Retire to the Philippines and Succeed
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Help With Getting Her Visa — Rapid Visa
OK, time to talk turkey here (after all, it’s now close to Thanksgiving, isn’t it?).
Query after query come to me here, and via email, about help in getting their Filipino friends, especially Pinay girlfriends, US B-2 Visitor Visas to enter the United States.
Normally this is a situation where I just can’t offer much hope. It’s difficult, indeed, for a single, marriage-eligible female Philippine citizen to get a US Tourist visa.
People often ask about How Hard Is It To Get a Tourist Visa to the USA From the Philippines?Get My Filipino Girlfriend To The USA.
This is a very frequent question here at PhilFAQS. There are several different answers, and sadly for couples stuck between the USA and the Philippines, the answers aren’t always easy.
One way that you can get a Filipina friend to the USA is with a US Fiancee’ Visa, commonly known by its form number, K-1.
Another way s marry the girl and then bring her to the US with a US Spousal Visa (Either a CR-1 or IR-1).
The simplest, although often the most difficult way is to get your friend a US B2/B2 Tourist visa.
I’ve written an explanation of these basic visas here:
Tourist or Fiancee’ Or Spouse Visa. Which is Better?
Go ahead and read it now if you haven; already, I’ll wait here for you.
Ways To Stay Long-Term in the Philippines.
How long an American citizen (or most other foreigners) can stay in the Philippines is always a popular subject. A while back I wrote an introductory article on this subject where I explained that you can pretty much stay as long as you want to in the Philippines without asking special permission from anyone.
If you haven’t read that you should read it now, because it lays the groundwork for several other more formal ways that a US citizen can live here in the Philippines.
Go ahead and click on the link now, I’ll wait right here for you *smile*.
Now if you read that article you’ll understand how easy it is for a foreigner to live here but as some readers have commented, renewing a Tourist Visa every two or six months, or going out of the country once a year for a new (free) Balikbayan Privilege Stamp is not really “Permanent Residency”.
I mean, after all, it’s only worked for me for 14 years, so we couldn’t really call it “permanent”, now could we?