Hong Kong Visas Made Easy

Losing Hong Kong Unconditional Stay Status Due To Studies Abroad – A Family’s Dilemma

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

One of the more upsetting parts of being a Hong Kong immigration consultant is learning that one family member alone, due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances, finds herself the odd one out by not having been able to correctly manage her visa status here – and all, essentially, through no fault of her own.

QUESTION

“Hi, My mother married a Hong Kong-Chinese national (step father) and sponsored my stay in Hong Kong to study when I was a child. I stayed and grew up in Hong Kong for more than six years and was holding unconditional stay status. My parents opted to send me to Malaysia to finish my secondary school up to tertiary school. I was not able to come back within one year of leaving Hong Kong. Before I reached 18, my mother reapplied me for sponsorship, the immigration delayed the response for my application and when I ultimately reached my 18th birthday, then they informed me I was too old. I came back to Hong Kong four years after my departure and I was forced to be a Visitor.

I have heard some people with the same case as mine (departing Hong Kong for an extended amount of time for studies) and where able to keep their residence status because they were STUDYING when away. I really want to be reunified with my family even though it was more than ten years when I first left Hong Kong. