What is the deal if you help out a charity on a volunteer basis whilst holding a visitor visa in Hong Kong?
Volunteer work for a charity based overseas but also operating in HK?
QUESTION
Hi Visa Geeza,
I am Canadian and I first came to Hong Kong on April under a 3 month training visa as part of a university program.
While doing my training (an internship) I met the director of an NGO that is both a registered charity in Hong Kong and a registered non-profit in Vancouver.
I ended up volunteering for the NGO after my internship for about 4.5 months while looking for a job in Hong Kong.
I volunteered for the Vancouver branch of the NGO doing remote work such as emails and social media, basically stuff that can be done anywhere.
I was a visitor in Hong Kong at the time and also traveling in Asia.
Is it considered legal for me to work for this Canadian NGO while I was in Hong Kong?
Basically I was doing remote work as a Canadian for a Canadian organization.
I just happened to be doing it on my laptop in coffee shops in Hong Kong.
Hoping you can help me!
ANSWER
This is one of those hazy situations where you’re caught between two pillars, where it is almost impossible to anticipate any kind of sensible resolution to the dilemma that you’re facing. It is quite clear under Hong Kong law that you are not allowed to take up any kind of employment in Hong Kong, paid or unpaid, without the permission of the director of immigration.
So even when you’re in a situation where you’re volunteering your time, therefore conceptually need to make an application to the Immigration Department for their permission, or at the very least, a statement of no objection to you engaging in a specified activity. The problem is that because you’re working on a volunteer basis for an NGO, it’s highly unlikely that you would have all the necessary approval criteria in play that would allow the Immigration Department to positively consider an application and go on to approve it.
Therefore, it kind of begs the question that if the Immigration Department is telling you on the one hand you need their permission, but on the other, the operating criteria for the grant of permission to be able to do that isn’t available. Because this would be such a strange situation, the Immigration Department won’t really know how to deal with it.
You’d find that your application would probably not get entertained in any meaningful sense to the extent that you could get a positive resolution within the short time span that you’d expect to stay in Hong Kong as a visitor. And, there lies the rub, because this is really all about what you are doing as a visitor in Hong Kong rather than work per se.
And, as you would expect that your visit time in Hong Kong would come to an end quite soon. If you are generally helping out remotely and you are doing some things, as you suggest, in a coffee shop at the end of a computer, would the Immigration Department find that unreasonable?
Would they object to it? Would they want to prosecute you for breach of conditions of stay? I can’t speak for the Immigration Department on what they would do, obviously, but in my experience, it just seems to me that they would probably, expect to see you leave Hong Kong and take that activity elsewhere without putting the resources to waste in trying to prove some sort of point as to what is permitted and what is not permitted activity under the visitor visa category, when clearly doing some things that are of good to both the canadian organisation and to the Hong Kong organisation, far be it from me to say that what you’re doing is lawful I would never be able to say that to you.
But by the same token, would the Immigration Department take you to task for any of this? And would they engage resources to look into providing you with express permissions, given that as a canadian citizen, you’re only going to be getting 90 days here as a visitor anyway?
I suspect nothing, really a case of, I would say, let sleeping dogs lie. But understand that the visitor visa is designed for you to come and visit. It’s not for you to engage in any kind of employment activity, irrespective of where the recipient of the contribution that you’re making to their fortunes is located.
So, sorry, a bit of a convoluted kind of non-answer to a question that I think doesn’t really have a straightforward answer, all told. But good luck nonetheless.
VisaGeeza.Ai – Making Hong Kong Immigration A Lot Easier
The question of immigration status for mainland resident spouses of current or aspiring Hong Kong residents is a bit of a hot potato. As this PodCast answer sets out, there is a dual track system in place in the immigration system which makes for winners and losers – and for once, those with the Right of Abode miss out.
This question has been lingering for a while, but the answer remains applicable even today.
QUESTION
“My employer wishes to relocate me from our Shanghai office back to our Hong Kong office. I previously had a Hong Kong work visa from 2007-2010.
I’ve very recently been married to my mainland Chinese wife. Will the fact that she is mainland Chinese adversely affect our ability to get a work visa for myself and a spouse visa for her?
