Just did my permanent (definitiva) residency!

If you folks have your provisional card and now are willing to get the permanent card; good news for you all.
First of all, its not so dificult as you might think. The precedure is all computerized and goes through alot quicker than before; in adition, the immigration department is willing to help you get your legal status straightened out as soon as possible without the complications of getting a lawyer to do it all for you.
There is a form that you can get from the immigration office which tells you what proper documents that you need to have presented to their office. Please note: the information form is not complete as you will need other documents as well.
First: take the proper numbers of pictures as reguired for the paperwork. Then go to your local public office and pay 51 pesos, fee for the police report. Then take that receipt to the local police station, along with your photo-copy (always both sides) of your cedula a frontal 2x2 inches foto. They will give you the police report in 3 days.
You would need a lawyer to fil out the proper paper work, ex: referances of 2 people that you know. You, yourself may fill out the application form to solicit the residencia. But the main hurdle is getting a dominican to sign a gurantee form which would make him responsible for your debts if you choose to flee the country in case of problems; also he would have to be responsible for paying your trip back to your country of origin if you happen to get yourself deported from here for any particular reason. To find a person like this would be a challenge to most of us foreigners. I advise all of you foreigners to please socialize with dominicans and begin to know them instead of living in your own communities (ex: costambar, boca chica, sosua etc). Some where along the line you would always need help of a dominican for referances and for signing gurantee forms.
I was lucky enough to have more than one person willing to sign for me as I socialize with mostly dominicans from better, well to do families. Oh, yes, that person has to have a good job or a well-to-do running business in order for him to qualify as a guarantor. A dominican who is out of work or does not possess enough resources to be able to qualify as a guarantor is useless to the immigration office.
Now find a lawyer who will make out 2 letters, one for the guarantor and the other letter for the referances. He/She should only charge you a small fee for that work. Then he/she would have to go to santo domingo's supreme court to have the proper stamps and seals put on. So make sure you know a lawyer who goes to santo domingo on regular bases and knows a few things about residencia as many lawyers claim to know about the process but in actuality they have to open up the books to find out the info which, in most cases, is already obsolete.
Take the lawyer with you to the immigration office with your paper work along with your passport and pay the proper fees (1000 pesos) for the medical exam and then go to clinica bella arte to have your blood tested and a have a chest x ray taken. Thats all is needed for the whole exam. Now submit all of the papers in the immgration office and come back in 3 months to pick up your card.
The whole process in santo domingo shouldn't take more than 3 hours but I was unfortunate enough to have a group of 30 koreans in front of me so it took me forever to get my things done. I always had to wait behind 30 koreans in every line and in every procedure; but normally there aren't many people there ahead of you.
Good luck!
P.S. it only costed me 1000 pesos for the medical, 161 pesos in the legal stamps as my provisional residencia was expired by more than a year. I payed a few pasos in foto-copies and the trip back and forth.... I expect to pay about 1000 pesos to the lawyer for her services as she was already in santo domingo doing other legal paper work for another client in the immigration office.

Thanks Your advise it is very useful. Do you know if my wife who is Dominican can be my guarantour? When is the dead line for this special offer set by the president?

Special offer...President...What?

Please help. I don't know what I missed but I haven't read about a special offer by the President.

Re: no special offer, just straight procedure.

I am sorry, but i made no mention of a special offer by the president or by any other immigration official. Its just a simple straight forward procedure that you would have to follow in order to get the residencia.
There is no deadline to do the residency; its just i had read thet the gov't was issuing a 45 days grace period to straighten out your residency status before they crack down on the illegal aliens.
Drake, your wife can become your gurantour if she qualifies. Ex: she must have a good source of income from having an established business or money stashed away in bank account or some way of convencing the immigration office that she has the resources to support you in case of emergency; ex:if you get deported, then she must come up with your airfare to the country of your origin, if you owe debts to someone and happen to have a court ruling against you then she would have to cover the money if you don't have a way to come up yourself....etc.
Do you understand me? its clear if your wife is from a not so wealthy family then she may not qualify.
My gurantour is a wealthy man who owns the whole building where i have my office.
Good luck.

