Hong Kong Visas Made Easy

What Pathways To An Employment Visa Exist For A Fresh, Foreign University Graduate Arriving In Hong Kong Seeking Career Opportunities Here?

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

Whilst the Immigration Arrangements for Non-local Graduates afford a clean pathway to working permission for foreign nationals freshly graduating from Hong Kong universities, the situation is very different if your degree is from overseas and you’re seeking to work in the HKSAR straight after university.

QUESTION

Hi Stephen,

I would like to ask, I’m a fresh grad student in interior design from Australia. I am seeking an opportunity in Hong Kong.

I had a few companies that are willing to hire me here in Hong Kong, but the problem is that the employment visa / working permit is an issue for them.

I would like to tap your expertise in this situation.

What other alternatives exist to manage this immigration issue?

ANSWER

Naturally enough, Hong Kong, like any other jurisdiction that cares for its younger population and wants to afford the best possible opportunities for their graduates as they can. It is the position of the Immigration Department to not approve applications for employment visas from completely fresh graduates of foreign universities that come to Hong Kong looking for opportunities here; it’s hardly surprising because, you know, the vast majority of countries, as I said, would also implement the same policy to protect jobs for their new graduates too.

So if you do have a very strong commitment to pursuing a career opportunity in Hong Kong, you need to, in a sense, stop anticipating that there’s a simple sort solution available to you and start considering that you’re going to have to start making an investment in relation to Hong Kong in a way that you might not have anticipated until now. So just, you know, blue skying this and thinking about the way to bring about a possible positive outcome for you. One opportunity that might exist is if you find yourself a job offer from a company in Hong Kong that has an office in Australia where perhaps you could spend six months in Hong Kong on a training visa with the expectation that at the end of those six months you would then be sent back to the Australian arm of the group of companies. You would spend two years in Australia working on the ground for the same organisation and then at some stage after you have qualified as a professional for the purposes of the General Employment Policy under Hong Kong immigration rules, then be transferred back to Hong Kong to work for the Hong Kong arm of that business as a full time employee; in those circumstances you would qualify as a professional because you’d be a graduate and you would have had at least two years relevant working experience in your field assuming of course that you have undertaken duties of a supervisory and managerial nature during all of that time. So that’s one way to think about it.

Another way to think about it is well, why not further your education in Hong Kong and go on to get a master’s degree, spend one year studying in Hong Kong. You won’t be allowed to work during that time though, but spend one year studying, get yourself an advanced degree and then immediately take advantage of the Immigration Arrangements for Non-Local Graduates which will effectively see you move straight into lawful employability without the need to have a particular job offer at the point of converting your student visa into the one year fresh non-local graduate arrangements under the immigration arrangement for non-local graduates. So that’s another key way that you could get in.

If you come from a background of commerce and you can muster up the requisite finance and you’ve got a half decent business plan and a sufficient business acumen to think about going into business for yourself – quite a risky strategy given that you’re freshly out of university. But if you’ve got all those resources collected around you, you might think about starting a business in Hong Kong and securing the consent of the Immigration Department to join in that business there. You’d have to show that you’re in a position to make a substantial contribution to the economy of Hong Kong (but I’m not going to spend too much time talking about that because I’ve dealt with it ad nauseam elsewhere on this blog). So that’s the business investment visa.

And then finally, if you come from a particularly well heeled family and you can show that you’ve owned assets in your own name for at least two years to the tune of a minimum of HKD10 million, you could, make an application under the Capital Investment Entrance Scheme which would take six to eight months to finalise.

But at the end of that process, you would find yourself being lawfully employable in Hong Kong without any further questions asked.

So that would represent an expensive, albeit a quite realistic, chance of securing the outcome that you are looking for so that you can be in Hong Kong to carry on your career here.

So those are the options in a nutshell from 39,000ft. I hope you found this useful.

