Hong Kong Visas Made Easy

So, Just What Is The Deal With The Right To Land In Hong Kong Anyway?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Long Stay & PR, Your Question Answered / 47 responses

The right to land in Hong Kong impacts quite a number of people here but does not figure much in the general immigration scheme as it is not a status that you can apply for per se, nor is it an immigration status that you can acquire by descent.

The right to land in Hong Kong is available in certain situations which I discuss in the context of this question which popped into my Inbox first thing this morning (and I have assumed the questioner’s parents are Chinese citizens for the purpose of this question).

QUESTION

“Hi, I was born in Netherlands in 1974, but my parents are from Hong Kong. Will I still be able to apply for the right to land? “

ANSWER

In this discussion, we are focusing on the Right of Abode in Hong Kong rather than just land rights or immigration status. Since 1997, the concept of permanent residency has become important for individuals seeking to secure their Right of Abode in Hong Kong. A Hong Kong permanent resident, who possesses the Right of Abode, enjoys several benefits, including the right to land, freedom from any conditions of stay, protection against deportation, and the assurance of not being removed from Hong Kong. However, it is important to note that if a foreign national loses their Right of Abode, they can still obtain the right to land, provided they initially possessed it. The right to land continues to be relevant for certain British nationals who were resident in Hong Kong before 1997. Over time, most individuals who have lived continuously in Hong Kong for seven years since then have successfully obtained their Right of Abode. It’s significant to understand that your immigration status is often influenced by your family background, specifically your parents’ Right of Abode status at the time of your birth. For those in similar circumstances, I recommend checking the last link on this page for a detailed discussion on how to anticipate the immigration department’s response when applying for the Right of Abode based on your specific situation.

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If I Am An Overseas Chinese And My Mother Holds A HKSAR Passport And A PHKID Card Do I Have The Right Of Abode In Hong Kong?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Long Stay & PR, Your Question Answered / 15 responses

The question of permanent residency in Hong Kong is one of the most complex areas of immigration practice and this question is helpful in that it speaks to the situation of ethnically Chinese foreign nationals with Hong Kong parentage.

QUESTION

“I am a mother of three children. I hold a Permanent Hong Kong Identity card as well as a HKSAR passport. My husband is Malaysian and I have lived there for the last 22 years. My eldest child was born in Hong Kong before we moved to Malaysia full time.  My two other children (a girl and a boy) were born in Malaysia. A few years ago I was able to secure a Permanent Hong Kong Identity Card for my eldest child and now I would like to do the same for my other 2 children. Can you tell me if they will qualify or not? Thank you!”

Thanks for your question. Can you please provide me with some further information as below:

How old are your 2 other children now?

“Daughter: 19 years old this year”

“Son: 11 years old this year”

What nationality were you when your children were born?

“Malaysia and Hong Kong”

What nationality are you now?

“Malaysia and Hong Kong”

What nationality are your children now?

“Malaysia”

Where do your children live now?

“Malaysia”

Have your children ever lived in Hong Kong before? If so, when and for how long?

“No”

Did they do any schooling here?

“No”

What year did you move back to Hong Kong from Malaysia?

“I am currently living in Malaysia, I’m just here for holiday”

What nationality is your husband?

“Malaysian”

Where does your husband live now?

“Malaysia”

ANSWER

In order to secure permanent Hong Kong identity cards, we must establish that your daughter and son are ‘permanent residents’ of Hong Kong.

A permanent resident of the HKSAR is defined under paragraph 2 of  Schedule 1 to the Immigration Ordinance. Here are the relevant sections:

2              … A person who is within one of the following categories is a permanent resident of the HKSAR….

(a)   A Chinese citizen born in Hong Kong.

(b)   A Chinese citizen who has ordinary resided in Hong Kong for a continuous period of not less than 7 years.

(c)    A person of Chinese nationality born outside of Hong Kong to a parent who, at the time of birth of that person, was a Chinese citizen falling within Category (a) or (b).

(d)   …

“Chinese citizen” is defined under paragraph 1(1) of the Schedule 1 to the Immigration Ordinance.

“Chinese citizen” means a person of Chinese nationality under the Nationality Law of the PRC as implemented in the HKSAR pursuant to Article 18 of and Annex III to the Basic Law and interpreted in accordance with the Explanations of Some Question by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress Cioncerning the Implementation of the Nationality Law of the PRC (‘CNL’) in the HKSAR adopted at the 19^th meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress at the 8^th National People’s Congress on 15 May, 1996.

Article 5 of the CNL stipulates that:

“Any person born abroad who parents are Chinese nationals or one of whose parent is a Chinese national shall have Chinese nationality. But a person who parents are both Chinese nationals and have both settled abroad, or one of whose parents is a Chinese national and has settled abroad, and who has acquired foreign nationality at birth shall not have Chinese nationality.”