Why bother.

Every few years the government be it PRD, PLD or PRSC threatens to enforce the immigration laws and warns everyone to get their residencia within a certain deadline. I know hundreds of people here who own businesses, work, own property, cars, etc for 10 to 20 years with no problem. No one has even asked to see their residencia or cedula. I have a friend who has been in the DR for 25 years and was never asked to show his cedula or residencia.

Your residency application says in big letters on page one that residency status is no guarantee against deportation. Most people that I know who were deported had a valid residencia and were married to Dominicans! I should add that they were bad boys and richly deserved to be deported.

I feel sorry for all the people that go through the hassles and expense of legalizing their status in the DR including finding a guarantor and depositing RD 500,000 pesos (what happened to that)
while being surrounded by expats who have been here much longer and never bothered.

Everything that I have said above does not apply to Haitians. Even Dominicans have been deported if their skin was too dark.

Re: Yeah, why no mention of 1/2 mill. pesos?

This financial requirement was added to the residency process during the former government's last year in office. It wasn't enforced until the current government took over and started doing everything they could to get rid of the many foreign undesirables who slither along the shores of this fair island. There is also a financial responsibility requirement for aliens in the US, so what the DR is doing is not unique, just enforcing it now is a break from tradition.

Residency

AZB
My wife is a senior executive for one of the largest local corporations in the DR. She should qualify. Thanks again for the advice. I might need some further advice though when I get things rolling. I have the forms at least.

For definitiva residency, no 500,000 pesos!

I was not asked to deposit 500,000 pesos in any bank account. I think it was the requirement for the provisional card (temporary). Thats why I had used a lawyer and paid 11000 pesos for her services to do the first part (provisional, about 2 yrs ago. She did what she had to do to get me the first part of the residencia but for the definitiva residencia status, you don't need to deposit any money here.
So please understand me correctly, I am only talking about the definitiva part of the residency status.
The provisional (first part) was more difficult and I had to use a lawyer to get me through but the second part is much more easier to do.
About the need for residency in DR.
If you live near a beach location and only live to drink and spend time strolling from bar to bar then you better off staying the way you are, however, if you are a foreigner who wants to live and work in this country for a long time and would like to be safe and secured legally, must get your papers straight.
There was a time when people were simply picked up from their business and from street and were deported to their country of origin, only because they had no proper papers to stay here. Their visa or the tourist card may have been expired a long time ago.
So why take a chance, do it legally and stay assured that you will be protected.
Have a nice day.

Re: For definitiva residency, no 500,000 pesos!

Two years ago the requirement for 500,000 pesos was just starting, and it was for the temporary. You got in under the wire. An employment contract may do as well. Retired or self employed, pay up please.

Re: For definitiva residency, no 500,000 pesos!

Two years ago when you did your provisional residency the $500,000rd financial responsibility requirement was not part of the process. It was implemented just last year.
The second part, the permanent residency, of the process may be easier (as you have stated) but the first part, the temporary, has become so complicated that having a lawyer do it for you is the most painless way to achieve this.
After waiting 3 months for a never-recieved promised telephone call from the medical office that the test results were ready (one of the ladies was having a baby and this delayed everything), three trips to Santo Domingo, being run around from office to office, being denied entrance into the Dominican Chancellory because I had on Bermuda shorts and sandals ( men need long pants and regular shoes), having to assist clerks who could not read or even find names on a list, being given erroneous information because no one knew the procedure and being given two different sets of procedural instructions, we gave up and turned everything over to our lawyer. And shortly when everything is ready, we still have to go back to Santo Domingo for yet a fourth trip to get our cedulas. When you figure that it costs over $100usd per day spent in SD (hotel, food, transportation, etc), the $1,000usd or so the lawyers charge most foreigners is not too far out of line.

Re: Yeah, why no mention of 1/2 mill. pesos?

Andy

You are correct, there is a requierement in the US, however it does not have to be a lump sum. If you can show a yearly income above certain levels then you qualify. If you can not show the income, then you need to have the assets in hand. I do not disagree with it, just wonder why they could not include people that might have a yearly income from pensions, or royalities or what ever.

Jerry