New rules for obtaining secondary residency visa

Spokesperson for the Interior Ministry (MAI) Monica Dajbog announced on Monday new rules for secondary residency visas for Romanian citizens that entered into force this September.

"The Directorate for the Registration of Persons and the Administration of Databases has introduced new additional verification measures for the addresses where a high number of applications for residency is found. These have also been sent to the local registration of people services to be enforced. In all cases where applications for the establishment of residency are registered, the applicant shall state in a bona fide declaration that he or she resides for more than 15 days at the secondary residency address. The declaration shall be recorded on the application, in front of the registrar," Dajbog told a news briefing at the MAI headquarters.

She specified that, upon receipt of the application for the establishment of a secondary residency, at the level of the local community public service for the registration of persons, the following activities will be carried out: the number of valid residency recordings at the address will be checked in the database, and if at least two valid residency recordings are found at the address, the local police will be informed, in order to carry out on site verifications to see whether or not the applicants actually reside at the stated address.

"If the checks carried out by the police show that the persons concerned do not actually live at the stated address, their applications will be rejected. Checks will also be ordered if a large number of applications are submitted for one and the same address /distinct addresses," Dajbog added.

She mentioned that the cases in which applications are submitted successively at relatively short time intervals for the same address will be taken into account, and by "large number of requests" is meant a number that exceeds daily, weekly or monthly averages .

These measures are designed to monitor the necessary conditions for granting secondary residency visas are met by citizens with the right to vote and verify their legality in case of a significant movement in the number of persons applying for secondary residency in a certain constituency is detected.

"These steps are in line with the general plan of measures approved by Interior Minister Marcel Vela for the smooth running of the local elections on September 27. The Interior Ministry will take all measures to carry out a fair, legal and unbiased electoral process," said Dajbog.