Swedish citizenship and passports

[same_sky]

I have a few questions, and I know some of you are ideally suited for answering them. M needs to renew his Swedish passport here in the US. From what I understand, he needs to physically appear at a consulate to submit his application, and physically appear to pick the thing up. (Link.) Have any of you had to do this?

Second part--Swedish citizenship for a child born abroad. I remember that Dawn did this recently. Same rules, right? Appear in person and do.. something? I can't even find a good link on that one, though admittedly I didn't search too hard before deciding to ask people who know what they're talking about. Is that one trip or two?

The thing that's irritating is that the closest consulates from here are St Louis and Cleveland. A quickie city-to-city Google map search shows that St. Louis is five hours from here, and Cleveland five and a half. On one hand, it wouldn't be too annoying to jaunt over to St. Louis (I've never been) and have a little pre-baby getaway. Jaunting over twice is really pushing it. Jaunting over twice with a baby... now, that would just suck. M is of the opinion that driving over twenty hours isn't worth it just to have a Swedish passport and the questionably exciting ability to be able to choose either line as we travel over and back (especially since he'll have to wait on me anyway--he's gone through the slow line with me in the past anyway.) His American passport (which we also don't have, but it's on the list of things to do) is all he really needs anyway.

And while I'm at it, once a Swedish driver's license has expired, is it gone for good and no hope of renewing it? That's what someone, from some officialish website, told M in email when he asked. His license expired, and while he's pretty zen about it, as he can still drive in Sweden with his American license for any trip we make, it bugs me on some level and I think they should give it back to him, by golly.

Comments

[dbrus.livejournal.com]

Not the answer you want...you have to go to the consulate twice for the baby passport. At least we do, maybe if you live further away there is an exception. That reminds me, ours should be ready soon!

Luckily I work about 4 blocks from the NYC consulate. I know, why don't you take a trip to NYC and visit us and apply ;)

[same-sky.livejournal.com]

Baby passport, but.. are there no special forms to fill out to get her citizenship? Or is that assumed if you get the passport? Anyway, I was thinking it would be twice. That is really NOT the answer I was hoping for, but I was expecting it at least. :)

[dbrus.livejournal.com]

From what we heard from skatteverket in Sweden and the consulate, the baby is automatically Swedish. The only proof of the Swedishness is the receipt of a "samordningsnummer" which is like a provisional personnumer. They don't get a personnummer until if and when they actually reside in Sweden. The samordningsnummer is assigned by the consulate or one specific tax office in Sweden. At the consulate it seemed like a joint deal...apply, get your # (we just got Max's in the mail) and they process your passport after that.

[e11en.livejournal.com]

That's what we did for Ingrid. It was a one shot deal, samordningsnummer and passport in one go. The difference being back then you didn't have to show up in person and now you do. Hence Anders still doesn't have his.

I've always heard that if you're dual, you're supposed to use the passport of the country you are entering, so Swedish in Sweden and US on the way back. We did this with Ingrid the first couple of trips. It works but it winds up with you having zero stamps in your passport, which is a little weird.

I have more links at the office computer so I'll come back to this tomorrow when I'm at that machine.

[same-sky.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info! That makes sense, though it seems surprisingly uncomplicated, except for the two trip thing. I am not done whining about that yet, apparently. It would almost be less hassle to GO TO SWEDEN than make this stupid trip twice, and that's just wrong. I suppose it's the first-time parent/over-planner in me that's making it seem so urgent that we get it taken care of right away. ;)

[e11en.livejournal.com]

Ok, from the Swedish Consulate's website:
"The U.S. State Department requires that all U.S. citizens, including those who have dual citizenship, must be in possession of a valid U.S. passport when leaving and entering the U.S. It is thus advisable for dual citizens to bring both passports when traveling internationally."

http://www.swedenabroad.com/pages/general____33207.asp

Instead of jaunting over to St. Louis twice (over and back for M's passport, over and back for Ducky's), why not just wait until Ducky makes her appearance and do them both at the same time? The info on the link says you are supposed to bring "The old passport, valid or expired" so there's no reason why M needs to go over there before Ducky is born, just because his Swedish passport is going to expire. When we get around to it, we will renew G's and Ingrid's and get Anders all squared away at the same time on the same one trip.

As for the driver's license, Vägverket's site is exceedingly unhelpful. I couldn't find anything about expired licenses on it yet it surely must happen to people, even those living in Sweden. It only said you would be sent a form 2-3 months before your license was to due to expire. But then somewhere else it said they could only do that for people living in Sweden. From what I could find, they would appear to allow Swede's living abroad to retain valid Swedish licenses, despite the fact that they haven't lived there for ten years. Whether or not you can renew it after the old one expired because you simply forgot that it was going to, I haven't been able to find any info. It tells you to get the form from your consulate. So I guess you could try to kill that bird with that stone while you're there too.

[same-sky.livejournal.com]

You're swell. *laugh*

That will be the plan, waiting until Ducky is here to go with us... but it will still be two trips if we have to apply in person and then pick it up in person. I just wish we could get the travelling out of the way before she arrives, but I'm aware that makes no sense if she needs to be with us. (I am just in need of a vacation, I think!) Actually, I thought Cleveland was closer than it is, so I hadn't been worried about it at all until yesterday, when it occured to me to look into all of this stuff. I figure we'll ask about the license and they'll say no and M will look smug and say "I told you so". ;)

[e11en.livejournal.com]

I have the good folks on Amerikanska on the job. I can't read enough Swedish to tell if we've found some promising info or not, however, so it will have to wait until G can look at it.

His license is waaaaay expired though. As I sat here reading (in my poorly accented Swedish) all of the bureaucratic Swedish to him over the phone, he got curious about just how out of date his license was. He went home at lunch just to look (and eat) and oops, 2003.

[same-sky.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. I just wish that it didn't require TWO trips to a consulate! Thanks for the info. :)

[mayna.livejournal.com]

Hey cleveland is only 2 hrs from here! ;-)

[same-sky.livejournal.com]

I really thought Cleveland was closer to here than it was, so I hadn't even been considering the travel time as an obstacle. I actually think I had been switching Cleveland with Columbus so in my head, it was even closer to you than two hours!