And to finish..... as a citizen, I too have no passport.....
I use my Cdn one
The RD passport isn't that good for travel..... too many restrictions
I use my Cdn one
The RD passport isn't that good for travel..... too many restrictions
- Thread starter windeguy
- Start date
My Documents for Citizenship Were Accepted
My Dominican husband hasn't had a Dominican passport in decades. He travels with his American passport.
Thanks everyone, very good to know, as I was a bit puzzled by her answer. As when the process was over I thanked her and said that I was not going to get the passport as I also don't deem it necessary, as a Sweden citizen there are few places where it would be advantageous to use the Dominican passport over my Swedish one. So she answered me that I had to do it, and I wondered why, then she told me that "migration no trabaja con cedula, solo con pasaporte y tarjeta de residencia" so basically if I didn't get the passport I would always have to pax overstay taxes when I left. Which just sounded crazy, but nothing would surprise me here.
Which I just noticed when trying to open a local bank account (I don't have a local one, as I don't see any reason to personally) and they told me that although being Dominican they needed my Swedish passport (which is currently expired). So although being "Dominican" in certain circumstances I'm still not treated like a Dominican.
Which I just noticed when trying to open a local bank account (I don't have a local one, as I don't see any reason to personally) and they told me that although being Dominican they needed my Swedish passport (which is currently expired). So although being "Dominican" in certain circumstances I'm still not treated like a Dominican.
My husband was born in Santo Domingo, and he needed to present his American passport for BHD Bank too, so don't feel as though you were treated differently. He got a little huffy about it though, haha.
No, I know that I'm not treated differently, it's just a joke. Because when my wife (who only have her Dominican passport) opened a bank account in the same bank (also BHD) they only required her cedula and that's that. Because one of the reasons why I've not bothered opening a local bank account expect for not finding a good reason for it, is that they all require a bunch of papers I cannot provide. Popular requires me to provide tax returns from my country of origin. But I've not lived and paid taxes in Sweden for almost 10 years. So I don't have any tax returns to provide.
And thinking of it afterwards, I should have responded that I don't have another passport. Because when I acquired the citizenship I could have just as easily renounced my Swedish citizenship, or as Germans, they are not allowed to have dual citizenship. So how would I be able to present a foreign national passport if I've not got any?
But that just came to me afterwards. 😂😅
I asked my lawyer about this...... she disagrees with your lawyer
No need for a passport w/ citizenship
No need for a passport w/ citizenship
You do not need to get a passport, just like most Dominicans do not have one. But I recommend having your lawyer get one for you as it is included in the fee for most. Good to have.
An example, I was in Buenos Aires about 12 years ago and had money transferred there by Money Gram. I went to a bank to get it with my US passport. It was impossible with all the forms and questions. I got fed up and left and went to another bank with my DR Passport and got the money immediately. Was all the US BS the bank had to fill out.
Quite possibly true..... my Cdn passport works well worldwide
Same cannot be said for a US passport... I agree
Same cannot be said for a US passport... I agree
True, but if a Dominican wants to leave the country they actually do need a passport
Well in my case, I kind of struck a deal with my lawyer. She is actually kind of a friend (we have mutual friends). And normally when doing this entire process she has a flat rate for everything, but she also does residencies and renewals. And as wanted to try to expand her business she was actually at that time not taking any personal fees for doing renewals as for them it's very simple and can be done in "bulk" so to speak. But instead of her doing all the small work, like getting the different documents, she just guided her clients on how to obtain them themselves and then did the "dirty work" with DGM. So we came to an agreement, that I would do all the paperwork, get all papers that I could get on my own, and if I needed assistance in any way I could just contact her and she'd assist me. So I only used her services during the citizenship process. So I would still have to pay the $100 for the passport and go and get it, something that hasn't felt worth it.And personally, I only did the citizenship because I didn't want to continue paying forever to stay here, and I won't probably have any benefit of having the Dominican passport as the Swedish one gives "access" to 176 countries without a Visa. So that's almost the entire world. So I don't think I'll end up in a situation like that. 😅
Here is what my friend , a lawyer , answered when I sent the thread to read -
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Saw the whole thread.
He doesn’t need a dominican passport, that is optional. I was born in the US, hold ONLY a US passport and show my cedula for the rest of my dominican activities, I only use passport to travel because it obviously offers more.
What I do to avoid overstay fee is that I show my cedula when leaving the DR (like last week) and when asked for my returning ticket coming back to DR from the US I show my cedula which means I also have dominican citizenship and I don’t need to present a returning ticket back to the US. It has been like this for me at least for 12 years and it was still this way last week.
A different case: my parents were born in DR, both hold cedulas and only have a US passport.
Related to the bank:
One thing that happens to me that will never happen to my parents, is that every time I want any product from the Bank they have to wait clearance from the US government to give me even a savings account, because although I apply for whatever product as a dominican with my cedula, they can see that I also hold a US citizenship because the cedula says “place of birth MA, USA”, this never will happen to my parents because the bank is not able to see that they have dual citizenship as their cedula says “place of birth Bani”.
Unless my parents inform the bank of having a second nationality, the bank will never report their activities to the US as they don’t know.
