British citizen's right to live/work

[User]

Hi All,

Can anybody point to any information that lists, where all, a british citizen can live & work without any work visas?

I am sure that the list will include the entire list EU of countries plus the Switzerland.
Any others?

Ta!

regards.

[John]

Actually not "EU plus Switzerland" but instead "EEA plus Switzerland".

Fancy living and working in Iceland or Norway?

[rogerroger]

i guess the countireis in the EU or a subset of the countiries in the EEA?

which are the extra countiries in the EEA which are nto part of the EU?


so with a british passport, one can work in switzerland?

[John]

The EEA countries not also in the EU are Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. A lot more detail here.

Actually, as regards the 10 countries that joined the EU in May last year, there could well be transitional arrangements that might stop British Citizens living and working there at the moment, well certainly working without a work permit. If you intend to live and work in any of those 10 countries then check out the transitional arrangements in detail.

But nevertheless that still leaves the countries in the EU prior to last May's expansion, plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, plus Switzerland as well.

[davidm]

John, even in EEA countries, there are requirements which have to be met for an EU citizen to live and work. For example, in the case of Norway- if you want to live or work for more than 3 months, you have to get a residence permit. For this you have to go the police, fill in a form, produce proof that you have a place to live (rent agreement or proof of owning property), produce a job offer (or proof of sufficient money to ensure live without claiming public funds if you don't have a job). They give you a residence permit for 2-5 years which has to be renewed once it expires on the basis of same criteria.
I am sure other Scandinavian countries has similar rules.

[John]

Davidm, not disagreeing with you at all, but what in effect this all means is that if you have met all the necessary conditions to exercise your treaty rights then a Residence Permit will be granted .. except in exceptional circumstances such as related to state security etc.

[Kayalami]

Recall an aspect of revised EU/EEA Treaty of Rome regulation to include inter alia; residence, movement, emeployment etc leading to scrapping of the Residence Permit requirement for member nationals in another member state sometime in 2006. AFAIK this is already the case in France and The Netherlands.

[davidm]

Recall an aspect of revised EU/EEA Treaty of Rome regulation to include inter alia; residence, movement, emeployment etc leading to scrapping of the Residence Permit requirement for member nationals in another member state sometime in 2006. AFAIK this is already the case in France and The Netherlands.

AFAIK, Germany allows non EU people with work permits from another EU country to work there with minimum fuss and that other EU countries are in the process of doing the same. So some day we will have a common EU work permit (I used to have three differenct work permits before I got my UK citizenship)