residency renewal/citizenship

Renewal of permanent residency is every 2 years at present. I renewed mine today; took little more than one hour and cost RD$3,450. No attorny needed for renewal. Very simple process: fill out one form, pay the fee, have your picture taken, receive the card.

Ken, please post the exact details of the whole perminent residency renewal process. I have to do just that next tuesday. What places we have to go. What paper work (ID) I would have to have with me and timings (hours) of the office and where to go and whom to talk and what line to avoid etc etc etc. Thanks in advance.
AZB

P.S. my cedula will expire 23rd of this month. Can I kill 2 birds with one stone? I mean, can I renew my cedula too (before expiration)? If you know the process of renewal, please post it here for everyone. Thanks.

AZB said:

Ken, please post the exact details of the whole perminent residency renewal process. I have to do just that next tuesday. What places we have to go. What paper work (ID) I would have to have with me and timings (hours) of the office and where to go and whom to talk and what line to avoid etc etc etc. Thanks in advance.
AZB

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Best to go in the morning. I don't know how early they close in the PM. We got to Inmigracion about 9 am. Inmigracion is no longer inside the heart of the city but on the way out of town on the Malecon. We went by cab so I can't be specific about directions.

When you go through the main entrance door, go into the big room at the right. I believe the room on left is for Dominicans getting passports or something.

In the far corner by the window wall, you will see a row of booths. The 2 booths closest to the wall have a little sign above indicating they are for "residencias"

We were first directed to the booth second from the wall, given 2 forms (one for me and one for Barbara) and charged RD$40. I assume it is RD$20/form. You just fill in basic info, such as name, address, cedula number and passport number, then you go back to one of those two windows with form and old residencia card and pay the fee. For us it was RD$3450 each. They tell you to sit down and wait to be called for your picture. Soon, you will hear your name called on the loud speaker to go to department extranjeria. The door to this department is reached by walking through the counter area that is along same wall as booths, but farthest from the window wall. Inside, someone will poiint you to the photo area. You have your picture taken, then go out and wait near that counter area. Soon someone will come out with your card. You sign for it, and you are done.

The whole process took us about an hour or so. Very, very different, as you know, from the days when we went to the 6th floor of that other building and waited while they searched through tons of files that they had stuffed in evey nook and cranny.

The whole process was handled very smoothly from start to finish. If all government offices in the DR worked as well as this one seems to, the country would be in much better shape.

Good luck, I'll be interested to know if your your experience is as positive as ours was.

Thanks Ken for the prompt response. It sure has taken off a big load off my back. I was afraid i would have been stuck there for 6 hours.
Anyway, please re-read my post as I have added another request there.
Thanks again.

AZB said:

P.S. my cedula will expire 23rd of this month. Can I kill 2 birds with one stone? I mean, can I renew my cedula too (before expiration)? If you know the process of renewal, please post it here for everyone. Thanks.

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AZB, I renewed my cedula recently. I don't know about renewing in advance, but since it is so close to the date, I think it is worth the try. You don't need to show your cedula to renew your residencia, but you do need to show an uptodate residencia to renew your cedula. Before I renewed mine, I emailed the office to see what I needed to do. This is the reply:

Buenos d?as,

Para renovar su c?dula como extranjero, debe pasar por el Departamento de Cedulaci?n de Extranjeros ubicado en la sede principal de la Junta Central Electoral en la Av. 27 de Febrero esquina Av. Gregorio Luper?n, en Santo Domingo de Guzm?n, D. N., de Lunes a Viernes en horario de 8:00 a.m. a 1:45 p.m.

Debe traer:

* Residencia al d?a
* Pasaporte
* C?dula anterior

Saludos,


Lic. Delta V. Fern?ndez P?rez
Enc. de Capacitaci?n
Supervisor de Entrenamientos
Distrito Nacional, Provincia Santo Domingo, y Zona Este

If this isn't enough, let me know.

