FNIA and OASA — Glossary of Swiss foreign-nationals law

This file is the most frequently cross-referenced file in the SIP-v3 corpus. Every permit and life-event article refers back to the federal norms defined here. It contains the general statutory framing — it does not apply the law to specific persons. It is a glossary of federal-law terms and not legal advice in an individual case (on the scope and its limits, see section 9).

1. FNIA — Federal Act on Foreign Nationals and Integration

Object and purpose

The Federal Act of 16 December 2005 on Foreign Nationals and Integration (FNIA, SR 142.20) entered into force with effect from 1 January 2008. With the revision as of 1 January 2019, the former "Federal Act on Foreign Nationals" (FNA) became today's FNIA — integration became name-giving and was anchored in substance.

The FNIA (SR 142.20) regulates the entry, residence and gainful employment of persons who do not hold Swiss citizenship. It further regulates the integration of the resident foreign population and the conditions for the granting, extension and revocation of residence permits (Art. 1 FNIA describes the object of the Act).

Scope (Art. 2 FNIA)

The FNIA applies to foreign nationals insofar as no other provisions of federal law or international treaties concluded by Switzerland apply (Art. 2 para. 1 FNIA). For nationals of the EU/EFTA member states, the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons Switzerland–EU (AFMP, SR 0.142.112.681) takes precedence over the FNIA insofar as it contains more favourable provisions (Art. 2 para. 2 FNIA; see the AFMP/VFP glossary). For asylum seekers and recognised refugees, the Asylum Act (AsylA, SR 142.31) takes precedence over the FNIA insofar as it contains special-law provisions (see the Asylum Act glossary).

Structure of the FNIA

The FNIA is organised into chapters that follow the life cycle of a stay in Switzerland. The following overview assigns the main areas of regulation to the respective groups of articles; the exact boundaries of the areas are to be taken from the law in force, since individual articles have been moved, inserted (lettered articles such as 30a, 58a, 58b) or repealed in the course of revisions.

• General provisions (Art. 1 ff. FNIA): object, scope, concepts of integration and of the permit types.
• Entry (Art. 5 ff. FNIA): conditions of entry, visa requirement, entry bans.
• Permit requirement and duty to register (Art. 10 ff. FNIA): who needs which permit, duty to register, obligations of employers.
• Admission as employees and to gainful employment (Art. 18 ff. FNIA): conditions for third-country nationals, personal requirements (Art. 23 FNIA), priority of domestic workers, maximum numbers (quotas).
• Residence permits — types (Art. 32 ff. FNIA): short-term L, residence B, settlement C, cross-border G; derogations from the admission conditions and hardship case in Art. 30 FNIA.
• Extension and procedure (in particular Art. 33 para. 3 FNIA, Art. 40 FNIA, Art. 41 FNIA): conditions of extension, competence of the authorities, foreign-national identity card.
• Family reunification and family life (Art. 42 ff. FNIA): spouses and children of Swiss nationals, of holders of a C settlement permit and of a B residence permit, dissolution of the family community, indications of a marriage of convenience.
• Integration (Art. 53 ff. FNIA): promotion of integration, integration criteria (Art. 58a FNIA), integration agreement (Art. 58b FNIA).
• Provisional admission (Art. 83 ff. FNIA): F status, conditions, termination, transition F→B.
• Expiry, revocation and termination (Art. 61 ff. FNIA): grounds of expiry, grounds of revocation, removal.
• Data processing (Art. 102 ff. FNIA): SEM databases, cantonal data processing.
• Criminal provisions (Art. 115 ff. FNIA): unlawful entry, unlawful residence, facilitation of unlawful entry and exit, marriage of convenience.

Key principles

The FNIA rests on a small number of guiding principles that shape every decision of the authorities:

2. Permit types — definitions

This overview explains what each permit is. It does not explain who is entitled to which permit — the case-by-case assessment is not the object of this glossary and is not the task of SwissImmigrationPro.