What steps can I take in order to improve the likelihood that we are approved (besides the marriage certificate, mutual bank statements, and photos showing that we’ve been together for a long time)?”
ANSWER
In recent years, PRC national mainland resident spouses who are being sponsored for dependent visas by foreign nationals living or seeking to live in Hong Kong can apply for dependent visa just like any other foreign national account. Consequently, in your circumstances, you can apply for her visa to join you as your spouse without concern in respect to the nationality and the fact that she’s resident on the mainland at the moment.
And this is contrary to the situation faced by residents in Hong Kong who have the Right of Abode, that is, their permanent residence. You see, spouses of Hong Kong permanent residents can only sponsor their mainland spouses into Hong Kong on the one way permanent system, which is subject to a daily quota and as a backlog of many, many years.
And actually this is the same for foreign national permanent residents and native Chinese permanent residents of Hong Kong alike. So, when you make your application for an employment visa to be relocated back to Hong Kong from Shanghai, you simply include your wife on the ID990B employment visa application form.
And then submit the documents to show that you’re often married, that you live together until now, and that you can financially support her. She will need an endorsement in her travel document from the local public security bureau in Shanghai as well. But after that, basically your application should be very straightforward.
And I wouldn’t anticipate that you’ll have any problems being able to relocate to Hong Kong together.
VisaGeeza.Ai – Making Hong Kong Immigration A Lot Easier
Business visit to Hong Kong? With Hong Kong having such a liberal visa-upon-arrival regime (with more than 160 nationalities being granted permission to visit for between 7 and 180 days – depending on which passport you carry), it is understandable that there is confusion as to what is permitted activity if you are a ‘business visitor’ in the HKSAR.
This question provides an opportunity to get to the heart of this issue once and for all.
QUESTION
“Hi, Your websites are really informative. Thanks for making all this information available for free. I do have one question which I would like to have an answer for though.
I co-own and manage a small company in the UK (6 staff altogether) and we do a lot of business with one company in Hong Kong especially. Due to a contract we have just signed, I need to transfer myself to HK for up to one year in total, although I will probably travel to and from the UK several times in that period. I am trying to understand if I need to get an employment visa for Hong Kong. My business will carry on as normal in the UK (my brother and I run it together) but for all practical purposes I will be based out of Hong Kong for those 12 months.
Any advice you can offer would be really appreciated. Thank you!”
ANSWER
If you come to Hong Kong as a business visitor, the question is begged as to what is permitted activity under that immigration status. And typically business visitors must generally contain their activities to for example, attending business meetings or fact-finding discussions or this type of activity that gets to the heart of the possibility of some kind of transaction, with your counterparties in Hong Kong.
You can come for example to make sales calls to potential business partners clients, as long as whilst you’re making those sales calls you’re working for an entity that’s established outside of Hong Kong. You can come to sign contracts or conclude contracts indeed, submit formal tender proposals, and support the submission exercise through the delivery of presentations and supporting representations; you can participate in overall product orientation, you can attend short term seminars, you can oversee the installation or the packaging of goods, but you can’t actually be responsible that is, go hands on in relation to the installation or the packaging of those goods.
Likewise, it’s permitted activity to participate in exhibitions or trade fairs although it is not permitted activity to roll your sleeves up and start, for example, building the booth within the trade fair. You could assemble from a kit that you brought with you. That’s natural. But if you had to order timber locally and you needed to interact with local contractors and take responsibility for the formal building of your stand, you would need work authorisations for that. Ah, and it’s perfectly okay to come and participate in for example, litigation if you’re going to suing somebody or you’re being sued and you need to give evidence.
So in all things considered, business visits allow you to do all the kind of activities that are peripheral to commercial activity and where it can be said that you’re actually getting involved in the provision of services or your implementing activities in relation to the commercial endeavour that brought you into Hong Kong in the first place.
You’re going to need an employment visa, and this really sort of translates itself into a sort of common sense understanding, if you’re going to come for or four months at a time and you are a UK citizen and you get 180 days as a visitor, and during those three or four months you’re living in some service department and at 09:00 in the morning you’re reporting to your counterparty’s office and you’ve got a dedicated desk and you’re sitting there and you’re on the telephone and you’re preparing paperwork and you’re doing the kind of activities that actually go towards the implementation of the commercial aspect of what brought you to Hong Kong in the first place. That’s really work.
