Since when did your country start granting permanent residence permits to Non-European nationals?

5 comments

1. Hungary became a Kingdom on December 25, 1000 or January 1, 1001. The date is a bit disputed, but the first king already had mentioned the Saxonian “hospites” (guests) living in Transylvania (which was an integral part of the Kingdom of Hungary at that time), they had special status. In the 18th century, Germans were invited to repopulate central Hungary. They got land and 20-40 years of tax exemption, and were considered Hungarian subjects. So technically, I don’t think there was a period when there was no permanent resident status or a precursor of it available.

2. In the Netherlands, residence permits were first introduced in 1849. Before that, a residence permit wasn’t required.

   They were immediately open for non-Europen nationals — to anyone able to provide for themselves. They were not permanent, but could be extended indefinitely without any grounds for rejection of the extension.

   Permanent residency was arranged in the law in 1965. That too was open for non-Europen nationals.

   Restricting residency and immigration is a pretty new thing. Before the 20th century, the idea of refusing residence to foreign nationals didn’t really exist.

3. Immigration law only goes back to the 1850’s basically, before 1849 law didn’t make a difference between Netherlanders and other residents. Visa requirements as such are only a thing since 1918, before that it was basically just kicking out people who were too poor and had a foreign passport.

   Permanent residency dates back to the 60’s.

   As far as I’m aware there has never been a law outright banning non-Europeans entirely.

   ( it should be noted that back in the renaissance cities did basically control what groups could live there)

4. Well. We stopped actually, we used to grant permanent residence permits since 1984 but after the refugee crisis we stopped. So since 2016 you will not get a permanent residence permit when applying for the first time. You are only ever able to get it after 3 years if you’ve been able to get your time limited permit extended also as it can at most be 2 years and there’s currently 4 requirements for gaining permanent residence permits. The government also recently appointed a investigation over new requirements to gain a permanent residence permit such as being able to speak Swedish and being knowledgable in Civics so basic laws and rights and duties.

5. Since forever? Laws may vary, but plenty of foreigners settled. Famously, a group of Japanese diplomatic envoys (Keicho Embassy) settled in Spain in 1614; their descendants bear the family name Japón (Japan).