Permit L — short-term residence permit

Permit B — residence permit

Permit C — settlement permit

Permit Ci — residence permit with gainful employment for accompanying persons of IO staff members

Permit F — provisional admission

Permit N — residence attestation for asylum seekers

Permit S — persons in need of protection (temporary protection)

Permit G — cross-border commuter permit

Overview table

3. OASA — Ordinance on Admission, Residence and Gainful Employment

Function and relationship to the FNIA

The Ordinance of 24 October 2007 on Admission, Residence and Gainful Employment (OASA, SR 142.201) is the central implementing ordinance of the FNIA. It concretises the abstract statutory conditions — in particular procedural steps, formal requirements, evidentiary requirements and maximum numbers. In French law it bears the name OASA ("Ordonnance relative à l'admission, au séjour et à l'exercice d'une activité lucrative"); in Italian law, OASA ("Ordinanza concernente l'ammissione, il soggiorno e l'attività lucrativa").

Where the OASA goes beyond the FNIA: in the procedural details. Whereas the FNIA defines the hardship case in Art. 30 FNIA only briefly as a ground for derogation, Art. 31 OASA lists the criteria for the assessment of a serious personal hardship case (see Hardship-case rule under Art. 30 FNIA). Whereas the FNIA establishes the duty to register in Art. 12 FNIA and delegates the setting of the deadlines to the Federal Council (Art. 12 para. 3 FNIA), Art. 10 OASA regulates the operative deadlines and modalities of registration for stays subject to a permit. |

Structural overview

The OASA follows the systematics of the FNIA. The following structure names the main blocks of regulation; the exact boundaries of the articles are to be taken from the ordinance text in force, since the OASA is revised more frequently than the FNIA:

• Object and definitions (Art. 1 ff. OASA).
• Permit requirement and duty to register (Art. 9 ff. OASA — permit-free stay, registration [Art. 10 OASA], deregistration, change of address).
• Admission with gainful employment (maximum numbers, concretisation of the priority of domestic workers, wage and working-condition requirements).
• Stay without gainful employment (pensioners, students, medical treatment).
• Family reunification (inter alia Art. 73 OASA — deadline for the family reunification of holders of a residence permit; housing and language requirements relating to Art. 42 ff. FNIA).
• Integration (in conjunction with the Integration Ordinance IntO, SR 142.205; language certificates inter alia in Art. 77d OASA).
• Expiry, revocation, removal (operative concretisation of the grounds of revocation and expiry of the FNIA).
• Procedure, granting of the permit, data (form of the foreign-national identity cards, data processing).

4. Key terms — glossary

Each term is presented with its norm, core definition and cross-references to the detailed dossiers in the SIP-v3 corpus.

Residence permit B vs settlement permit C

The residence permit (Permit B, Art. 33 FNIA) is a time-limited permit for a particular purpose of stay. Its renewal presupposes the continuation of the purpose and the fulfilment of the integration criteria.

The settlement permit (Permit C, Art. 34 FNIA) is an unlimited permit without any tie to a particular purpose of stay. It is granted after several years of uninterrupted residence with a B permit; the conditions include integration and the absence of grounds of revocation.

The legal difference is not only temporal but structural: the C permit is no longer tied to an employer, a spouse or a family constellation. A C permit expires in principle only after a six-month stay abroad (Art. 61 FNIA) or by revocation (Art. 63 FNIA, high threshold).

Gainful employment (concept within the meaning of the FNIA)

The concept of gainful employment is broadly defined in the FNIA. It comprises both employed activity (employee activity) and self-employment, the fulfilment of short-term mandates, paid internships and apprenticeship positions.

Art. 11 FNIA provides that persons who wish to pursue gainful employment in Switzerland require a permit, irrespective of duration and amount of wages, unless a special exception applies. A practically important facilitation is the notification procedure for short-term cross-border services of up to eight days within the framework of the AFMP (cf. Art. 14 OASA).

Family reunification (right to family reunification)

Family reunification regulates the entitlement of family members to their own residence permit in Switzerland. The FNIA distinguishes according to the status of the person already living in Switzerland:

The living community is constitutive: family reunification presupposes in principle the actual living community at the place of stay of the principally resident person (Art. 49 FNIA provides for exceptions on important grounds). The language requirement for spouses to be reunified (A1 level in an official language before entry or registration for a language-promotion offer) has applied since the revision as of 01.01.2019 (Art. 43 para. 1 let. d FNIA for spouses of C permit holders; Art. 44 para. 1 let. d FNIA for spouses of B permit holders).

The five-year deadline (Art. 47 FNIA) for asserting the right to reunification from the moment at which the right arose is strict; missing it leads in principle to the loss of the entitlement, except in the case of important family grounds.