If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, in actual fact it’s quacking its head off, you are in fact a duck, therefore you need to have an employment visa. So, whilst there are some differences between the activities which are permitted by regulation and those that are allowed in practise, if you are going to be discharging your employment duties in Hong Kong, the type of things that you would ordinarily be doing back in the UK, albeit it’s more practical for you to be in Hong Kong on the ground doing that stuff, you need to have an employment visa.
Therefore my advice in this situation would be to not rely on the business visit category. Even though you’re going to get 180 day period of state each time you present yourself at the border, make an application for an employment visa. The Immigration Department will take into consideration all the circumstances of your case and if you’ve got a genuine contract and you’ve got a business back home that is going to continue and in fact is supporting the activities that have brought you to Hong Kong in the first place, the Immigration Department will undoubtedly grant you the employment visa.
So, make that application and don’t be tempted just to rely on the business visit category simply because practically you get it underneath a day each time you present yourself in Hong Kong at the border.
VisaGeeza.Ai – Making Hong Kong Immigration A Lot Easier
It happens a lot more often that you might imagine. You’d think that the many early years in Hong Kong ought to count towards your right of abode but all too often disappointment is in the offing…
QUESTION
Thank you very much for this informative website! I hope you’ll be able to answer my question, I’m not sure if its a common scenario or not.
I was born in Singapore and I lived in Hong Kong from 1994 – 2005 (11 years) and moved when I was nearly 11 because of my father’s job, and it has now been 7 years since I left to go and live in Thailand.
My mother has a Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card (and was working for an airline there) but I do not. I had a dependant visa endorsed in my passport at the time I left with my parents.
This usually wouldn’t be a problem after leaving Hong Kong, however there are two education sponsorship programmes that I would like to apply for in Hong Kong which requires you to have a permanent HKID.
I have gone to the immigration office about three times in the past 7 years as we do go back quite often, and every time we ask an officer, he says “if you are living in Hong Kong, you can apply for permanent residency.”
Is this true?
Seeing as I have already clocked up 11 years in Hong Kong, all I am missing in the application form is the current residency card.
Does this mean that if I go to university in Hong Kong starting August this year, that I could get my residency card, and then with that, apply for my permanent residency?
The way I see it, although I have been away for a considerably long time, but I am coming back, so this would technically be my 11th year total living in Hong Kong (and I have proof of having been there for 7 years ‘ordinarily’ with my school records, etc.)
I hope my question was clear enough and thank you very much in advance!
ANSWER
This is a very interesting question, and it does strike a chord with quite a number of people in Hong Kong who find themselves in your situation. So I’m grateful to you for having raised the question and hopefully I can shed some light on the situation and how your present immigration status in Hong Kong is affected by your life circumstances.
Your mother is a permanent Hong Kong identity card holder and on the basis that you had been born in Hong Kong and your mother had been a permanent identity card holder at that time, then at the point of your birth, your eligibility for a permanent identity card would have been established and effectively in the wake of that there could have been a very good opportunity for you to continue to argue now, many years later that you are a permanent resident of Hong Kong.
However, that’s theoretical and hypothetical in this situation because you weren’t born in Hong Kong, you were born in Singapore; so consequently your eligibility for a permanent identity card wasn’t established at the time of your birthday. And consequently it meant that the immigration status that was available to you when you came back to Hong Kong with your mother was that of a dependent visa.
And as you stated in your question, you held the dependent visa all the way through to the age of eleven, and then effectively, you left Hong Kong. Now the interesting thing is that after you had been in Hong Kong as a dependent visa holder, just after your 7th, possibly your 8th birthday, you could have, or your parents could have, made an application to have your eligibility for a permanent identity card verified, at the age of eight years of age, on the strength that you had been ordinarily resident in Hong Kong with your parents for a minimum of seven, and at that point you would have effectively been in the driving seat for a permanent identity card.
Subsequently, once you got to the age of eleven years, when the identity card is issued to you, and had that been, if that had occurred, in fact, then effectively at the age of eleven, you would have had your identity card issued to you possibly before you left Hong Kong.
