Switzerland — Canton Zürich Application for an Entry Permit (Gesuch um Einreisebewilligung)

Current claim

• status: draft
• verification.method: manual-source-review-v1
• verification.lastVerifiedAt: 2026-07-26

This is GOV-5076 ("GovSchema Standard Research").

Candidate selection

A fresh re-scan of CATALOG.md this cycle found Mauritius's Business Formation vertical (the prior seventeen cycles' recurring deliverable) structurally exhausted for a genuinely new-vertical-opening move: the Annual Return (LP3), the sole disclosed backlog item, carries three partner tables that are each an undivided, unruled box with no printed row count — and this registry has no array/repeating-structure type to represent an unbounded table at all (GSP-0009, "Composite & repeating values", remains Proposed, explicitly flagged in its own text as "the single biggest model change" of the GOV-61 spec-evolution set, routed to the CEO for acceptance and not yet accepted into any published spec version). Authoring an eighteenth Mauritius Business Formation companion would not move Mauritius past its own confirmed-capped 4 of 6 verticals (Taxes and National ID were confirmed dead ends back at GOV-4603 — MRA's individual-return filing is a login-gated e-filing portal with no blank form, and the National Identity Card Unit publishes no standard first-issue application form).

Rather than deepen an already 17-companion-deep, vertical-capped jurisdiction further, this cycle re-examined CATALOG.md's own "Known Gaps" record for jurisdictions sitting at 5 of 6 verticals, where a single further schema would close the jurisdiction outright — the highest-value shape of deliverable available. Of the thirteen jurisdictions found at exactly 5/6 (AE, BA, BR, CH, CZ, GR, ID, JM, MK, MN, MT, NO, PL), all but one had their remaining gap already confirmed a hard dead end in a prior cycle (duplicate EU-harmonized visa templates, CAPTCHA/WAF-gated portals, or confirmed no-application-form processes). Switzerland (CH)'s own Visa entry (spec/proposals notwithstanding) was the one explicit exception: GOV-1774's own disclosed finding (CATALOG.md, "Genuinely open, well-sourced candidates") states that SEM's national (Type D) and short-stay Schengen (Type C) visa PDFs are confirmed duplicates of already-modelled EU-harmonized templates, but explicitly flags as untested "whether a cantonal residence-permit process (Switzerland's cantons administer residence permits, not SEM centrally) offers a genuinely distinct, non-duplicate pathway." This cycle tested that exact hypothesis.

Reaching the live source

A web search for a cantonal migration-office entry-permit application form led to Canton Zürich's own Migrationsamt (part of the Sicherheitsdirektion), whose public forms page (https://www.zh.ch/de/sicherheitsdirektion/migrationsamt/formulare-broschueren-weisungen-des-migrationsamts.html) links a directly-hosted PDF titled "Einreisegesuch für Drittstaatsangehörige" (Entry application for third-country nationals):

https://www.zh.ch/content/dam/zhweb/bilder-dokumente/organisation/sicherheitsdirektion/migrationsamt/gesuche/Einreisegesuch%20f%C3%BCr%20Drittstaatsangeh%C3%B6rige.pdf

• Fetched directly and unauthenticated via plain curl (no session/cookie state, no CAPTCHA/WAF challenge).
• HTTP 200, 49,072 bytes.
• sha256 of the retrieved bytes: cfb1a6c8918e9ff52fa13279cc852ab83d661548d9443811765ee1cee4c90ae9.
• 2 pages, confirmed via pdfjs-dist's numPages.
• getAnnotations() returned no usable AcroForm fields (a single empty, untyped annotation on page 2) — a flat, non-fillable text-layer PDF, the same pattern as every CBRD-family schema already in this registry.
• getTextContent() recovered 182 positioned text items on page 1 and 131 on page 2, with every printed label and checkbox-adjacent option cleanly recovered (no glyph-substitution garbling).

Distinct-from-SEM confirmation

This form is the Migrationsamt's own cantonal intake process — filed with the canton, not with SEM directly — covering personal/family data, prior stays, and (on a second, employer-completed page) the gainful-employment particulars that gate a Swiss work permit. It shares no field-for-field structure with either SEM PDF GOV-1774 examined (neither the short-stay Schengen template nor the national D-visa template): those two model a single applicant's own visa-category choice, sponsor, and travel-itinerary questions; this document instead centers on family circumstances (parents, spouse/registered partner status, accompanying family, family remaining abroad) and an employer-completed labour-market section (salary, working hours, collective-labour-agreement status, RAV job-centre reporting) that neither SEM form asks for at all. Confirmed a genuinely distinct, non-duplicate pathway, resolving GOV-1774's own disclosed open question.