Detailed articles: Marriage to a Swiss national, Marriage between two foreign nationals resident in Switzerland, Birth of a child in Switzerland.

Integration (Art. 4 FNIA, Art. 58a FNIA)

The concept of integration has two functions in the FNIA:

1. As a state objective (Art. 4 FNIA): integration is intended to promote the coexistence of the domestic and the foreign resident population; it is a joint task of the Confederation, the cantons and the municipalities. The design of the promotion of integration is regulated in Art. 53 ff. FNIA.

2. As a condition of the permit (Art. 58a FNIA): upon the extension of a residence permit and the B→C transition, the authority assesses integration in particular on the basis of the following criteria:

   a. respect for public security and order; b. respect for the values of the Federal Constitution; c. language competence; and d. participation in economic life or the acquisition of education.

The operative language thresholds (A1, A2, B1, B2 according to the CEFR) are concretised in the Integration Ordinance (IntO, SR 142.205), in the OASA (inter alia Art. 77d OASA on the recognised language certificates) and in the SEM directives. The levels required in practice depend on the permit step and lie within the discretion of the competent authority; they are to be taken from the current SEM directives and from cantonal implementation.

Detailed articles: Integration agreement under Art. 58a FNIA, Language certificate A1 / A2 / B1 fide.

Hardship case (Art. 30 para. 1 let. b FNIA)

The hardship-case rule allows the cantonal migration authorities to derogate from the ordinary admission conditions in the event of a serious personal hardship case or important public interests (Art. 30 para. 1 let. b FNIA). The granting lies within the discretion of the authority and is subject to the approval of the SEM. The assessment criteria are concretised in Art. 31 OASA (inter alia integration, respect for the legal order, family circumstances, financial circumstances, duration of presence, state of health, possibilities of reintegration in the state of origin).

There is no legal entitlement to a hardship-case permit; the assessment is made on a case-by-case basis. Detailed article: Hardship-case rule under Art. 30 FNIA.

Priority of domestic workers (Art. 21 FNIA)

In the admission of third-country nationals to gainful employment, the priority of domestic workers applies (Art. 21 FNIA). A third-country national may be admitted only if it is demonstrated that no person with priority (Swiss nationals, EU/EFTA nationals, persons resident in Switzerland with access to the labour market) could be found for the position. The proof is furnished by the employer, typically through a documented job advertisement and recruitment efforts.

The priority of domestic workers does not apply to EU/EFTA nationals, because their admission is regulated by the AFMP. For the admission of qualified workers, the FNIA additionally sets personal requirements (Art. 23 FNIA — professional qualification, professional and social adaptability), and Art. 30 FNIA permits, in narrowly defined cases, derogations from the ordinary admission conditions.

Primacy of the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons (AFMP)

For nationals of the EU and EFTA states and their family members, the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons Switzerland–EU of 21 June 1999 (AFMP, SR 0.142.112.681) and the EFTA Convention take precedence over the FNIA insofar as the AFMP contains more favourable provisions (Art. 2 para. 2 FNIA). Concrete consequences:

• No priority of domestic workers for the engagement of EU/EFTA nationals.
• B permit for five years in the case of an open-ended or at least one-year employment contract.
• Family reunification from the first day, including for third-country-national family members.
• Primacy of the AFMP in the event of interpretation conflicts, insofar as it is more favourable.

Detailed article: AFMP/VFP glossary.

Cantonal competence (Art. 40 FNIA)

Art. 40 FNIA regulates the distribution of the granting of permits between the Confederation and the cantons:

• The cantonal migration offices are in principle competent for the granting, extension and revocation of residence permits as well as for the issuance of the foreign-national identity card.
• The SEM has approval and supervisory rights in certain constellations — in particular in the initial admission of third-country nationals, in hardship-case decisions (Art. 30 FNIA) and in the management of the maximum-number quotas.
• The municipalities carry out the registration and the resident control and forward registrations to the cantonal migration authority.

Cantonal practice varies considerably — processing times, documentary requirements and margins of discretion differ. The cantonal dossiers in the corpus capture these differences.

Duty to register (Art. 12 FNIA, Art. 10 OASA)

Art. 12 FNIA establishes the duty to register: whoever needs a short-term, residence or settlement permit must register with the competent authority at the place of residence before the expiry of the permit-free stay or before taking up gainful employment (Art. 12 para. 1 FNIA). When moving to a new canton or a new municipality, registration must be carried out again at the new place of residence (Art. 12 para. 2 FNIA). The concrete deadlines are set by the Federal Council (Art. 12 para. 3 FNIA); for stays subject to registration, the deadline under Art. 10 OASA is fourteen days from entry.

