How can a moderator give such bad advice ,,Firstly it is the LAW that if you are here for more than 6 months in the year you need a tarjeta de residencia and a cedula so if you are the sort of person that breaks the laws of your host country , then forget about the visa . If you are here for more than 3 months and you are driving on your home country drivers licence and if you have an accident , then your insurance company are not obliged to cover you and you can find yourself in deep trouble with the police .You will need your Dominican cedula to obtain your Dominican drivers licence and also retain your home country licence.
Now as to the ease of obtaining your residency card , you first need to obtain a residency visa in your home country or a country nearby ,,,that is stamped in your passport and then you go to the Department of immigration in El Malecon in Santo Domingo for the process to obtain your residency card. That can be done byyourself but it is time consuming and a lawyer , who does this work regularly can get the process done much more quickly you will have topay him a fee and also money for the residency card and also a bit more money to oil the system at the office.Then with your residency card you go to the office near rotunda de la Bandera to get your cedula...that process is easy .. You will have to do the process every year but each year you become more experienced and it is a comfort to know that you are abiding by the laws of the Dominican Republic