Visa refusal despite Work/Residency permit granted

Question

I got a job offer from a company registered in Malta, as I am third country national (TCN) and not from the EU, I was required to apply for a work/residency permit.

The company applied on behalf of me for the single process of work and residency permit, and after two months the permits were granted.

Based on that, the company sent me a copy of the work permit and I applied with it for a visa. (The residency permit I get it automatically once I am in Malta).

After 14 days waiting for the visa, I got the response from the embassy of Malta with visa denial, stating that: "Your intention to leave the territory of the member state before the expiry of visa could not be ascertained".

1. I am really confused here, I have a work and residency permit, so this not applicable to my case, isn't it?

2. Now, what I am thinking about is, that I apply for a Schengen for another EU country (Spain or France), and using this visa I enter Malta, and once there I get my residency permit, is this lawful?

Answer 1

It looks like the Maltese consulate consulate made a good call. They wrote: "Your intention to leave the territory of the member state before the expiry of visa could not be ascertained".

And it's true, right? You plan to stay on in Malta beyond the end of 90 days given by a Schengen because you plan to work. Given that you have secured permission to work and as bureaucratic as it sounds the Schengen was the wrong visa to apply for. You need a national visa of type "D" (or as Malta calls it an "employment license").

What is arguably the fastest resolution is to consult your new employer about what visa is right for your job and then to apply for it with a fresh application.

Your strategy of getting a different country to issue you a Schengen and then using it to evade Maltese controls is poor. Once in Malta you would need to ask the issuing country to revoke the Schengen because you are now working. Doing that opens more questions than it solves. And just abandoning the Schengen will leave you on the system without a record of exiting the zone. Doing that leaves you with an awkward (and frankly, untenable) explanation to give if you need to use the Schengen regime in the future.