The deregistration upon departure and the notification of a change of address are likewise obligations; they are governed by the OASA (inter alia Art. 15 OASA for registration of arrival and deregistration upon change of domicile) and by the cantonal registration system.

Detailed articles: Cantonal registration within 14 days, Change of canton and residence permit.

Dependence on social assistance (Art. 62 FNIA, Art. 63 FNIA)

Dependence on social assistance is, in the FNIA, a possible ground of revocation or of non-extension — it is not generally a ground of expiry, and it does not automatically lead to the loss of the right of residence.

Art. 62 FNIA allows the revocation of a B residence permit, inter alia, when the person or a person for whom they must provide depends durably and to a substantial extent on social assistance. The threshold values are not rigid; they are concretised by the case law of the Federal Supreme Court and are to be applied in a proportionate manner.

Art. 63 FNIA regulates the revocation of the C settlement permit — the threshold here is significantly higher: durable and substantial receipt of social assistance is a ground of revocation only under narrower conditions, namely before the expiry of a longer lawful presence; for the rest, it is above all serious breaches of public security and order that come into consideration.

Upon the extension of the B residence permit, the authority assesses under Art. 33 para. 3 FNIA, in the light of the integration criteria under Art. 58a FNIA, whether dependence on social assistance stands in the way of the extension. A short-term, non-self-inflicted dependence on social assistance (e.g. due to illness or childcare during a separation phase) is in practice typically weighted more leniently than a longer-term one.

Note on indebtedness (debt-collection proceedings, tax debts): mere payment arrears or debt-collection proceedings do not on their own trigger a revocation under Art. 62 FNIA or Art. 63 FNIA — these provisions cover above all grounds of public security and order as well as the qualified receipt of social assistance. Substantial indebtedness may at most influence the residence status indirectly, namely via the integration assessment (participation in economic life, respect for the legal order) within the framework of an extension. Detailed articles: Debt-collection proceedings and the right of residence, Job loss and the residence permit, Revocation of the residence or settlement permit.

5. SEM directives

The directives of the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) are administrative instructions that the SEM issues for the uniform application of the FNIA, the OASA and the AsylA. They bind the cantonal migration authorities within the framework of federal supervision. They do not directly bind migrants and their representatives — but they are the most important source for anticipating the practice of the authorities.

The central directive corpora are:

• Directives FNIA I — admission and residence (procedure, permit types, conditions of gainful employment, third-country specifics);
• Directives FNIA II — integration (implementation of Art. 58a FNIA, language certification, integration agreement, cantonal integration programmes KIP/PIC);
• Directives family reunification — concretisation of Art. 42 ff. FNIA, language competence, housing standards;
• Directives citizenship — implementation of the Citizenship Act (SCA, SR 141.0).

The directives are published by the SEM at www.sem.admin.ch/sem/de/home/publiservice/weisungen-kreisschreiben.html. They are updated regularly (typically annually or upon legislative changes); the date of the respective applicable version is visible on the directive.

6. Cantonal migration offices

Under Art. 40 FNIA, the granting of residence permits is a matter for the cantons. Each of the 26 cantons operates its own migration office (in French-speaking Switzerland often "Office cantonal de la population et des migrations", in Ticino "Sezione della popolazione") with its own processing procedures, forms, processing times and margins of discretion within the framework of the federal-law requirements.

Cantonal practice can vary considerably in:

• Processing time (it differs markedly depending on the canton and the type of application; concrete reference values are to be taken from the respective cantonal dossier and from the information of the competent migration office);
• Documentary requirements (in particular for language certificates, housing confirmations, income statements);
• Exercise of discretion in the hardship-case recommendation, the integration assessment and the social-assistance threshold;
• Fee practice (the fees are governed by cantonal law within the framework of the federal-law requirements; concrete amounts are to be taken from the canton's official fee schedule);
• Linguistic accessibility of the counters and of correspondence.

For each canton, the SIP-v3 corpus contains its own dossier with contact details, opening hours, online procedures and canton-specific particularities.

7. Frequent confusions of terms

This collection brings together frequent confusions between terms from the FNIA/OASA and neighbouring areas of law — in factual form, without application to a concrete case.

