Hong Kong Visas Made Easy

A Detailed Business Plan for Your Hong Kong Investment Visa? – Not Really…

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

I always stifle a chuckle when I read on the websites of professional service providers offering a Hong Kong visa and immigration product that there is a need for a ‘detailed business plan’ in each and every Hong Kong investment visa application.

It’s simply not true.

Certainly, every applicant for an investment visa needs to have a ‘planned business’ but it certainly doesn’t follow that, in order to get an approval, the Hong Kong Immigration Department insist on seeing a formal business plan as such.

This is an important point because so many investment visa applicants that come our way have written up at least a basic document which sets out how they see their business playing out over the first couple of years. This is just good planning.

These raw documents cannot properly be said to be formal business plans (as in a 60 page document with extremely detailed all-scenarios-covered projections, risk factors, use of funds, competitor analyses, IP policies and the like).

Most entrepreneurs starting out for the first time wouldn’t know where to begin in crafting a document like that.

However, this documented material does provide the essential elements of the argument underpinning the investment visa application and is an absolute gold mine of information for an immigration consultant who is skilled at articulating an investment proposition in the context of current Hong Kong immigration policy.

When called for by non-specialist immigration practitioners, a formal business plan just puts an added documentation burden on the client and relieves the service provider of the need to properly argue the case.

Don’t let them get away with it!

You pay good money to consultants like me to get your investment visa approved so make us earn our keep. Most definitely have your plans, intentions and money flows written down, but the HKID no more want to read a 60 page business plan in support of your application, than you want to write one.

More Stuff to Help You Along

How extensive should my business plan be in order to get a Hong Kong investment visa?

Do you have a business plan template I can use in my Hong Kong investment visa application?

How to ensure you’re not breaking the law by operating a business in Hong Kong as a Visitor

Are there any advantages to being an existing Hong  Kong resident when you make an application for an investment visa?

Why do Hong Kong investment visas get denied?

You Accidentally Overstay Your Hong Kong Employment Visa Yet Need to Change Employer – What Happens Now?

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

First Published February 8, 2015

Accidentally overstay your Hong Kong employment visa?- What happens to you when  seek to change your employment visa sponsor but realise you have accidentally let your current visa expire without seeking an extension of stay?

QUESTION

Hi Stephen,

I ended my employment in Hong Kong at the beginning of January.

I looked for work and eventually found and got offered a job, still in Hong Kong, to start in March.

I thought everything was going well. I went in on the 1st of February to sort out the application for the work visa, and they sit me down…

They told me my previous work visa had expired on the 24th of January.

Now, this shocked me. In all the searching and transition to the new job I had completely forgotten to check my old visa.

I had come back after Christmas and assumed I was on a Visitor visa, or that my Employment visa hadn’t run out, because I was allowed back in after my return at Xmas.

I hadn’t checked. This is totally my fault and my mistake, I had completely forgotten.

My new company told me to go straight to Immigration, present myself, put in my new visa application with profuse apologies and explain myself.

I did that, they shouted at me threatening imprisonment.

I had to write a letter to the Director of Immigration explaining what happened.

I did all this, and afterwards the Officer said that was all for today and that they would send a letter to my company in 4-6 weeks.

They let me go with my passport and Hong Kong ID Card, and in my passport is a card with an application reference.

I have no idea what happens now.

They didn’t stamp my passport to allow me to leave the country, so I can’t go and return as a Visitor.

I am here with no visa, and I’m worried that if my work visa is denied, or I am stopped in the meantime, they will imprison me because I stayed here even longer.

No one at my new company is concerned, either because they don’t care or they don’t know. They are backing me and want me to work for them, but that’s it.

So, in your experience, what could happen now? What can I do to find out? How can I protect myself?

More Stuff You May Find Useful or Interesting

How a Hong Kong employment visa application can go completely wrong if you don’t know what you are doing

10 ‘Must Have’ resources for a successful Hong Kong work visa application

Will a criminal record impact on your ability to get a residence visa for Hong Kong?

Can you have 2 employment visa applications for Hong Kong pending at the same time?

I hate my boss and want to leave my job – what happens to my Hong Kong work visa?

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