Chile Forum

Now here is good immigration question:

Is it possible to change visa type inside Chile? (ie from tourist visa to work or business visa) or do you have to leave the country to apply?

Thanks in advance,
Louis

Yes you can change while still in Chile. No need to leave.

yea, I have always come in to Chile, and for one reason or another, changed to another status.

First time I changed to a work visa. In the Santiago area, work visas are done by mail.

Another time I changed from tourist to temporary residency, and now after a year to permanent residency.

If you can change from tourist visa to resident. How do you qualify? Do you have to have some sort of work pre-arranged or is it just a simple paper exercise?

Basically, I'm arriving in Chile in April to live with my Chilean girlfriend. I don't plan to work for the first couple of months, so assume the only way I can enter is on a tourist visa. I then plan to seek residence/employment. Is this going to be difficult?

Thanks.

J.

For a work permit you have to find a job. In fact, you should not take a job with any company that is not going to help you get your visa. They are required by law to do it.

That said, it is fairly easy. Around Santiago you just mail in your application. As soon as you mail it, you are working legally while you wait for an answer. I am not aware of them rejecting anyones work visa. Perhaps, untrained workers from Peru or Bolivia.

admin wrote: Around Santiago you just mail in your application. As soon as you mail it, you are working legally while you wait for an answer. I am not aware of them rejecting anyones work visa. Perhaps, untrained workers from Peru or Bolivia.

Admin, is one able to work from the moment of sending in the application or does one have to wait until the "working permit with visa in process"?

You are good to go as soon as you mail it. I would get a receipt though for the mailing in the event anyone asks. If employers had to wait for immigration to process things, the countries economy would come to screeching halt.

thx!

admin wrote:You are good to go as soon as you mail it. I would get a receipt though for the mailing in the event anyone asks. If employers had to wait for immigration to process things, the countries economy would come to screeching halt.

Charles, do you have a source for this? I´m in contact with a possible employer about the visa process, and the FAQs of the Extranjeria (http://www.extranjeria.gov.cl/filesapp/ ... 202009.pdf), page three state that one has to wait until the "visa en tramite".

According to the link, written in black and white, specifies that you MUST wait til your resident visa is STAMPED on your passport.However....are there immigration officials checking if foreigners have their documentation in order? the answer to that is NO.

Hi. Similar question about exisiting in "limbo".

I have been living in Chile as a tourist for 8 months. I applied for temporary residency 1 month ago - though I am still in the application proccess! But I´m still waiting on my physical Visa so I can get my RUT and cedula. The man at La Extranjeria said that I could work during the application process so long as I turned in a "work contract" to advise the government that I was working. But I don´t know what to tell my employers about my legal status and how that affects getting paid/paying taxes. (I´m sick of people offering me under the table jobs or offering to pay a third party) So, Here are my questions:

1. How will I get paid and declare my taxes if I don´t have a RUT or a time card/ W2 equilivant? (I get a RUT in 2 months)

2. Does anyone know what type of contract is needed to work during this inbetween stage? Notarized, indefinite, etc.

Thanks!

O.k., I need to issue a general warning to everyone. THE ENTIRE IMMIGRATION SYSTEM IS BROKEN RIGHT NOW!!!

Be patient, and please, please, do not take anything you hear on the internet right now about how things work as the way things really work in regards to what is going on at immigration these days. Change a goverment and then shake it all around with an 8.8 earthquake, and you get some fairly odd things going on.

Whatever you hear from immigration may or may not be correct. The government just changed and we are hearing all kinds of crazy crap come out of the mouths of the guys at immigration offices these days, because either they do not know or their new bosses do not know. Which is no worse I guess than the former guys that did not know, but it is a different sort of not knowing.

As soon as you apply for residency, you can apply for a temporary work visa while it is being processed. Once you have your temp residency visa you can work as normal without one, but during the processing period you will need a separate work visa. Now, they use to issue those just at the time of applying without needing to even ask. Recently however they have switched to requiring a contract. We have even heard crazy things like they are telling some people that they need two contracts .