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Can I Come To Install Equipment In Hong Kong Without An Employment Visa?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Visitor Visas, Your Question Answered / 9 responses

Permitted activity under the Visitor visa category seems to be something of a grey area and in the final analysis it all boils down to the attitude of the Immigration Department for a breach of conditions of stay. However, some activities are self-evidently ‘employment‘ in nature and the answer to this questions addresses it squarely.

 

QUESTION

“Hello,

I work for a German company involved in the pharmaceuticals industry and I am traveling to Hong Kong for work related reasons (installing equipment) and wondering if I require a work visa?

Every place I look, it says ‘to take up employment’. If I work for a German company, do I need a visa to do business with another company there? Such as have a meeting? I will only be there for one week.”

ANSWER

This is a commonly asked question, in actual fact, because there seems to be something of a grey area between what is permitted activity and non permitted activity under the visitor visa. Well, the law works to the effect that if you’re coming to Hong Kong to take up or join in any employment whether being paid or unpaid, you need to secure the consent of the director of immigration in advance, and that translates itself into an employment visa application.

And in my experience, if, for example, you were to present yourself at the airport seeking admission as a visitor and you told the officer that you were coming to “install equipment”, I believe the immigration officer would take you to task for that. And, quite, possibly deny you entry on the basis that you didn’t have the requisite immigration permissions to engage in that activity.

There is a world of difference, however, between being compliant at law and non compliant, but being practically able to get away with things because it’s a very short term deployment and also you may well be sort of hidden away in the depths of some commercial building somewhere out of sight of prying eyes and being practically able to sort of get on with the things that you need to do in order to discharge your duties, as it were. But none of that would alleviate the issue of you having the incorrect immigration status to do that.

So under the visitor visa, engaging in business meetings or speaking at conferences, making sales calls, concluding contracts, fact finding missions, participating in product orientation, all of this is permitted activity. But in my experience, if you are discharging your employment duties in Hong Kong for your overseas employer, then an employment visa will be needed. And it seems to me that discharging your employment duties in this situation will definitely cover installing equipment; so that’s the bad news. The good news is that such visas are readily available and quite quickly issued.

Of course, there’s still a process to be followed, but in my experience, installing equipment for sure requires an employment visa if you are to be compliant.

I hope this helps.

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Can I Leave Hong Kong To Work Overseas At The Same Time As I Apply For The Right Of Abode In Hong Kong?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Long Stay & PR, Your Question Answered / No responses

Can you be both settled in Hong Kong, have taken the HKSAR as your only place of residence, yet go and work overseas all at the same time?

QUESTION

Thank you so much for your wonderfully informative website.

I have a question about the timing of starting a new job working for a non-HK employer and which job is not based in HK, in light of my interest in filing the Right of Abode application.

At the end of July 2014, I reach the 7 year mark required to file the Right of Abode application, and at which time I would have been with the same Hong Kong employer during the whole 7-year period.

I note that I have had a valid work visa since July 2007 and my latest work visa expires end of July 2015.

I also note that I’ve been sent to Singapore on long, albeit temporary, assignments that should not impact the Hong Kong residency requirement for my Right of Abode application.

I am interested in trying other jobs soon.

I have a job offer that is a one year contract for a company (that is in the same industry as my current employer) based in Singapore to work in Singapore.

The company is willing to wait for me to file the Right of Abode application before I start working with them.

Can I start working for the new company, say, a week or two weeks after I file the application (the new company will allow me to visit Hong Kong while the application is in process to fulfill any in-person requirements such as for any interviews) or is it advisable to wait longer or until I actually receive approval for HK permanent residency before I start working for the new company?

How long will the approval process take?  I plan to return to Hong Kong at some point to work after gaining some interesting and different experience at the new company in Singapore.

Thank you very much.

ANSWER

Yes, this is always a tricky one because the test for approval for the Right of Abode is you need to show, on the one hand, that you’ve been continuously and ordinarily resident in the HKSAR for a period of not less than seven years immediately prior to submitting the application, and on the other, you need to show that you both settled in Hong Kong and that you’ve taken Hong Kong as your only place of permanent residence.