Hopefully this gives you a better understanding of why this attorney/friend of the new Dominican was confused.
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Saw the whole thread.
He doesn’t need a dominican passport, that is optional. I was born in the US, hold ONLY a US passport and show my cedula for the rest of my dominican activities, I only use passport to travel because it obviously offers more.
What I do to avoid overstay fee is that I show my cedula when leaving the DR (like last week) and when asked for my returning ticket coming back to DR from the US I show my cedula which means I also have dominican citizenship and I don’t need to present a returning ticket back to the US. It has been like this for me at least for 12 years and it was still this way last week.
A different case: my parents were born in DR, both hold cedulas and only have a US passport.
Related to the bank:
One thing that happens to me that will never happen to my parents, is that every time I want any product from the Bank they have to wait clearance from the US government to give me even a savings account, because although I apply for whatever product as a dominican with my cedula, they can see that I also hold a US citizenship because the cedula says “place of birth MA, USA”, this never will happen to my parents because the bank is not able to see that they have dual citizenship as their cedula says “place of birth Bani”.
Unless my parents inform the bank of having a second nationality, the bank will never report their activities to the US as they don’t know.
Hopefully this gives you a better understanding of why this attorney/friend of the new Dominican was confused.
Thank you very much for this message.
Personally, I don't think that she is unaware of how it works actually. Just that during the time while I used her services, she was both pregnant, and also I was bothering her about EVERYTHING. So I guess both she was a bit fed up with me, but also that she explained to me several interesting things. Like for example at least during the last administration, they changed the DGM "boss" several times, and every time a new one came he changed a lot of things. So for her as a residency lawyer, it was quite annoying and difficult to keep up with all the changes. So I might guess that just to be on the safe side she told me to get the passport, just in case anytime in the future they would require a passport to show citizenship or whatever.
Because she has been in this "business" for at least 10-15 years. So she is not a rookie, and I don't think she was deceiving me, as I actually happened to have a bad experience with another lawyer, who in one way cheated me. I tried getting citizenship like 6 years ago, and after waiting 1 year on the process, that at that time was only like 1 month or something. The lawyer told me that DGM had been really difficult with my case and whatnot, just because in Sweden we don't have "birth-certificates" we have something that is called an extract from the social registry (or something translated like that), that provides a lot of other information, not the only date of birth and so on. The issue is that you can have different extracts, depending on what information has to be on that extract. So what I had deposited was not the correct one. But instead of telling me that, the lawyer just complained that DGM doesn't want to listen, they don't want to assist and whatever. And finally, the lawyer told me that would have to do the process again as the timeframe had expired. I got most of my money back, but then I heard the reason why there was really an issue, was that the lawyer had been using money from other clients to resolve other client's cases. So instead of actually working on my case, the lawyer had been using my payments to resolve other issues, and because of that the timeframe expired.
So because of that, I lost about 3 years in renovations and stuff.
But anyway.
Okay, with the bank, that was the same explanation as they could see that I was not born in DR, they required of me my passport from my country of origin.
But as I wrote earlier, there are many countries that don't accept multiple citizenships, like for example Germany. Although I've yet to come across anyone that has taken the DR citizenship and then refused their birth one. When I got the Dominican citizenship I could have renounced my Swedish citizenship, so then I wouldn't have any foreign national passport.
So I should have asked about that, cause that is actually a viable possibility. So then in theory I could hold government office (expect president or VP) but I would not be able to have a bank account (at least in that bank).
A bank needing to see your foreign passport sounds wrong if you are a naturalized DR citisen.. Of course, I could be wrong about that.
Well I would NEVER have done it on my own, as just being at DGM when doing the renewal was stressful to me, and then I didn't have to do anything basically. But it was just CAOS every year.
And from what my lawyer explained, one year the process could be done "this" way and then the next year just because the Director in charge of DGM was replaced it was completely different, and without basically telling you anything. So I would NEVER have done that process on my own, and if I did it would probably have been SO much more expensive, as I live in Sosúa and just travelling down to SD is at least an entire day.
So I appreciated that I didn't have to worry, could just let her do all the "heavy lifting".
Yes , you are correct, but once I got my cedula the BHD was perfectly happy to change my account identification document to my Cedula.
Okay, no idea what this has to do with anything.
In the 10 years, I've lived here, I've not opened any bank account, as I've not got any income from local work and I've not really found any personal reason to have one, as it would only be an expense. For me, it's worked fine just using an ATM, as the only charge I have is 1.25% in a currency exchange fee from my bank. And as there is no cooperation between DR and Sweden, there are no options to make any bank transfers between the banks, anyways.
So I still think it's a bit "strange" that they require a foreign passport to be able to open a bank account (at least in BHD Leon), if I'm supposed to be treated just like any other Dominican citizen.
They don't use a passport for US reporting requirements. The bank NEVER asked for mine. Just my Social Security Number.
That is why I questioned the need for a PASSPORT!. They asked for my cedula when I was a resident, and then a few years back for my Social Security number when the US FATCA regulations were being enforced.
If you are a Dominican citizen you dont require any passport, foreign or local, just your cedula. Americans are treated different than the rest because of the American government requirements for keeping an eye of their citizens banking activities.