa options. Tourist visas only last 30 days and residency without marriage or the income level of an investor can often drag out over a span of years; so most missionaries, myself included up to this point, just pay the overstay fee for however long we've been in the country when exiting. It hasn't posed a problem for anyone I know of personally up until now (2020), and the DR doesn't seem to mind. But that may change in the future. If/When it does change, I hope they create other visa options or a clearer path to residency for a wider range of people.
Process for obtaining a residency visa
A residency visa obtained from the Dominican consulate in your home country is the first step in obtaining residency. (Reminder: I am speaking from my experience as an American.) Each consulate may have a slight twist on what they say is necessary and what is not. The consulate websites sometimes have up to date information and sometimes not; but the documents I used seem to be a pretty accurate general list of what is needed when applying for the visa, in my status as the American spouse of a Dominican citizen.
I highly, highly recommend going in person to a consulate when applying so the official can check through your documents and let you know if anything is missing. The D.C. consulate (in 2019) was difficult to get a hold of via phone, but our lawyer had given us a list of documents needed to obtain the visa before we headed to the US, which can also be found at the embassy website I linked to above. The D.C. consulate never asked for anything additional. I recently (in 2020) spoke to someone who was able to personally talk to a representative in the Chicago consulate. Getting a hold of any consulate via phone or email seems to be hit or miss, so if you can not go in person to deposit papers, be persistent in trying to get a hold of them any way possible before mailing anything in, and go with the consulate that communicates and responds to you best.
Documents submitted for obtaining visa:
- My apostilled birth certificate and translation (the translation was done in the DR by a certified translator. The consulates also offer translations services for around $95 per translation [in 2020]. If translated in the US it is necessary to get the translation notarized and then apostilled, a process most online professional translators can get done for you.)
- Our legalized marriage license (ours was a Dominican marriage certificate. An American one would need to be an official license with a raised seal and then apostilled and translated and the translation notarized and apostilled)
- My husband's legalized birth certificate
- Copy of both sides of his cedula (Dominican ID card)
- A few bank statements as proof of solvency
- A "work" letter from our non-profit organization stating what I'm doing here as a missionary and that I fundraise my income (this one wasn't very important as proof of income since I'm applying as the spouse of a Dominican, so we didn't get it translated; but our organization did send it to me notarized just in case we'd need to apostille and translate it. The D.C. consulate didn't deem that necessary, though.)
- A medical certificate apostilled and in Spanish (I literally just wrote up a paragraph for my family doctor to sign off on, staying I'm in good overall health and don't pose any symptoms of contagious diseases and am cleared to travel. He knew someone who notorized it for me for free and then I got it apostilled. I did the same thing in English so he could understand what he was signing and got both notarized and apostilled, just in case I needed it, but didn't include it with my application. The D.C. consulate never blinked an eye.)
- An FBI background check apostilled and translated by the D.C. consulate (again, if translated in the US it is necessary to get the translation notarized and then apostilled, a process most online professional translators can get done for you)
- "Carta de garantia" (guarantee [or sponsor] letter), legalized in the DR. (This is one of the most important documents. Our lawyer wrote it up for us and basically became my sponsor. You need to be careful with timing though since this document can NOT be more than 6 months old. Our lawyer signed it in June and I submitted everything in October. The consulate official mentioned something about hoping it won't be rejected since it was over 3 months old but it ended up not being a problem.)
- 1 passport style picture
- My actual passport (they made copies at the D.C. consulate)
- Application for residency visa (they had forms at the D.C. consulate)
- A letter from me addressed to the consulate containing my name, nationality, place of residency, occupation, and reason for requesting residency
- Payment of $125 for the visa
I submitted all the above and a prepaid envelope for them to mail me everything since we wouldn't be there to pick it up in person, and they never needed anything else. I would have received it in exactly 3 weeks if my passport wouldn't have gotten lost in the mail. (They told us 2-3 weeks/10-15 business days.)
When my passport got lost in the mail (a USPS problem), we called at least a dozen times before getting a hold of someone at the D.C. consulate. When someone finally did pick up, they were super helpful in consistently communicating with us and answering all our questions, helping us to resolve the issue in a matter of days. The consulate issuing the residency visa had to reissue a new one in my new passport. I was able to get a new passport within 24 hours, then overnight it to D.C. with a prepaid overnight envelope inside. They stamped the new passport with the old visa number and nullified the number, then stamped it a second time with a new visa number, and overnighted it back in my prepaid envelope.