So clearly here, if you’re thinking that perhaps your future lies away from Hong Kong, then it’s arguable that the fact of making those steps to set up your new arrangements in Singapore could derogate from the notion that you are both settled in Hong Kong and that you’ve taken Hong Kong as your only place of permanent residence.

So, to be absolutely bulletproof in this respect, my advice would be to postpone any plans whatsoever that you have for a life away from Hong Kong, so that you can quite clearly and honestly put your hand on your heart when you make the declaration, to the extent that you’ve taken Hong Kong as your only place of permanent residence and that the facts of your life on the ground in Hong Kong clearly demonstrate that you’re settled here. And then if subsequently, once your Right of Abode application has been finalised, approved and you are a permanent resident of Hong Kong, if new facts emerge that suggest that you might want to take up an offer of employment or pursue some other kind of activity – in this instance away from Hong Kong in Singapore, then that’s what that is.

And, as long as once you’re a permanent resident, you return to Hong Kong on at least one occasion in any three year given period, you will be able to maintain your Right of Abode. So my advice to you would be – don’t do anything that would compromise the idea today that you are settled in Hong Kong and that you’ve taken Hong Kong as your only place of permanent residence.

Okay, I hope you found this useful.

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Can My Dependant Child Go On To Become A Hong Kong Permanent Resident If I Am Not Married To His Mother?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Family Visas, Long Stay & PR, Your Question Answered / 5 responses

Children born in Hong Kong to a Hong Kong permanent resident have their eligibility for permanent identity cards established at birth. But what if the child is born to a Hong Kong permanent resident not married to its mother and where the child was born outside of Hong Kong?

QUESTION

First, many thanks for your time.

I’m a permanent resident of Hong Kong and my son (now 2 years and 5 months) was born in Malaysia and has a Malaysian passport.

I applied for a dependency visa for him in 2012 and was granted a one-year visa in November of that year. He has spent 8 months in Hong Kong so far.

His mother is not a dependant (indeed I’m still married to another woman) but there is no conflict between us – we want what’s best for the child.

Is it correct to say that if I can get my son on the 3 x 3 dependant visa pattern he will be able in the end to apply for a permanent ID card?

ANSWER

A child of a Hong Kong resident can go on to secure a dependent visa sponsored by that resident on the basis that both parents agree that the child should be resident with one of the others if not both of them in Hong Kong.

So in a traditional family situation, this doesn’t present itself as a problem because both the parents and the child naturally together in Hong Kong. But in a scenario such as this where one parent is a permanent resident of Hong Kong and the other parent is not a resident of Hong Kong, but the couple have mutually decided that their offspring best interest would lie being resident with the permanent resident in Hong Kong.

As we’ve seen from this example, it is possible to secure a dependent visa for the child so that the child can live with its permanently resident parent in the HKR. And so once, they get the dependent visa typically it’s one year granted in the first instance and normally where both parents are in Hong Kong and both parents are permanent residents if the child itself isn’t a permanent resident because it wasn’t born in Hong Kong, then the dependent visa that’s issued goes on a three-year pattern and a three-year pattern, so that altogether in this instance you can anticipate that once the dependent visa has been held for a full seven years, issued for one year and then renewed twice at three years on each occasion, then you get a full seven years continuous residence status endorsed in the child’s passport all throughout this time and on the basis the child has been resident in Hong Kong, been educated and all the rest of that good stuff in that seven years, then you can make an application at the expiry of the second dependent visa period of stay for verification for eligibility for a permanent identity card for the child and at that point, if the child is verified as being eligible for the issuance of a permanent identity card once they become of age to procure one, that’s the 11^th birthday. So you get the juvenile ID card, then, the passport of the child is endorsed to the extent that the eligibility for that permanent identity card has been verified and so a label is placed in the back of the passport and that then dispenses with the need to have a formal dependent visa. And so the child is then allowed to exit and enter Hong Kong and live here unconditionally as though it was a permanent resident at that point in the game.

