Help please. My wife and I are emigrating to Bonaire from the UK, hopefully in early October. We have sold our house and everything is in place for the move. Our only concern is our residency application, we would like to have started it before we leave but have been told to wait,we have our police clearance and medical reports in hand ready. We have been trying to contact Juliet (above sunbelt)but she appears to have vanished!any suggestions? if we start the process on the island, do we have to declare our intentions to customs or go in as tourists, do we need a return ticket? any info would be appreciated.

You would have to enter the island as a tourist and have a continuing ticket off island. Don't tell immigration at the airport. This would only confuse them. Until you have a resident's permit in hand you are tourist. Friends that purchased a business here were able to get temporary permits until they got their regular permits completed.

Thanks Linda,
do you happen to know the maximum stay on the island as I would be looking to purchase return tickets to travel back to the UK at Christmas

Max stay is 90 days.

We highly recommend Agnes Joosten who is currently assisting us with the paperwork for residency. Her phone #'s are 717-8812, 717-4636. She is wonderful and responds to all our questions and concerns with patience. She of course understands all the deadlines and requirements which apparently keep changing. Make sure you get apostilled birth certificates-we learned these are different from "Certificates of Birth."

Thanks Dennis,
Most helpful.I am unfamiliar on what "apostilled birth certificates" are though.
Would you possibly have an email address for Ms Joosten.
Thanks Again
Tony

The apostille in the US makes our regular notarized birth certificates qualify as international birth certificates. Basically your local town or city where you were born issues your birth certificate and you can get copies anytime you want one. However the apostille can only be issued by the State Dept of which ever state you were born in. Coming from the UK, I don't know what you might need since obviously your documents and procedures would be different.

Hi Antony-Agnes's email is SOS@telbonet.an . We submitted our regular birth certificates to immigration and they were rejected(they had been notarized). We are now waiting for another set of birth certificates which need to go thru the Secretary of State in Florida (just as Linda says)-this is causing delays in Immigration but Agnes is handling it-that's why I feel it is so important for a local resident to help you. Best of luck, Patti

Thanks to everyone, I have now managed to contact Agnes. Bonaire here I come!

Hi Tony-congrats! there is nothing like the helpfulness of this Board and the residents on the island to get things done from afar-I really think it is impossible to get anything done without both-we are very grateful too-glad you found Agnes-she is wonderful, isn't she!-and again thanks to Linda and Jake for this Board,Patti

Is the process long and difficult? Or with help and patience is it a fairly easy project. Is it one that should be approached before moving or after. We are still 3-4 years before making the jump, but are starting to look at houses and want to make sure we are not looking at a problem. I know some islands have some pretty strange requirements.
Thanks

It is fairly simple. Gathering the right documents can be tedious but doable. You need some basics - passport, birth certificate with apostille, marriage cert. with same (or divorce docs, etc.), letter of health, letter of good conduct (police), proof of income (ability to support yourself). You need to check the requirements at the time of application since some have been changing the last couple years and some documents must be dated within so many days of application. Officially you are not suppose to be on island while your permit is being processed. Many new people seem to buy a place and then do their permits.