Returning to the DR/finalizing residency
This part of the process is the messy part. The way the process should be and what it actually ends up being can be very, very different.
You have to enter the DR within 60 days after obtaining the residency visa and the visa is only good for one entry. A week after arriving back in country, we handed everything requested by our lawyer over to her, paid for the few items that needed payment (such as the insurance plan and background check) and simply sat back and waited for the process to go through the system, letting her deal with it on our behalf.
Documents submitted to the Department of Migration in the DR:
- 2 copies of every single page of my passport
- An extra copy of the visa page in my passport
- 4 visa photos, front shot
- 4 visa photos, side shot
- A Dominican background check (our lawyer was able to obtain it on my behalf)
- An insurance plan (similar to auto or health insurance specifically created for residency process. Our lawyer obtained it on my behalf and I just signed off on it.)
- My apostilled birth certificate and translation
- Our legalized marriage certificate
- The apostilled FBI background check and translation
The glitch we ran into at this point had to do with my Dominican background check (papel de buena conducta). Our lawyer solicited it within the timeframe granted to submit documents to the Department of Migration after entering the country, and it came back quickly - with my last name spelled incorrectly. This triggered a series of trips to the government office in charge of this particular detail to explain the error and solicit a correction, only the have their system freeze up for TWO MONTHS! Yup! You read that right - no one was getting any background checks during that time. While this was going on, Covid-19 hit and government offices shut down. What that meant for us was missing the deadline for all paperwork submission. Our lawyer submitted what we had, via an online portal, with an explanation about the background check. Once things finally opened up enough to get that document, it was added to my case file.
All the above went through the Department of Migration and was finally approved in July, 8 months after entering the DR with my residency visa. There is a final step of having a medical exam done, authorized by the Department of Migration, in this phase, but this was also one of those things that doesn't always work like it's supposed to! The department was shut down due to Covid-19 until July, and then it only opened a little at a time, so they took a while to work through their backlog of cases.
On Aug. 26th I received a call from my lawyer saying the Department of Migration was finally calling me in for my medical exam appointment that same day. I am thankful that we have an extension of the department half an hour from where we live or I never would have made the 3 hour drive to the capital city in time! My lawyer told me the department had let their office know on a Friday to come in on a Monday with all my papers (the same ones that were submitted online) and with that physical submission they would set my exam appointment. On Monday morning, the department said they were actually setting my exam appointment for that day. (If I couldn't have made it in time, they would have given me 3 days to get it done.) They also requested a payment of $28,500DOP - it was more expensive than normal due to an extra charge for late filing (in the end, they didn't care that it wasn't our fault the deadline was missed) and a $4,000DOP charge for leaving the country before the process was done.
Down the street, within walking distance from the department, is the laboratory and the DR's office where they sent me to get blood drawn and a physical done, respectively. Those two results are sent to the Department of Migration directly. It was a day of relief because this was the final step in obtaining temporary residency!
Next steps
Within 90 work days (around 4 months), they will call me with an appointment to go take my fingerprints and pick up my ID card. Six months after that, we can start the process of applying for citizenship.
The temporary residency is good for 1 year. Residency the standard way comes with requirements to renew temporary residency every year for 5 years, then apply for permanent residency. After being a permanent resident for 2 years, then comes eligibility to apply for citizenship. (Keep in mind, there are qualifications [such as being an investor] other than marriage for expedited citizenship)
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Bonus information on obtaining dual citizenship for children
Our son was born in the USA, and as the child of a Dominican father, he qualified to become a dual citizen. We had planned to do the process in the DR, after returning, but happily found out the consulate in D.C. had a Junta Central attached!
Documents submitted to Junta Central to obtain dual citizenship for our son:
Copies of my husband's Dominican cedula/ID card (they made all copies they needed of all paperwork)
Copies of my ID (we used my driver's license since my passport was with my visa paperwork)
Our son's American birth certificate in "long-form" and apostilled
Translation of his birth certificate (we paid them to do it since they certify their own translations and we could avoid getting the translation apostilled)
Payment of around $20-$25
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