And then on the basis that you have been back in Hong Kong on at least one occasion every three years thereafter, your permanent identity card status, your Right of Abode, in fact, would have been maintained. And uh, uh, effectively the question that, uh, uh, you’re asking today would have been answered in the affirmative.
However, unfortunately, because you only held a dependent visa for the first eleven years of your life in Hong Kong, at the time that you left with your parents to go off to Thailand, effectively you abandoned your continuous ordinary residence at that time; and what that means is that when you come back to Hong Kong in the future, you’re going to have to get a student visa.
The first eleven years of your life in Hong Kong effectively would have been lost. So, it’s unfortunate. It’s certainly not going to assist you with the sponsorship programmes that you’re lining up to make an application for. But if it is any kind of consolation, effectively what will happen in terms of your life going forward is you’ll come back to Hong Kong as a student.
One would assume that you’ll spend three years here as a student, you’ll graduate,you’ll be able to join the workforce straight away, if you start working for a Hong Kong employer within six months of you having graduated from university, because the Immigration Arrangements for Non-Local Graduates give you those privileges.
So that’s effectively going to take you to three and a half years. One assumes that a three to a four year working career in Hong Kong will have seen you continuously know an old resident in Hong Kong again for the requisite seven years and then you’ll be able to go on to secure the Right of Abode as an adult in your own right.
But unfortunately, in light of the facts that we’ve got in your question at the moment, you’re not going to be able to secure the Right of Abode at this point in time.
VisaGeeza.Ai – Making Hong Kong Immigration A Lot Easier
My mother 60 yrs old (Singaporean) has been living with us since March ’13, exiting every 3 months out of the country to renew her stay.
We would like to get her a long stay visa of some sort so we don’t have to worry about her getting stopped at immigration.
Could you please advise if there are any Hong Kong visas for aged parents that we could apply for, for her?
Thanks.
ANSWER
Yes, this is a very tough one indeed. The problem that you’re facing is that your mother is not eligible for a dependent visa sponsored by you because you are merely a temporary resident at this time by virtue of having held or are holding, in fact, an employment visa.
Once you’ve been converted from a temporary resident to a permanent resident, or at the very least, a long stay unconditional stay resident. That is, once you’ve been here for seven years and have gone on to become a permanent resident or have secured unconditional stay or have the Right to Land, in those circumstances, you will be eligible to apply for a dependent visa for your elderly mother on the strength of her being dependent upon you, which conceptually at that time, but it’s not applicable now, as you can appreciate, as long as you can show that you can put a roof over her head and food on a table and that her medical needs are insured for, then this problem will go away over time.
But until such a time, unfortunately, because you’re a temporary resident, you don’t have any rights to sponsor your elderly mother to live with you. So, in a practical sense, you’re left really only today with the visitor visa and all the challenges that are associated with a three month limit of stay as you do with your nationality and running the gauntlet at the border each time that you make an exit and a re-entry, I’ll come back to this subsequently in this answer.
Then after a due process of what only takes six to eight months, if she’s prepared to lock those HKD10 million into qualifying investment asset classes, ring fenced in a financial institute and managed by them accordingly, as long as she maintains those investments in Hong Kong for two years at a time, she’ll be able to get a two-year visa extended for two years all the way through to her having been resident in Hong Kong for a full seven years, whereupon she’ll be able to uplift the HKD10 million investments and convert her status through to permanent residency or indeed unconditional stay at her preference.
So, there is one option that would be suitable for her if she’s able to muster the resources to be able to lock into Hong Kong on that basis. Quite a big ask, I appreciate, but it is one category of visa that is available to you, assuming that she qualifies from a personal net wealth perspective.
So apart from that, realistically, unless she goes to university and gets a student visa, what you’re otherwise left with is the status quo of the visitor visa; you could attempt to secure a prolonged visitor visa on the strength of you being the last remaining relative and that she’s a emotionally, spiritually and financially dependent upon you, but this would be a positive act of discretion on the part of the Immigration Department. In my experience, usually the Immigration Department don’t respond positively to such applications. It’s not unknown for them to effect a positive act of discretion upon such an application, but it’s very much a long shot and it’s not something that you should rely on as being available to you as a matter of right and process.
