Useful Information Before Applying for Long-Term Visit Pass

Summary

Number of marriages between Singapore citizen and foreigner is increasing.

Factors considered when applying for Long-Term Visit Pass, Permanent Residency and Citizenship:

• Sponsor's occupation.
• Sponsor's income.
• Foreign Spouse's education level; degree holders have better chance.
• Children.
• Good conduct.
• Ability to contribute to society.

Those who earn below S$1500 a month (referring to sponsor) usually have a harder time to get their application approved.

Summary

A 34 years old Singaporean man Mr. Leo, managed to obtain PR for his wife from China in less than one year after their marriage in Nov 2011, but he has not forgotten about his fellow Singaporeans with foreign spouse, following was what he said:

If the couple is truly in love, really married, they should let them (foreign spouse) come, rather than send one overseas, every month have to go there or what, it's very tiring, yeah, in the end we also will move over there, we also will give up Singapore citizenship.

Summary

Mr. Kang has been trying for 3 years to apply PR for his wife from China but has been unsuccessful, and their application for Long-Term Visit Pass wasn't easy, it took them more than 5 tries and they finally got it after appealing to Hougang MP Desmond Choo. Mr. Kang hopes for more transparency in the criteria for LTVP application and reasons for rejection.

My Thoughts

I agree with Mr. Kang about the part where ICA should be more transparent with the application criteria and reasons for rejection, but not just for LTVP, for all applications, at least specify clearly why the application was rejected so people can work towards meeting their criteria, don't give half-assed replies or omit the reason for rejection. Imagine taking an exam and the teacher fails you without telling you why, yeah, it's that stupid, and imagine going home and telling your mom that you failed and you have no idea why, it just doesn't even make sense.

I remember the time when they rejected my wife's application for PR, it took them 6 months to reply via a mail, and all they said was something like this, "Sorry we have carefully considered your application for PR but it's rejected.", I bet they must have been really careful, it took them 6 months of careful consideration to send out the rejection letter with no reason, and the letter including the header and footer is probably no more than 100 words. I can tell you I was damn pissed off.