So once the child gets to eleven years of age and application is made for a juvenile identity card a cheque is made at the time of the application. Consideration as to whether the child has been continuously or nearly resident with his parents in Hong Kong, and as they are juveniles, invariably they have been. And on the basis that has been satisfied then the child will be issued a juvenile permanent identity card and then they are effective permanent residents of Hong Kong.

I hope this helps.

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How Is My Dependant Visa Affected Under The Mainland Talents & Professionals Scheme If My Sponsor Father Goes Back To China To Work?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Family Visas, Long Stay & PR, Special Programmes, Your Question Answered / 4 responses

What happens to a Hong Kong resident dependant visa holder sponsored by a parent holding a visa issued under the Admission of Mainland Talents & Professionals Scheme where the parent is unlikely to remain in Hong Kong – but the dependant wants to stay?

QUESTION

I am currently holding a dependent visa of which my father is the sponsor, under the Admission Scheme for Mainland Talents and Professionals.

 The situation is that:

(A). There is a chance that my father, the sponsor, would not be able to extend his stay since he has to spend more time working in mainland than in Hong Kong (i.e., his visa would expire in 2014 if not successfully extended, which technically means my dependent visa would expire at the same time) (B). However, I myself has an offer to start working at a multinational company this September.

 Given the prime goal of attaining permanent residency for me, I need your expertise and suggestions on the following questions:

1. If there’s a large chance that my father will not be able to claim permanent residency two years from now (when 7 years has been reached since first got HKID), shall I switch to employment visa as soon as I am eligible to do so?

2. I have held dependent visa for 5 years now. After year 7, can I apply for permanent residency independently (given that we have successfully extended our sponsor/dependent visas till then?) Or does my outcome depends on my father’s application/status?

3. If I do switch from a dependent visa to an employment visa, say in September of this year. Will the accumulation of residency start over from the new visa? i.e., Say I work in Hong Kong under employment visa for 2 more years. Does that give me a total of 7 years, or only 2, for the application for permanent residency? 

4. Aside, I understand that 7 years is only a precondition for application of PR. So if I do get 7 years from the scenario above (5 dependent + 2 employment), yet I didn’t stay much in Hong Kong in the 5 years as a dependent. Would that significantly impact my chance of claiming PR?

Thank you very much for answering this long list of questions.  I really appreciate your time and help.

ANSWER

A question that’s got quite a few components to it, but the answer is relatively straightforward, so I don’t think it’s going to take too long to be able to clear things up for you in relation to your ability to remain in Hong Kong on a dependent visa.

If your father’s admission of Mainland Talents and Professional Scheme visa isn’t available for extension, then correct, you’re going to have to leave Hong Kong unless you’ve been able to adjust your status into another type of residence visa; and from the facts that you’ve saved, it would appear that you have potentially a sponsor, ideally a large multinational who will be prepared to sponsor you for employment visa permissions.

In order for you to get those permissions, you will definitely have to pass the approvability test for an employment visa, which is that you’re going to have to possess special skills, knowledge and experience of value to and not readily available in Hong Kong, and also the multinational is going to have to conceptually show that they’re justified in engaging your services rather than those of a local person.

But the reality is that the Immigration Department very rarely second guess the hiring decisions of large multinationals. If your sponsor in this instance is in fact large multinational, it’s a fair assumption that you will be able to successfully adjust your immigration permissions through to an employment visa from a dependent visa if it does transpire that your father’s not in a position to continue to sponsor your visa accordingly.

Now, insofar as part two of your question – yes, once you have had seven years continuous ordinary residence in Hong Kong, and as long as you’ve had back to back residence visas in all of that time, which means time spent as a dependent and indeed time subsequently spent as an employment visa holder cumulatively, those two visa types over the course of the seven years will qualify you for the purposes of a Right Of Abode application; and there is in fact no direct association in relation to your own application for the Right of Abode with that of your father’s, assuming of course, that you’re over 18 when you make your application for permanent residency subsequently, I think that effectively gives you the answer in relation to question three, so I don’t need to discuss that any further.