Extraction method

A positional text-layer dump (sorted by descending y-coordinate, then x) reconstructed both pages' row/section structure. A supplementary canvas render (node-canvas, 2.5x scale) was used to independently count ruled-line and checkbox-row structure where the text layer alone left row cardinality ambiguous (items 10 and 11 below) — as on every prior cycle, glyph rendering itself failed via a Helvetica path-resolution warning (the known node-canvas font-substitution gap documented in this registry's gov-form-pdf-extraction practice note), so the render was used for line/box-layout confirmation only, never for text confirmation.

Document structure

Page 1 ("Gesuch um Einreisebewilligung", 16 numbered items):

• Header: "ZEMIS-Nr.:" and "ZH-Nr.:" — two Department-internal reference boxes preceding item 1, structurally analogous to the "FOR OFFICE USE" boxes already excluded on every Mauritius CBRD schema in this registry. Excluded as authority-internal, not applicant-supplied.
• Items 1–4: name(s), birth name, date of birth, sex (2-option checkbox), nationality, place/country of birth, and an 8-option marital-status checkbox row (confirmed by direct text-item count across the three printed lines: ledig/verheiratet/geschieden, verwitwet/gerichtlich getrennt/eingetragene Partnerschaft, durch Tod aufgelöste Partnerschaft/gerichtlich aufgelöste Partnerschaft).
• Item 5: parents' names and nationalities.
• Item 6: three independent nein/ja rows about the spouse/registered partner (Swiss citizenship, EU/EFTA citizenship, settlement-permit status). The form prints no checkbox or requiredWhen-style gate tying these to maritalStatus; modelled ungated (all three optional) rather than fabricating a conditional relationship the source does not state.
• Items 7–9: foreign residential address; whether the applicant is currently in Switzerland (nein/ja + "seit" date + address, modelled with two requiredWhen gates on the boolean); the Swiss representation abroad to authorize for visa issuance if visa-subject.
• Item 10 — "Miteinreisende Familienangehörige" (accompanying family members): a table confirmed bounded to exactly 4 rows by directly counting 4 printed "w"/"m" checkbox pairs (both the raw text-item y-coordinates and the canvas render agree). Modelled as 4 bounded slots (accompanyingFamilyMember1..4{FullName,DateOfBirth,Sex, Nationality,RelationshipDegree}) per this registry's established bounded-slot convention for a fixed, printed row count — the same convention already used for, e.g., the LP2 sibling's 3 ruled partner rows.
• Item 11 — "Familienangehörige im Ausland" (family remaining abroad): shares one column header (Name und Vorname/Geburtsdatum/ Wohnort/Staatsangehörigkeit) across two labelled rows, "Ehegatte:" (spouse) and "Kinder:" (children). Unlike item 10, no checkboxes mark row count directly, so this cycle measured the printed rule spacing instead: a supplementary canvas crop (crop3.png, cropped tightly around this section) confirmed the "Kinder:" label is followed by two further ruled, unlabelled continuation lines before item 12's own header begins — i.e. a 1-labelled-plus-2-unlabelled, 3-row bounded table sharing the same 4-column header. Modelled as spouseAbroad{FullName,DateOfBirth,Residence,Nationality} (1 row) and childAbroad1..3{FullName,DateOfBirth,Residence,Nationality} (3 rows), all optional.
• Items 12–16: previous stays in Switzerland (single row: place, from/to dates, purpose); desired duration of stay and planned place of residence; precise purpose of entry; the filer's own name/address/ phone; and the applicant's declaration (date, signature). Items 13/14/16 plus the core identity block (items 1–4) and the filer's name are the only fields modelled required: true — see "Requiredness" below.