So, the crucial point in considering whether your daughter and son are permanent residents of Hong Kong for the purposes of getting Permanent Identity Cards is whether they were Chinese nationals at the time of their birth. Whether they are Chinese nationals or not therefore hinges on if you, their mother (who is a Chinese national), were settled abroad at the time of their birth.

From the information you have provided to me it appears that:

1 – You, their mother, are a Chinese national.

2 – At the time of the birth of your daughter and son you were settled abroad in Malaysia.

3 – Consequently, by operation of Chinese nationality law, your daughter and son are not Chinese nationals.

4 – Indeed, they acquired Malaysian nationality at the time of their birth.

5 – Consequently, as your children are not Chinese nationals they cannot be deemed permanent residents of Hong Kong by virtue of their relationship to you.

6 – Meaning, their application for Permanent Hong Kong Identity Cards is unlikely to be successful.

However, you will never know if you do not try.

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Can Elderly Parents Come To Live With Their Son Who Only Holds A Hong Kong Employment Visa?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Family Visas, Long Stay & PR, Your Question Answered / 6 responses

If you hold a Hong Kong employment visa, bringing elderly parents to join you in Hong Kong is an area of immigration practice that is fraught with difficulty – as well as uncertainty. Dependant visas are, as a matter of policy, not available for non permanent residents yet it’s a scenario that presents itself all too frequently. This question provides an opportunity to discuss the visa possibilities in this situation.

QUESTION

“Can my husband and I aged 70 and 71 join our, son a banker, whilst he holds a Hong Kong employment visa for approximately 2-4 years ?  We are UK citizens and have pensions. We would live with him and his family there.”

ANSWER

In Hong Kong, dependent visas are only available for spouses and unmarried children under the age of 18. For foreign nationals who are holding residence visas in Hong Kong, for example, if your son has an employment visa that’s classified as a residence visa, consequently, from the fact that I have your question, it would appear that your son is not going to be in a position to sponsor you for dependent visa permission, which is unfortunate.

On the other hand, you could, if you did have a proof of prior cohabitation (you were all living together before your son moved to Hong Kong), you could make an application for a prolonged visit either on exceptional grounds. This would give you a six-month period of stay extendable every six months and would facilitate easy access to Hong Kong and enter and exit from Hong Kong across the borders each time you decide to leave and come back again. This would obviate the difficulties of having to explain yourself to the borders officers and make it a very simple, easy way to join your family in the HKSAR. On that basis, if you were to progress a form visitor application, some would have to sponsor you and in that regard you’d have to assume all responsibility for your financial support, you’d have to show that you had a very good medical insurance policy and the fact you’ve got independent means is all to the good in respect of a prolonged visa visa application. But as I say, the necessary precondition is that you would have to show that you were living together as a family prior to his relocation to Hong Kong. And if that’s not in play, then it would be difficult for you to secure a prolonged visit visa from the department.

That said, you are UK citizens and in any event, you’re going to get 180 days, which is six months each time you present yourself as a visitor at the border.

So, in relation to the practical challenge of being able to be with your son and his family in Hong Kong, it seems to me that for a couple of years at least, if you were to make entries and exits from Hong Kong over those two years, make them on four or five separate occasions, I believe that you’d be able to actually spend the kind of time that you’d like to be spending together with your son and his family, even though it wouldn’t have you in Hong Kong as a resident per se, which would mean that you wouldn’t get a Hong Kong identity card, you wouldn’t be able to have access to the facilities, but in a very practical sense, you would have the opportunity to be together with your family.

So, in these circumstances, the Immigration Department are quite practical – they would see that your son is in Hong Kong, that you have an obvious need to spend time with him. And, I think because given that the Immigration Department deal very much in the area of discretion, you could take all your circumstances down to Immigration Department and effectively show to the Immigration Department what’s going on in your family lives and ask them to help you with the ability to stay in Hong Kong on an extended basis as visitor without actually going through the prolonged visitor visa application as such.

So all things considered, you’re in a very good position in a practical sense, because you are British nationals and you will get 180 days each time that you present yourself at the border. So go in and out, as I’ve said, maybe three or four times over the course of two years, spend 20 months, maybe 23, 24 months on that basis, and then if you find yourself having problems when you re-enter Hong Kong go down to Immigration Department with your son, explain the circumstances that you find yourself in, deliver to the Immigration Department all the information that they need to make a decision as to the bona fide of your circumstances, and I believe that you would be able to spend time together with your family, albeit, without securing a residence visa in the process.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that if your son does end up spending seven years in Hong Kong, all total, and converts his status from a sponsored employment visa through to permanent residency, he will be able to sponsor you and you will be able to come as dependents and be able to take advantage of all the benefits that Hong Kong has to offer for all residents, including access to medical facilities and services.

I hope that helps.

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How To Apply For A Hong Kong Investment Visa Without Paying For Professional Help – 10 – The Catch 22

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Investment Visas, Musing / No responses

I have given this talk around town for the last couple of years now and so pleased to finally add it to our coverage of the Hong Kong investment visa. This segment speaks to the proverbial issue of having started your Hong Kong business before you have received the permission of the Hong Kong Immigration Department to do so and in the process finding yourself in the Catch 22!