FNIA vs AsylA

The FNIA (SR 142.20) regulates the residence of all foreign nationals who are not or were not in the asylum procedure. The AsylA (SR 142.31) regulates the asylum procedure — asylum application, hearing, removal procedure, temporary protection. Transitions are possible: a rejected asylum application can lead to provisional admission (Art. 83 FNIA); a person provisionally admitted for many years can, under hardship-case aspects, transition to a B permit (Art. 84 para. 5 FNIA in conjunction with Art. 30 FNIA).

Glossary mirror: Asylum Act glossary.

Permit vs status

A permit (B, C, L, F, Ci, G) is an administrative-law document that evidences the right of residence and access to the labour market. A status (S protection status, refugee status, provisional admission) is the underlying legal qualification of the person, from which the entitlement to a particular permit follows. Status and permit can diverge — for instance when a person recognised as a refugee holds a B permit with the note "asylum" (status: refugee; permit: B).

Residence permit vs settlement permit

See above the term "Residence permit B vs settlement permit C". Practical usage — including in official documents — does not always use the two terms with clear distinction; the code designation B or C on the foreign-national identity card is the unambiguous indicator.

Family reunification under the FNIA vs family reunification under the AFMP

For Swiss nationals and their family members as well as for C permit holders and their family members, the provisions of the FNIA apply (Art. 42 FNIA or Art. 43 FNIA).

For EU/EFTA nationals and their family members, the AFMP (Annex I) takes precedence over the FNIA. Consequence: for EU/EFTA nationals with a B permit, the stricter design of reunification under Art. 44 FNIA does not apply in the same way — family reunification is in principle possible from the first day under the AFMP, including for third-country-national family members.

The legal profession and legal advice — the BGFA framework

The Federal Act on the Free Movement of Lawyers (BGFA, SR 935.61) regulates the exercise of the legal profession in Switzerland (cantonal bar registers, professional rules, free movement). The professional representation of parties before the courts is reserved to lawyers; the power to represent in civil proceedings arises from procedural law (cf. Art. 68 CPC, SR 272) in conjunction with the BGFA. Out-of-court legal advice, by contrast, is not subject to any federal-law monopoly and can in principle also be provided by non-lawyers — whereby any person who offers legal advice commercially is liable under general principles (inter alia mandate law, Art. 398 CO, SR 220; unfair-competition law, Art. 3 UCA, SR 241).

SwissImmigrationPro positions itself strictly as an information platform, not as a legal-advice provider, and refers any case-specific question to lawyers in the cantonal bar register.

8. Cross-references in the SIP-v3 corpus

This file is referenced by practically all permit and life-event articles. The main connections are:

9. What this file does not do

This file is a glossary of federal-law terms, not an advisory or strategy document. It does not apply the norms presented here to concrete persons or situations. In particular:

• It does not provide any information on whether a concrete person is entitled to a particular permit.
• It does not comment on the prospects of success of applications or appeals.
• It does not replace the advice of a person entered in the cantonal bar register.
• It does not replace the official information of the competent cantonal migration office.

For questions concerning one's own situation, the referral list of the SwissImmigrationPro platform with BFR-verified lawyers is the right point of contact. In the event of acute emergencies (imminent removal, arrest, family crisis with permit consequences), immediate contact with a lawyer or with a specialised contact point (e.g. SOS Asylum, the Swiss Refugee Council SFH/OSAR or the cantonal sans-papiers counselling service) is to be preferred.

10. Update triggers

This file is updated without delay in the event of:

1. Entry into force of a revision of the FNIA or the OASA,
2. Entry into force of a landmark Federal Supreme Court judgment for the interpretation of one of the terms defined here (BGE character),
3. Publication of a substantially amended SEM directive,
4. Entry into force or repeal of an international-law agreement that affects the precedence hierarchy (in particular AFMP adjustments),
5. Entry into force or repeal of a protection ordinance (S-status volatility).

11. Note on binding force

In the SIP-v3 corpus, this file is a referenced definition source. In the event of a discrepancy between a statement in a detailed article (permit dossier, life-event dossier) and a statement in this glossary file, the statement in this file prevails, insofar as it concerns federal law. For canton-specific statements, the respective cantonal file prevails. In the event of conflicts between the federal-law glossary and a cantonal file, the federal law in the glossary file is adapted — not the other way around.

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