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hI THERE! i see you are already in Sal...
I have been living in Sao Vicente for 20 years now... I have never applied for a permanent residence permit.... at the moment I have a 5 years residence permit taht was issued after 1 year waiting time.
I have never travelled out to have my visa extended.
The secret in cape verde is not to care about anything... If you start think to make things "properly" you will never come out of the tunnel...
I have done everything in 20 years: have a smal tourist company, a charity.... and I simply don't care about anything... I have also friends who are waiting for their visa, but if it doesn't come it doesnt come, in the meantime they stay....
I must say I have never heard of anybody who has been sent back because of not being ablo to extend their visa....
Our volunteers come with a normal stam on their passports, after one month we go to the police, and they have their visa extended, and those who stay longer go simply another time. If you travel in the meantime, you will begin the process again, and just ask for extension. It is easy and costs 20 euros.
Please feel free to ask more! I am in Sao Vicente, you can just come and have a chat!
Silvia

Hi Andy,

You can get a TOURISM visa that is good for TWO YEARS (it used to be longer) which will allow you to stay for a maximum of 90 days on each visit. You do NOT need to reapply every 90 days. But you must leave every 90 days. This is a visa that you may apply for at any CV embassy or consultate (and you can even submit your application by mail corresponsdence with the seçlected Embassy). After the visa expires, you can apply for another one at an embassy or consulate, but you must be outside of CV to do so. You can do this repeatedly and effectively remain in CV for 90 day periods...but you will always be a tourist/visitor and you will have to keep flying out and back in every 90 days which could turn out to be quite expensive and definitely inconvenient.

I believe the 6-month visa you are referring to is the remote working visa which you must apply for online at . You must apply for this visa prior to arriving in CV. It is NOT a tourism visa. It is a temporary residency visa. You can renew it before (or even after) it expires. You do NOT need to leave CV to renew a residency visa. You can renew your temporary reidency visa repeatedly. However, after you've renewed your temporary residency visa at least once, the second time, you are very likely to be issued a residency visa for two years (which makes it more convenient that having to renew every 6 months).

There are various ways to apply/qualify for obtaining a temporary residence visa besides the remote working visa (which is really just a marketing program as "remote working visa" does not actually exist in the CV immigration law). Instead, it is actually a temporary residency visa for which you qualify simply by having a job in CV. So that is one way to get a temporary residence visa. Other ways you qualify besides employment (self-employment or company employee) is to start your own business (which is a 48 hour process), being a student at one of the universities, being a volunteer, or retiring in CV. In each case, there is a long list of documents which you need to obtain. They are all local documents EXCEPT for one which you obtain from the last country in which you resided for at least 6 months before coming to CV. This foreign document is your police certificate. So it is best that you obtain this just before coming to CV. You always need a police certificate each time you renew your temporary resident visa. The good news is that once you've been in Cv for 6 months, you will no longer need a foreign police certificate.

Note that you can apply for a temporary residency visa after you have entered CV as a tourist, and you are NOT required to leave CV to apply for the residency visa. You can do it while you are here as a tourist. It is not frowned upon and it is perfectly legal. You can even apply for this even after your tourist visa has expired (but make sure it has not been too long after expiration of your tourist visa). It is obviously preferable that you do so before your tourism visa expires but the point is that you do not need to panic if your visa happens to expire while you are in the process of gathering your documents.

After you have been a temporary resident for at least 5 years, you can apply for citizenship. The process is indeed frustrating because you would have had to have renewed your temporary residency visa several haor-pulling times and then you will need another slew of documents. Plus you will have to demonstrate that you can read, write and converse in Portuguese (or Kriolu). And you will also need to demonstrate you have a basic understanding about the social and political norms of the country. You demonstrate this during an interview when you make your citizenship application.

There is an >><< which explains all of this plus contains a compendium of information about living and working in CV.

From my experience, you should come to Praia to make all your visa applications. It is much easier to do so in Praia because the immigration officers are much more receptive to foreigners. The immigration officers in Sal are disrespectful idiots and try to make it as difficult as possible. I have assisted clients both in Praia and in Sal. I'm not sure where the officers in Mindelo fall on this spectrum of service quality, but I suspect they are somewhere in between.

Hope this helps clarify the CV immigration and visa issues for you. Let me know via private message if anything is unclear or if you have other questions.

Cheers,

Angelo

Pescador 1 wrote:

hi,i have been thinking about the possibility of relocating to cape verde...i would like to know if is it true that a 6 month tourist visa can easily be obtained from the cape verde consulate, in either gran canaria or lisbon,immediately prior to my arrival in cape verde?.. and, if so,can the 6 month visa then be renewed for another 6 months, just before it expires, simply by flying back to gran canaria or lisbon from cape verde on a return flight?..if this is correct,in effect, does this mean that you can reside permanently in the country,without needing to be in possession of a residents permit at all  (so long as you can afford to pay for the return flights every six months,of course!!)....i am only asking this because i have read a few blogs, from would-be expats, who had applied for official residency but who, seemingly, had almost lost the will to live due to the complexity of the 'official' process, including the dozens of documents required,some of whom had waited for years for residency, or had even given up trying altogether!)...any advice on this subject would be most welcome....thanks,andy.

Hi Angelo! Thank you for the detailed answer to Piscador! Now I know everything much better! Yes, te Police here in SV might be something in between. :-))
Silvia

You're welcome Silvia! Thanks for helping out with the assessment of the immigration police in São Vicente. Abraço!

Silvia Simabo wrote:

Hi Angelo! Thank you for the detailed answer to Piscador! Now I know everything much better! Yes, te Police here in SV might be something in between. :-))
Silvia

Wo carry you to Cape Verde?

To whom is your question directed - is it to Andy, Silvia or me - and what exactly are you asking? Your question has no context so it is not possible to respond!

Cheers,

Angelo

IvanildoaBorges wrote:

Wo carry you to Cape Verde?

@CVAngelo

Hi Angelo,

My husband and I applied to the remote working visa via the link you have in your post above, and it’s been a month with no update. The website states that it takes 2 weeks and it is not recommended to travel beforehand. We did get confirmation that the application was successfully submitted and under review.  Our flight leaves on June 30th and we are anxious that it has been 4 weeks with no response. Do you know if if typically takes this long for approval?

- @lestclai