So the final thing is to really, as I say maintain the status quo and undertake what I’ve called the Shenzhen Shuttle which you’re experiencing presently entering and exiting, and each time that she makes a re-entry, she satisfies the immigration officer over her bona fides as a visitor.
And on the basis that the immigration officer at the border is satisfied of her bona fide, she’s not a risk to the potential for breaching her conditions of stay. Then it’s quite likely that for at least for the considerable future, especially if you’re accompanying her in this exercise and already available to answer any questions that the officer at the border might have as to why she’s spending so much time in Hong Kong, then you might very well be able to carry this off on an ongoing basis until such a time as either you leave Hong Kong or you’ve been here for seven years. It’s not recommended, but, you know, needs must and in your circumstances, it is what it is.
So, I’m sorry I don’t have much more positive news for you; in the final analysis, she’s a visitor and Hong Kong immigration is set up to manage visitors on that basis.
And because you’re merely a temporary resident, unfortunately you don’t have any rights in over yourself to be able to sponsor an elderly parent for any kind of more sophisticated, or indeed useful immigration status for her. So, whilst the news is not great, I hope you found this useful.
VisaGeeza.Ai – Making Hong Kong Immigration A Lot Easier
It’s only natural to wish to iron out all the immigration wrinkles prior to a relocation to Hong Kong when you’re joining your loved one who’s transferring here. This question provides a great opportunity for a discussion of the various options available in terms of a Hong Kong Visa
QUESTION
I have been offered a job with a large multinational company in Hong Kong which I have accepted.
As my girlfriend and I are not married the company are unable to help with her visa. We plan on moving there indefinitely.
She is however a highly skilled architect and scores 110 on the General Points test for the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme visa.
Are they currently accepting architects in this capacity?
What are the chances of the visa being approved?
We would also like to ask, can you apply for 2 visas? Eg. Working visa and Quality Migrant visa at the same time?
If you receive a holiday working visa can you then apply for a Quality Migrant visa whilst you are living in Hong Kong under a working holiday visa?
ANSWER
I’m really grateful for you asking this question because the challenge for professionals who are following their loved ones to work in Hong Kong and who don’t yet have a job offer, the immigration status that they face could be somewhat daunting before arrival if you’re not familiar with how Hong Kong immigration operates; once you find yourself on the ground here, you’ll quickly understand that visas for Hong Kong don’t have to be the major challenge that you would expect them to be because you haven’t become familiar with the place yet.
But that notwithstanding, there’s a lot of good stuff here that we can discuss, and I’m pleased that you’ve asked the question. It gives me an opportunity to essay the answer for you.
Firstly, if you were married, you would be able to get a dependent visa sponsored by you; however, you’re not married, it’s not available, we don’t need to labour it. The one question that I’d just like to clear up, though, is the issue about the company helping with the dependent visa. Actual fact, the application would be promoted by you. Even though they may do the paperwork, they may do the running around on the ground, you would sponsor this application and you would be in the hot seat of showing that you could put a roof over your spouse’s head and putting food on her table. And the interesting thing about the approval fund of the dependent visa regime is that she would be lawfully employable at the point of the visa being granted to her. That would mean that she could work for somebody else, she could join in her own business. In a sense, in that regard, she’d have immigration status that was actually better than yours, other than the fact that her limit stays directly connected or would be directly connected to yours. So the moment your employment visa permission is ended, her dependent visa permission would end at the same time. But she’s got a lot more flexibility or she would have a lot more flexibility than you have if she did have a dependent visa. Okay, that’s out of the way.
If you are deemed de facto spouses and you’re cohabiting together overseas, you could secure a prolonged visitor visa. A prolonged visa visa is the same visa that you get granted to at the airport when you arrive, be it on a prolonged basis, that is up to six months at a time.
There is no greater immigration advantage in having a prolonged visa visa other than the fact that the process of applying for it puts the Immigration Department on notice as to the rationale for your partner being in Hong Kong with you, and it means that she doesn’t have her own.
The gauntlet of entering and exiting Hong Kong upon the expiry of her visitor visa, which can be a little bit disconcerting for people because they’re never quite sure whether or not they’re going to be readmitted when they do make an exit for a visa and as it were. So that’s another option for you.