As regards question four, at the point of making the application for the Right of Abode, you’re going to have to demonstrate to the department that any time that you spent spent away from Hong Kong in the seven years was of a merely temporary nature only as evidenced by what you left behind to return back to at the end of each temporary stay abroad.

Now, assuming that you have maintained your vestiges of your life in Hong Kong throughout all of those seven years, and even if you have spent a bit of time up in China for the purposes of your sort of the normal pattern of your ordinary life, then that type of time spent in China should not derogate from your ability to claim ordinary residence all throughout the time that you suggesting to the department that you have been resident in Hong Kong.

If for all practical purposes, though, you fundamentally upped sticks went back to China and spent maybe a couple of years cumulatively with only one or two months in that time back in Hong Kong, then it’s difficult to argue with the department that you have remained settled in Hong Kong throughout all of this time, because it could be deemed that Hong Kong was really just a jurisdiction of convenience and that your real time from a settlement perspective, was spent up in China, not in Hong Kong. So it will all depend on the nature of the time that you spent in China and the length of that time and what you were doing there. But fundamentally, if you’ve, for all practical purposes, maintain a full life and education and a professional career in Hong Kong, then the Immigration Department would likely conclude that any time spent out of Hong Kong will have been of a merely temporary nature, and so your continuity of ordinary residence should have been maintained accordingly.

I think that really covers all those bases for you, so I hope you find this helpful.

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If I Live And Work In China But Have A Hong Kong Employment Visa Can I Get Dependant Visas For My Family?

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

To live in Hong Kong requires a place to lay your head here each night. What happens to your application for dependant visas for your family if you don’t have anywhere for them to live?

QUESTION

I have held a Hong Kong employment visa for the last 3 years.

 But most of the time I work in Shenzhen, China.

 I am here with my family  but I am thinking about moving them to Hong Kong finally for good education and other reasons etc.

 Now I want to apply dependant visas for them, my wife and two kids .

 But I do not have tenancy lease agreement to show residence proof .

 Please advise!

ANSWER

The very bottom line to this question is that in order to get dependent visas for your family to come and live in Hong Kong you need to be able to show that you can put food on their table and a roof over their head. Now, the fact that you have an employment and an employment visa, that will be sufficient for you to be able to show the immigration point where you can put food on their table, roof over the head is mission critical.

The problem that you’re facing is that because you presently have an employment visa the expectation is that right now you are resident in Hong Kong because usually the Immigration Department will not afford residence visas to people who are actually working in China; because you need visa to work in China, not in Hong Kong.

However, they’re cognizant of the fact that a lot of travelling goes on across the border. So in the main, they typically don’t second guess what the residential arrangements are if you’ve got a good Hong Kong employer and your employment in Hong Kong continues. However, insofar as making an application for a dependent visa goes as an existing resident and certainly having been here for three years at the point of making your application for the dependent visa, you will need to show that you have got accommodation for your family.

So in order to facilitate dependent visa applications, my advice is that you get to Hong Kong, rent a place, and once you’ve got a tenancy agreement, submit your applications for the dependent visas, and I think you’ll find that they will be granted to you without too many problems. But you are going to need to have a tenancy agreement for sure.

Okay, I hope you find this useful.

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What’s The Difference Between Unconditional Stay And Permanent Residence In Hong Kong?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Long Stay & PR, Your Question Answered / 2 responses

When would unconditional stay be an appropriate Hong Kong immigration status as opposed to the right of abode and, in any event, what’s the difference?

QUESTION

We’re considering to apply for a business investment visa, but we don’t really intend to live in Hong Kong in the near future.

If our application gets approved, we’ll get 2-3-3-year-visa, renewable up to 7 years.

My question is since we can’t be resident in Hong Kong during these 7 years, we only can apply Unconditional Stay after 7 years.

But then if one day we decide to really live in Hong Kong, after living in Hong Kong for a period of time (how long is required?) can we change our status applying Hong Kong permanent residence?

What will be the requirements to submit such request?

What are the differences between unconditional stay and permanent residence?

I read unconditional stay visa holder need to come back to Hong Kong once per 12 months period. But other than that, I didn’t find any other info.

