Any EU country issuing long-term tourist visa?

Upvote:0

France has a similar program, the Long stay visa for non professional purpose:

If granted, the visa issued is valid as a "Long Stay as Resident Card visa" for a maximum of one year.

The visa in your passport will also be your permanent resident card for France for the whole first year.

Should you then wish to stay more than a year in France, you will then have to contact the French local state authorities ("Préfecture") to apply for an extension of your stay by a permanent resident card ("Carte de Séjour") separate from your passport.

Source: http://www.consulfrance-washington.org/spip.php?article401

Upvote:0

Edited: The various EU countries offer long-term visa. The main focus of those visa is work or study, so Expatriates would be a better StackExchange forum.

For instance, a German Aufenthaltserlaubnis is generally provided for education, work, humanitarian reasons or family reunions, but §7 AufenthG states that it may be granted for other reasons (which are not enumerated).

Since EU countries are generally worried about illegal immigration, just demonstrating the funds for the intended duration of the stay isn't enough. (A substantial investment in the local economy may be a fast track to a residence permit or citizenship, but that wasn't the question here.)

Upvote:4

Even if I don't know all the rules and regulations of each and every EU country, I am pretty sure that you won't find any one-year residence permit that would be issued solely on the basis of a few thousands euros of wealth. The reason for that is that it would make it very easy to circumvent just about any other visa requirement and to immigrate illegally (hundreds of thousands of people are currently paying more than that to cross the border illegally and for many other things that could help them stay in the EU).

What you will find instead are the following:

  • Six-month visit visas. While the regular Schengen short-stay visa can only cover stays up to 90 days, several EU countries (including the UK and IIRC Sweden) allow you to stay a bit longer as a tourist.
  • Working holiday visas. If you are eligible (it depends on age and citizenship), they allow one or two years of stay with minimal requirements.
  • Semi-permanent residence status like the one mentioned by @phoog in France (you get one year at a time but it's renewable). In that case you must meet some financial requirements (higher than in Turkey but not that much higher, in France it's about €14000 for a year) but also credibly argue that you won't work during your stay. Implicitly, they are more intended for retirees and a few other special categories of people than for prime working age tourists.
  • Investor's visas. If you are able to shell out a large amount of money on some local business venture, many countries offer special visas or even a quick path to citizenship. But we are talking about hundreds of thousands of euros and more, not just a few thousands.

Whether for three months, for six months or for longer, the main difficulty is that tourism visas are issued to people who will go back to their country of residence at the end of their stay. Having a stable situation in your country of origin is a requirement. For example, employees often need to show they have a job and are on paid leave.

But if you are ready to leave for a year or more, you are unlikely to have a job waiting for you and your ties to your country of residence are obviously weaker (otherwise you would need to be there more frequently) so unless you have significant wealth and business interests, you will look like a big risk to immigration officials.

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