Page 2 ("Aufnahme einer Erwerbstätigkeit" — taking up employment, items 17–21, completed by the prospective employer):

• Item 17: employer particulars (company, address, postal code/city, responsible person, phone, fax, e-mail) plus a second, side-by-side billing-address block "printed only "(wenn abweichend Arbeitgeber)" — if different from the employer — with no separate yes/no toggle; left blank when the addresses coincide, so modelled optional/ungated.
• Item 18: whether the employer is bound by a collective labour agreement (nein/ja + name), modelled with one requiredWhen gate.
• Item 19: GATS intra-company-transfer flag; employment duration (from/to dates, or "unbefristet"/indefinite — modelled with a requiredWhen gate making employmentEndDate conditional on employmentIndefinite being false); date of taking up the position; place of assignment; a 3-option education-level checkbox (Hilfstätigkeit/Berufsabschluss/Fach-Hochschule).
• Item 20: guaranteed gross salary (amount + a 4-option pay-period checkbox: pro Jahr/Monat/Tag/Stunde), additional salary components/expenses, weekly working hours, and a genuinely asymmetric checkbox: "Wurde die Stelle beim zuständigen RAV gemeldet? Ja (Stellennummer)" — only a single "Ja" checkbox plus a job-posting-number blank is printed; no counterpart "Nein" checkbox appears anywhere in the row (confirmed via the positional text dump — no second option token follows "Ja"). Disclosed as an opt-in-only field rather than fabricating a symmetric boolean the source does not print; regionalEmploymentCenterJobNumber is gated on this boolean via requiredWhen.
• Item 21: free-text remarks; the employer's own signature/stamp and place/date.
• "Beilagen" (enclosures): three plain bulleted items with no adjacent checkboxes (Kopie Arbeitsvertrag, Lebenslauf, Kopie Diplom) — modelled as documents[] entries, category supporting-evidence, all required: false, the same un-checkboxed-enclosure-list pattern already disclosed on this registry's mu/cbrd/limited-partnership-removal-from-register schema (GOV-4974).
• The remainder of page 2 (a contact footer for the Amt für Wirtschaft and a note that work-permit applications can be filed online at www.zh.ch/arbeitsbewilligungen) is static boilerplate, not modelled.

Requiredness — disclosed judgment call

Unlike the Mauritius CBRD forms (which mark required fields with a printed asterisk), this source prints no asterisk or other required-field marker anywhere on either page. Absent that signal, required: true was applied only to the fields that are unambiguously the substantive minimum for any application — the core identity block (name, date of birth, sex, nationality, place/country of birth, marital status), the purpose/duration-of-stay fields (items 13–14), the filer's own name/address, and the final declaration (date, signature). Every other field, including the entire employer-completed page 2 (since the form provides no toggle field indicating whether the applicant intends to take up employment at all — the page's own applicability is circumstantial, not something the form itself gates with a field), is modelled required: false. This is a disclosed judgment call, not a source-observed fact.

Conformance checks

An ephemeral (uncommitted) Node script built a field-name/requiredWhen map from the published schema and exercised 11 scenarios:

1. A minimal valid document (all required: true fields present, every requiredWhen boolean false) — PASS.
2. currentlyInSwitzerland: true with presentInSwitzerlandSince/ addressInSwitzerland omitted — FAIL as expected, then supplied — PASS.
3. subjectToCollectiveLaborAgreement: true with collectiveLaborAgreementName omitted — FAIL as expected, then supplied — PASS.
4. employmentIndefinite: false with employmentEndDate omitted — FAIL as expected, then supplied — PASS.
5. reportedToRegionalEmploymentCenter: true with regionalEmploymentCenterJobNumber omitted — FAIL as expected, then supplied — PASS.
6. A core required field (purposeOfEntry) omitted from an otherwise valid document — FAIL as expected.
7. Every enum-typed field (8 total) confirmed to carry a validation.enum array of 2+ values.
8. A field-name-hygiene check confirming no stray fixture-only field name leaked into the published schema.

All 11 checks passed as expected. No duplicate field names across 96 fields (confirmed programmatically). Both tools/validate.mjs and tools/validate-ajv.mjs pass (693/693, meta-schema v0.3); the registry index (tools/govschema-client/registry-index.json) was regenerated (693 entries).

Outcome

Opens Switzerland's Visa vertical (6th of 6), closing Switzerland to 6 of 6 verticals — Passport, DMV, Business Formation, Taxes, Visa, and National ID all now have at least one published schema. No further CH vertical gap remains open per CATALOG.md's own record; a companion cantonal schema for a different canton's own Einreisegesuch, or a deeper pass extracting the "Beilagen" or civil/birth-register-extract requirements referenced in item 10's own instruction, would be the next candidate for a future cycle, disclosed here as open backlog rather than fabricated.