PRACTICE UPDATE: How the content must now be read in light of current ImmD policy:

• Historical Editorial Standard: Here I break down the procedural paradox where a founder cannot work without a visa, yet cannot secure a visa without establishing an operational business. Historically, the recommendation was to file early—right at the inception of the business—to allow ImmD to evaluate prospective intent over a 4-to-6 month consideration window while early commercial results took shape.

• Comparative Reading Under the Upgraded Regime: Filing early on the basis of prospective commercial intent is now obsolete and invites immediate rejection. ImmD no longer grants provisional runway to unmobilized ventures. The Catch-22 must now be navigated by assembling fully mobilized, institutional-grade infrastructure prior to submission: clearing HKD 1.5M–2.0M in equity transfers into a local corporate account, executing an exclusive commercial lease, and onboarding local staff via local proxies before lodging the application. Alternatively, early-stage innovators who lack these capital reserves must resolve the Catch-22 by securing admission into a recognized government-backed incubation scheme (such as Cyberport or HKSTP).

The talk was graciously hosted at WYND Co-working Space, ran by a group of great people for whom I have a great deal of time.

The Complete Talk in Logical Segments

1 – Introduction

2 – Policy

3 – Visa Problem?

4 – Mainlanders

5 – Visitors

6 – Work Visa?

7 – Investment Visa?

8 – Approvability Test

9 – Cash Needed

10 – Catch 22

11 – Loved Ones

12 – Visa Refused?

13 – Trying Again

14 – D-I-Y

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How Can I Handle My Hong Kong Employment Visa Extension If I Plan To Be On Leave For 8 Weeks Around The Time For Renewal?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Your Question Answered / No responses

This situation occurs quite a lot especially for those employees who were originally summer hires and are on back to back employment contracts matching the validity of their limits of stay.

QUESTION

I am a Canadian currently employed in Hong Kong and have a work visa. If I plan to be absent on leave in the five weeks prior to the expiry of current limit of stay, can I apply to renew my work visa ‘in advance’ of the normal 28 day period?  I intend to return to Hong Kong 3 weeks after my current visa expires and so be gone for a total of 8 weeks on leave. How can I handle my employment visa extension in this situation?

ANSWER

The Hong Kong Immigration Department see this situation quite frequently in actual fact, and so they do have  developed a protocol to allow people such as yourselves who find themselves not really being in Hong Kong and available around about the time that their current visa comes up for renewal.

As you’re holding an employment visa, effectively the solution for you is to make your application probably six weeks before your current limit of stay expires, follow the normal processes which are detailed in the visa extension kit which is included as a link to this blog post, and also in your application bundle, include express representations as to the reason for why you’re making an early application, and also include copies of all the documents that substantiate the reason for you making that early application, so that the Immigration Department can conclude for themselves that they need to effect a positive act of discretion on an out of policy basis to allow your extension application to be processed slightly earlier than the norm, which would then effectively be completed in about five to ten days and giving you sufficient time to finalise these formalities prior to making your trip.

So that when you come back, you’ll have your visa extension fully completed and you won’t have to worry about it anymore. So, yep, it’s perfectly doable. Just submit all the supporting documentation in regard to the reason for the extension. And then you’ll find that the Immigration Department will play ball with.

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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

PRACTICE UPDATE: How the content must now be read in light of current ImmD policy:

This article’s lighthearted reassurance that “HKID no more wants to read a 60-page business plan than you want to write one” must not be mistaken for administrative leniency regarding operational rigor. While ImmD still abhors fluff, case officers now enforce forensic scrutiny over financial architecture that far exceeds historical standards. A casual narrative or basic two-year cash flow model will invite immediate requisitions; the business plan must now present an audited, defensible three-year trajectory grounded in sound unit economics, documented local vendor supply chains, and committed payroll outlays for local personnel. Brevity is still welcome, but only when substantiated by verifiable bank balances, cleared capital outlays, and institutional-grade proof of execution.

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.

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Your Hong Kong Employment Visa – What Happens When You Lose Your Job?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Hadley Says…, Investment Visas / 5 responses

If you have an employment visa and have stopped working for your sponsoring employer, no matter what the reason, you will not have to leave Hong Kong straight away.

The HKID provide you with enough time to make arrangements to find an alternate employer or, if you prefer, to lay the groundwork to start your own business.

Ninety-nine per cent of the time, the Hong Kong Immigration Department will allow you to carry on living in Hong Kong until your current visa expires but you’re expected to leave at that time.

But if you find another employer or have made ready to start your own business you can apply for new visa permissions to continue living and working in Hong Kong – and get a 12 months extension to your present period of stay in the process.

But in either case you have to make the applications and get the Hong Kong ID’s approval before you start working – otherwise you’ll be breaking the law.

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