Hong Kong Visas Made Easy

What to Do if You Find Yourself in the Hong Kong Visa ‘Twilight Zone’

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Family Visas, Hadley Says…, Investment Visas, Special Programmes / 4 responses

Sometimes, Hong Kong residents find themselves changing employers or swapping from a sponsored employment visa to a business investment visa, when their current limit of stay expires and they find themselves ‘without a visa’ whilst the Hong Kong ID are working on their applications.

In this instance, so long as you have an ‘active application’ ongoing, the Immigration Department will allow you to slip into a kind of twilight zone where you do not have a valid period of stay manifested in your passport.

This can last from just a few days or even a few weeks – just as long as it takes for ImmD to finalise your application.

However, without a valid period of stay endorsed in your passport, you will not be able to leave Hong Kong as the officers at the border cannot clear you for departure as they have no means of determining that you are not in fact an overstayer.

Consequently, where you find yourself in the twilight zone like this you need to contact the case officer at Immigration Tower having responsibility for your application well in advance of your planned departure and ask them to prepare a Departure Memo for you to present with your passport as you exit Hong Kong.

Upon your return, you will be granted a visitor visa upon arrival as this is the only status that will be available to you until the Department have finalized your substantive application.

Once your new visa is available, however you will be able to, exit Hong Kong relinquishing your visitor visa as you leave, place your new visa label on a clean page in your passport prior to reentering and, when you have come back into Hong Kong, your new residence visa will be activated accordingly.

Unless you’ve been ‘extended’, in which case there will be no need to depart and return in this way.

And don’t worry, whether you’re in the twilight zone or leave via a Departure Memo, this experience will not break your continuity of residence for the purposes of any right of abode application you may decide to make after you have lived in Hong Kong continuously for 7 years.

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What Happens if You Inadvertently Breach Your Conditions of Stay by Taking Up an Unauthorised Employment in Hong Kong Without First Applying for a Change of Sponsorship?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in 60 Second Snapshot, Employment Visas, Investment Visas, VG Front Page / 10 responses

Under Hong Kong immigration law, foreign nationals are granted employment visa permissions to undertake work for a specific employer on the nominated terms and conditions of the employment agreement which underpins the work permissions granted on the issue of the initial visa, any subsequent change of sponsorship approval or your last employment visa extension.

Any work performed for any other party, whether paid or unpaid, is a breach of conditions of stay – under all circumstances, without exception.

So,  what will the Immigration Department make of the situation where a foreign national resident has breached his conditions of stay by taking up an unauthorised employment because, after all, employment visa permissions are not transferrable from job to job.

There is no such thing as a ‘flexible’ working visa.

The response of the Department will very much depend on the result of their fact finding exercise in getting to the bottom of any unauthorised employment which comes to their attention.

If, for example, they discover that the foreign national has cynically abused immigration policy,  deliberately job hopping and paying no need to the strict conditions of the limit of stay imposed, sanctions ranging from criminal prosecution to cancellation of all ongoing present ,and refusal of any future, residence permissions can be expected.

On the other hand, if there has been an inadvertent oversight or honest misunderstanding of how immigration law works in Hong Kong, it’s possible that the Immigration Department might be prepared to receive a letter of explanation and apology together with an express Declaration on Form ID468 from the erring foreign national and that could put an end to the matter.

Much turns on the facts, the extent and length of the breach and how it came to light.

But one thing is for sure.

There really is no need for any of this to transpire as the Immigration Department are very clear about the law in respect of unauthorised employment and it’s incumbent on you, as the visa holder, to ensure you understand the conditions attached to your employment visa when it is granted to you.

You own the visa and with it the responsibility to be compliant with its terms at all times.

More Stuff to Help You Along

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UPDATE: Hong Kong Prolonged Visitor Visas for British Nationals – the Jury is Still Out After All

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Family Visas, Musing, Refusals & Appeals / 1 response

I am really grateful to Paula Walker of Crown Mobility for engaging last week on the topic of prolonged visitor visas for British nationals seeking to join their loved ones in Hong Kong.

Following on from Thursday’s post (where I reported that UK nationals are no longer able to persuade ImmD to grant them prolonged visitor visas) Paula was very quick to share with me the experience Crown Mobility had had in this regard which makes things interesting, to say the least.

With Paula’s consent, I am able to post the salient parts of our dialogue which we both feel will be useful to UK national applicants for extended stay visitor visas on the basis of committed life partnership relationships with Hong Kong residents.

Paula

These pesky visas.

As I mentioned, I got my immigration team lead to get in touch with Immigration yesterday, and they confirmed that there is no blanket ban on this type of visa for UK nationals in same sex relationships.

As you must know well, some of the officers over there can make pronouncements about a particular case and make it sound like it is official procedure across the board, but my team lead, who is ex-HK Immigration herself, spoke to various people to make triple sure, and came back with the answer that these visas are still on a “case by case” basis. 

They are not an officially publicized immigration solution, after all.

Not sure what you are seeing, but we are finding that after the recent rotation of staff, which happens periodically, they are back in “strict” mode at the moment, and asking for every possible piece of supporting evidence where there is even a tiny variance in circumstances for a standard application.  

