If you are interested in immigrating to Romania or opening a business in Romania, this article will help you understand (and avoid) the most common mistakes that lead to your residency application being rejected by IGI (the Romanian Immigration Office). We will refer in especially to the residency permit of non-EU Citizen, who need a D type Visa in order to apply.
Although there can be exceptions and more reasons why your residency permit is refused, these are the 5 most common case, according to our experience as lawyers.
1) Your legal purpose for coming to Romania no longer exists
This is the first and most common case of refusal for extending your residency permit. It means that your purpose for coming to Romania ended or it is no longer available.
To get your Romania Visa approved, you need to have a legal purpose for being here. It can be work, family reunification, studies or other such cases. If you no longer have this legal purpose, your visa will be null and void. Therefore, your residency permit will be denied.
For example, you came to Romania for work purposes and your work agreement was not signed by the employer or got terminated. Or you came to your Romanian spouse, but you got a divorce in the meantime.
In these cases, you will need to go back to your home country and start your residency file from the beginning. You cannot simply stay in Romania to search for a new job or open a new business.
2) You are not living at the address you declared at the immigration office
Nowadays, there are more frequent follow-ups at the declared address of the applicant by the immigration authority (IGI). If they do not find you at that address or you do not follow-up in due time with the immigration officer that was looking for you, IGI can issue a refusal for obtaining or extending your residency permit.
So be careful what address you declare at IGI, if you change this address in the meantime or how you plan your trips away from Romania.
3) You do not have medical insurance
According to Romanian law, you must have a proper state health insurance in order to apply for residency and be insured in the medical system.
If you do not go through this procedure or you fail to submit the proper documentation, your residency permit will be denied and you will need to go back to square one.
However, if you manage to successfully apply without the proper proof that you have health insurance, you might be asked by IGI to provide proof of such insurance within a limited time window. Simply put, this type of medical insurance is mandatory, either way.
4) Not submitting documents in time to the immigration office
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen that the immigration office is getting stricter and stricter with its procedures and time frames.
Therefore, you should start putting together your file very early, in order to submit the paperwork to IGI 30 days before time. Also, do note there are cases when return decisions were issued for foreign citizens who failed to submit the paperwork just a few weeks.
In other words, if you do respect the legal framework for Romanian residency application, you might eventually get deported and, in worse cases, even get a ban from coming back to Romania for a few years.
5) Your Romanian family member does not accompany you at IGI when submitting your file
This reason only applies for family reunification permits. There are many cases when, after years of staying together, tensions arises in the marriage. And if you don’t have your divorce paperwork ready or custody settled, you cannot renew your residency permit if your spouse does not assist you with the submission.
But even if you are not in the middle of a divorce procedure, if your Romanian family member is away or simply unavailable to come with you at the immigration office, your file will be rejected.
If you would like to address more questions or if you need a legal consultation, you can contact us at office@rrpb.ro or by accessing our site www.rrpb.ro for more information.
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