AZB It's Easy!!

AZB - as Ken said - It's easy and you can do it all yourself!!
Residencia - all as per Ken's clear and precise instructions but you do need your passport! Took me all of 17 minutes from start to end - I must have an honest face or be really lucky!! That's all done at the immigration offices on the Malecon. 2 years before we need to do it again!
Cedula - you have to go to the Junta Central Electoral at that huge roundabout on the outskirts of SD - nightmare to find a parking spot!! Wander along the road with the huge office block which looks like a warehouse with a loading dock on the left!! Smile sweetly at the guard and enter the small door. Ignore the waiting room on the right, smile sweetly at the young lady at the desk siting in front of the 2 non descript doors directy in front of you - it pays to pretend that you know her from before - be smooth and nice!! Enter the low ceiling room full of people and go see the girl at the desk on the left - she will direct you to the next girl on the left!! Keep being smmoth, chatty and nice! She needs to see your old cedula, passport and residencia. If it's not too busy then she will direct you to one of 2 tables where there are totally bored officials sitting in front of PC's and the web cams. They're normally doing something else as they get very bored - usually listening to merengue on CD Walkman!!
Smile sweetly and follow their instructions - if the PC's are working then it's a breeze and will all be over in minutes!! They call you up on their screens and then take your picture and your fingerprints and your signature digitally, then you wait a few minutes for the last girl on the right desk to make the card!!
I'm still being nice and sweet to everyone and this seems to work as voila.... a new Cedula which expires in 2010!!!!!!! By the way there does not seem to be any payment for this???? AND I found that around 12 noon seemed to be the best and quietest time to achieve your aim.
Good luck????
Peter

As Peter and Alex indicated, the process of getting a cedula is very fast. I've been there twice recently, once to renew mine and once to show my wife where it was. Both times there were about 4 times more employees than were needed for the job. I suppose voting in May is the real reason they are there.

Re passport when you renew your residencia, we had ours but nobody asked to see them. We needed the number for the form we filled out, but that was all.

For the cedula, they want to see it. This makes a job for one of the many employees usually in that small office.

A person born of a Dominican father or mother has the right to acquire Dominican citizenship by virtue of Article 11 of the Constitution and Article 26 of Law 1683 of 1948. The steps to be taken are the following:

1) Petition to the Minister of Interior.

2) Affidavit prepared by a Notary Public in which the applicant states his wish to apply for Dominican citizenship.

3) Birth certificate of the applicant, authenticated at a Dominican Consulate and translated into Spanish by an official translator.

4) Birth certificate of the applicant?s Dominican parent.

5) 4 pictures, 2 x 2 inches.

6) Application and newspaper fees.

The residency process is not really any faster if a parent is Dominican.

To acquire citizenship by virtue of Art. 11 of the Constitution, the person born of a Dominican parent must be 18 or older, that is, he or she must have reached legal age.

Ken said:

Renewal of permanent residency is every 2 years at present. I renewed mine today; took little more than one hour and cost RD$3,450. No attorny needed for renewal. Very simple process: fill out one form, pay the fee, have your picture taken, receive the card.

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Ken, I paid 2,300 plus for my residency renewal including the 500 pesos for the VIP service. I paid a thousand pesos less that you have. Maybe you had a typo error in your figure?
yes, the process was very straight forward as ken described but you must re-read all the data they print on the card. I have had wrong address printed on my residency card and my citizenship was printed as pakistani (after I had present them with my american passport). They had it all cleared up at the spot and re-issued me another card with correct info.

Now all foreigners must remember that your cedula does not expire on your birthday of the year that is printed on the card but instead it expires on the 31st of december of that same year. They use the same card for both dominicans and foreigners and for dominicans it expires on their date of birth (as it says on the card). Ex: my card says it will expire on 23rd of this month (my birthdate) but in reality it will expire on the 31st of dec, 2004.
AZB