Turning to the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme which forms a great part of your question and the fact that she’s got 110 points; the problem with the Quality Migrant Admission Schemes are myriad, frankly speaking. Firstly you have no visibility whatsoever whether or not in this instance architects are being selected. The Immigration Department genuinely don’t put out any data on the type of professionals and talents that are being admitted under the scheme, and it’s very much a crapshoot. The one hundred and ten points is a good start, but it just gets you into the selection pool. Once you’re in the selection pool you’re not going to know who you’re competing against. And the selection committee that meets ostensibly twice a year are going to have a whole array of different other professionals that they’re looking at in tandem with your girlfriend.
So in terms of what the likelihood of approval is, frankly speaking, you know, your guess is very much as good as mine because my crystal ball doesn’t work in relation to this programme anymore. However, it can be said if you look at the data that the Immigration Department have put out, particularly recently, the odds are stacked against you because 77% of all Quality Migrant Admission Scheme approvals historically have gone to Chinese nationals, with a further 10% having gone to Canadian, Australian and US nationals. So that effectively means that 87% of all approvals are going to Chinese, Canadians, Australians and US citizens. The balance 13% is being split up against all other nationalities.
So just looking at where you stand on the nationality scale, if you’re Chinese you’ve got a much better chance of getting in under the programme, and the further you move away from the middle kingdom, from a statistical perspective, the odds suggest tha you’re going to struggle to get approved.
Another problem with the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme programme is it takes seven to twelve months for it to play itself out. That’s seven to twelve months of waiting around not quite knowing whether or not you’re going to get approved under the programme. And I’ve been dealing recently with a number of Quality Migrant Admission Schemes successful visa holders who are coming up for their first extension. We didn’t do the work for them initially but they’ve approached us for assistance on the extension exercise, and the stories that I’m hearing out there in the field from such applicants really do mirror our own personal experience in dealing with Quality Migrant Admissions applications.
So I’ve always been loathe to recommend it and nothing that I’ve seen recently suggests to me that it’s an application that you might want to prioritise over the other options that are available to you. So, yeah, basically what I’m saying here is be prepared for it to take a long time and don’t be surprised if you don’t get approved at the outcome of the process.
Now your question then sort of moved on to whether or not you can apply for a Quality Migrant Admission Scheme visa and apply for other immigration statuses at the same time. In this particular instance, yes, it is possible to have two concurrent applications ongoing, one in relation to Quality Migrant Admission Scheme (QMAS), and another in respect of a visa issued under one of the other aspects of Hong Kong immigration arrangements. So, yes, QMAS and an employment visa, for example, or a prolonged visitor visa, or indeed a dependent visa if you were married. All perfectly doable.
Then you ask a question about the working visa and whether or not you can apply for working visa at the same time as a Quality Migrant Admission Scheme visa. And it’s to this particular visa that I think that your long term future effectively belongs. Because if she’s a qualified professional – architect, understanding the kind of cases that are coming across our desks at the moment, a lot of construction professionals, a lot of professionals such as architects and interior designers and others of that ilk are quite frequently finding themselves in Hong Kong as a visitor, are going through the job interview process which is perfectly lawful under the visitor visa regime and are getting job offers extended to them.
And on the basis that your girlfriend can find herself in Hong Kong as a visitor, perhaps register with a series of recruitment agents or headhunters and then goes on to secure a job offer as a result of that recruitment exercise, in all likelihood she’s going to be able to secure an employment visa.
The approvability test for an employment visa is to be able to show that you possess special skills, knowledge and experience of value to not readily available in Hong Kong and that in all the circumstances of the case the employer is justified in engaging the services of the foreign national professional rather than the services of a local person; and, as I said, recent experience suggests to me that if she is indeed a highly qualified architectural professional she’s going to get an employment visa in her own right. So, that’s certainly something that, I’ll be steering you in the general direction of as we get to the conclusion of this question.
Just turning quickly now to the working holiday visa. I’m not quite sure whether or not you’d be eligible for a working holiday visa because you haven’t stated your nationality in the question, but on the basis that you do qualify, it takes about 4-6 weeks to be able to get that visa approved on the basis that the quota for the year hasn’t been expended by the department.