This should die down a bit during the year, but it is a pain in the neck when you have”unusual” scenarios.

Me

Thanks for your feedback and input. I appreciate the opportunity to engage and share.

As I don’t have a monopoly on immigration knowledge, the more we can demystify the processes the better!

I had a British heterosexual couple knocked back for a PVV last month – and the officer told me then that they felt no need to grant a PVV (the case was otherwise solid) as there was no status need.

I have also received 2 questions on the Blog in the last month from Brits who have met with ImmD response of “no positive act of discretion b/c we don’t believe we need to effect one”.

When I called ImmD earlier this week to seek to  confirm I got the usual waffle about ‘out of policy’, and ‘case by case’ but no firm warm feeling that Brits were not being impacted. I also spoke with a couple of ex colleagues to see what their experience has been and they too believed that Brits were being impacted. 

So that’s me…

In light of your much appreciated input I will carry on advising UK national clients that PVVs are possible but caveat the applications with the possibility that it could get refused by virtue of British citizenship.

50% of immigration is expectation management and also letting the client understand with out of policy applications, it is essentially a black box.

And yes,  the young officers are really boring with their extended requests for information and double clarifications but I’ve seen this for more than 20 years now so I’m more than used to it!

Paula

One comment from Immigration which I neglected to put in my earlier email, but which chimes with your comments, is that Brits in the lucky situation of having 6 months on a normal visitor visa may not be seen as a priority for the PVV.

Rather an odd comment, given that living here permanently on a VV is not officially allowed, but if the officers are anything, they are normally pretty pragmatic  (if not always terribly consistent!)

The next move is for me to write to the Immigration Department and seek to get an official response on this subject.

Watch this space.

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Hong Kong Prolonged Visitor Visas No Longer Available to British National Trailing Life Partners

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Family Visas, Visitor Visas, Your Question Answered / 2 responses

It has recently become apparent that British Citizens can no longer receive Hong Kong Prolonged Visitor Visas to stay in Hong Kong with their defacto spouses and Life Partners…

Update: the issue remains open, after all…

QUESTION

Hi

I moved here with my partner two years ago for his job and since then have been on a student visa. Unfortunately I’ve had to leave my course due to illness.

I used your excellent free resources to put together an application for an extended visitor visa. When I went to immigration today I was told they were no longer issuing them, having stopped last year.  Is this right?

Now I have around 4 weeks until my visa become non-valid and was advised that with a British passport “there won’t be any problems coming into Hong Kong” as a visitor. However with such an ad hoc arrangement I am nervous.

Do you have any advice?

More Stuff You May Find Interesting or Useful

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The Visa Geeza on RTHK Radio Three – Nov 2012

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2 Hong Kong Visa Centre Clients Get a Mention in the South China Morning Post Today

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Investment Visas, Musing / 1 response

http://www.scmp.com/business/money/markets-investing/article/1131033/ins-and-outs-immigration-visas

Pleased to see our clients Steve Mansfield and David Lambert got a shout out in today’s SCMP in the wake of an interview I did with Tiffany Ap last week.

She asked if I’d be prepared to introduce a few of our clients with a view to interview and, whilst the piece largely skated over the intricacies of the Hong Kong investment visa process, she did manage to get to the crux of the challenge (jobs for locals!)

As the SCMP has a paywall, I expect that the link above will not be accessible for too much longer, but you can read the PDF of the article here.

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WRAP UP: How to Apply for a Hong Kong Investment Visa Without Any Professional Help – Public Talk by Stephen Barnes on January 17, 2013

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Investment Visas, Musing / 34 responses

There was a smaller than average turnout but the numbers were perfect for the cosy, ‘mingle and talk’ environment afforded by Centre O in Wanchai last Thursday night.

I was there to talk about the challenges faced by foreign national entrepreneurs in securing the necessary immigration permissions to join in or establish businesses here in Hong Kong.

The cut and thrust of my presentation was how to go about applying for – and getting approved – a Hong Kong investment visa without the need to engage any professional help.

We took the opportunity to record the session but it was all arranged ‘ad hoc’ and at the last moment so the lighting and audio are poor.

That said, there’s 90 minutes of “how to” content which could be broken up into interesting video or audio nuggets so we’re still thinking through what to do with it.

Watch this space.

In the meantime, you can download a copy of my presentation here.

Moreover, the 10 Must Have Hong Kong Investment Visa Resources discussed in the talk are available for you to get on with your own investment visa application – so why not take a look there now?

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The Visa Geeza on RTHK Radio Three – Jan 2013

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Family Visas, Long Stay & PR, Musing / 1 response

Phil @ RTHK very kindly had me back in the hot seat on Monday and, no sooner had I sat down, he had us off to the races.

We talked a great deal about the Right of Abode and the Right to Land today – and also prolonged visitor visa for a Defacto Spouse.

You can listen to our conversation here.

I’ll be back in to see him again in early March. I’ll be in Australia for CNY.

In the meantime, please check out Morning Brew on Facebook and also listen live to Phil’s show via the web here.

He has an amazing array of guests each day, and really has his finger on the heartbeat of Hong Kong!

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