A stateless person is someone who does not have any nationality.
If this is your case, you can submit an application to be recognized as a stateless person to the State Secretary for Migration (SEM). The SEM is responsible for the recognition procedure of stateless persons in Switzerland. We recommend that you contact a legal counselling centre, that will answer your questions. Please consult the list of legal advisory services available in Switzerland.
UNHCR has no formal role in the recognition procedure and generally does not intervene in individual cases, nor does it provide individual legal counselling.
For more information on statelessness, please visit:
- Information on statelessness provided by the State Secretary for Migration (SEM)
- General information on statelessness in Switzerland provided by humanrights.ch
- Are you stateless? by UNHCR
- General information provided by UNHCR for Switzerland and Liechtenstein in French and German.
Important:
Neither UNHCR, IOM nor the SEM or the legal advice offices in the federal reception centres take money for any services. Their help is always free of charge. You should not be asked, at any point, to pay for any of the services provided.