The problem with the working holiday visa is that it’s going to get you on the ground for twelve months but you can only work for a single employer every three months at a time, which for an architectural professional isn’t going to be very, very good. It is possible to have a working holiday visa at the same time as you make an application for a Quality Migrant Admission Scheme visa.
In a nutshell, those essentially are all of your options, and, as I’ve stated a little bit earlier, I think that the practical reality of the situation that you find yourself in, even though you’re trying to sort of rule out or rule in, I should say, the best immigration options for you before you make your relocation here is, for all practical purposes, come to Hong Kong as a visitor, get yourself registered with a headhunter or recruitment firm – I have very little doubt that in due course, sooner if not later, a job offer will materialise, and on the strength of that job offer, she’ll be able to get an employment visa in her own right.
I hope you find that helpful.
VisaGeeza.Ai – Making Hong Kong Immigration A Lot Easier
It’s important to undertake one application at a time en route to your eventual right of abode in Hong Kong…
QUESTION
Hi. I need to extend my IANG visa by the end of July. As of the second week in September I will have been in Hong Kong for 7 years, thus eligible for permanent residency.
I currently do not have a employer sponsor. In negotiating an employment contract (I’m a consultant with no desire to start my own firm) it may be favourable to have a a contract term of 59 days, excluding my potential employer from needing to start an MPF account.
However, would Immigration look unfavourably on that contract term of less than one full year? I basically need an IANG visa for the “gap weeks” of August 2014 and first week of September 2014 as well as employment sponsor.
Your help is greatly appreciated.
ANSWER
So as I read it, in this scenario you’re seeking to adjust your status from student through to employment status under the Immigration Arrangements for Non-local Graduates (IANG).
Applications for working permissions under the Immigration Arrangements for Non-local Graduates are favourably considered on the strength that you have a suitable employer and that you’ve got a genuine job offer and that the sponsor (in this case, your employer) is definitely suitable and is credible.
Now, on the basis that you can muster that scenario for yourself, that application to take up employment for that employer will be, as I say, favourably considered and you’ll be granted a one year limit of stay without any preconditions. And because what you’re seeking to do in a sense is to bridge the gap over the course of the next few weeks to the point where you will have been continuously and ordinarily residence in Hong Kong for the seven years required for the right of abode.
A question is begged as to the nature of the employment relationship that you propose to the Immigration Department for the purposes of IANG and you’ve suggested a 59-day employment contract and that would be suitable, I think, as you stated, for the potential employer because of MPF considerations and all that kind of good stuff.
But I think you’re probably looking at it in quite a convoluted and overly complex manner because effectively most employment contracts in Hong Kong are indefinite term. So as long as you go to the Immigration Department with a genuine offer of employment from a suitable and credible sponsor and so long as the employment contract details that you’re suitable for the position and that the salary that you’re going to be beying paid is broadly commensurate with what’s charged in Hong Kong, then the Immigration Department won’t look askance at that contract.
If, as I say, it’s a genuine offer and you are prepared to deploy for a period of time under that offer because if it’s indefinite term, what it means is that by the time you have finalised your approval under IANG and then moved on to make your application for the right of abode at the point of your right of abode being approved, all your conditions attached to your current stay in Hong Kong will be removed. So you’ll then be able to freely negotiate an end to your current employment arrangements with that sponsor and move through into an independent contractor or some kind of freelance arrangement, which is really what you’re hoping to achieve.
So my advice would be to go to an employer and state that what you’re really looking for is an interim employment, and that until such a time as your right of abode application is approved, whereupon you’ll be free to renegotiate your terms of engagement with them. You will be engaged with them on an indefinite term basis, which is, in a sense, standard practise in Hong Kong in any event, and that way you’ll be able to achieve the objective that you’re looking for without too much fuss or kerfuffle, I suspect.
The important thing to appreciate is that the Immigration Department, they’re not going to cut you any slack in your initial application just because you may be eligible to make an application for the right of abode subsequently, because from their perspective, they’re not going to do any assessment as to your eligibility of right of abode. So they’re never going to know whether or not you will get approved under that application. So they’d never take it into consideration. What you need to do is to focus on this particular challenge, and don’t worry so much about the next particular challenge, in this case, your right of abode application.
So that’s the way that I’d play it. And I think you’ll probably be successful all the way through.
Okay, good luck.
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