I would like to know particularly the differences on income tax filling and social benefit for above two status.

Thanks a lot for your kind advice!

ANSWER

When you secure an employment visa in Hong Kong, you are lawfully employable by the employer which has successfully sponsored an employment visa for you. Once you stop working for that sponsoring employer, insofar as your continuing employment visa permissions go, in essence, all bets are off until you make an application to the Immigration Department to change your sponsorship from your old employer through to the proposed new employer.

In preparing for this application, you need to anticipate that it’s a process that’s very similar to the application that you underwent the first time, insofar as getting the visa approved for the status that you’ve got right now. In the Hong Kong Visa handbook, employment visa section, I’ve set out the documentary requirements that govern these types of applications, whether it’s a new application or in fact it’s a change of sponsorship application.

Now, the way that the process works is that you go to the Immigration Department with your completely assembled bundle, and you file your application to change your sponsorship without at this point, if this is in fact the case, having stopped working for your present employer and during the currency of your new employment visa application, your current employer really shouldn’t be privy to what’s going on because the Immigration Department certainly won’t correspond with your existing employer.

All that will happen is that whilst the Immigration Department are considering your application, which by the way happens on the 5^th floor Residents Section, not the 24^th floor Entry Visa Section, so whilst the Immigration Department are considering your application, they’ll correspond with you directly and they’ll raise any questions or request for information or other requisitions that apply in the context of the application before you.

And um, insofar as the chances of approval go, you need to anticipate that as long as it’s a like for like employment and as long as you are clearly a professional under the General Employment Policy and the new employer is justified in engaging your services as opposed to the services of a local person, then it’s reasonable to assume that your change of sponsorship application will be approved.

Normally the Immigration Department respond positively to such applications. Now, the way it works once you’ve got sort of nine tenths of the way through the application process is that you’ll see that the Immigration Department will call for a document from you that demarcates the date of last employment with your current employer so that they can then when they finalise your approval, set a line between your previous sponsorship and your new sponsorship, they will need a line in the sand, as it were, a date from which the new sponsorship obligations of your new employer will prevail and at the same time, relinquishing your old employer, your past employer, of their continuing sponsorship in relation to you. And it’s when the Immigration Department call for this document that you will get a sense that they’re about to finalise your application positively. And at that stage, what you do is you submit your resignation and give a copy of the resignation documentation that sits between you and your current employer, which in turn will denote what your final date of employment is with that old employer.

And you submit copies of that documentation to the Immigration Department, and they will then, as I say, be able to demarcate the old sponsorship from the new sponsorship and then after you’ve been approved, you should receive a letter from the Immigration Department stating when your new employment arrangements are going to commence from that is your new sponsorship.

Employment visa sponsorship arrangements are going to commence from inviting you down to go and process an extension to your current limit of stay because at the moment you have six months less you have less than six months left on your current limit of stay, in these circumstances, rather than put Immigration Department resources through, on the one hand, a change of sponsorship application, and then a few weeks or months later, because your current limit of stay is going to expire, put the Immigration Department resources through a second application insofar as giving you an extension to your current limited stay.

Usually the Immigration Department, as I say, if you’ve got six months or less remaining on your current limit of stay, they normally endorse your passport at the same time as they give you the new approval, and normally that twelve-months limit starts from the expiry of your current limit of stay, which in this instance would be July.

So, in effect, that’s how that process is handled and that’s how that process is managed. And included on this post are a lot of other resources where I’ve dealt with challenges associated with the change of sponsorship application that you’re looking to accomplish. And again, I refer you back to the Employment Visa Section of the Hong Kong Visa handbook where all the documents that you need – checklist, templates and all the rest of that good stuff that will apply in allowing you to go through that process, you can find them all there. And just to remind you, because you’re an existing resident, you would submit the application and the Residence Section on the 5^th floor of Immigration Tower, not on the 24^th floor, which is the Entry Visa Section which is where applications for the very first time time for the employment visas are considered.

I hope you find this useful.

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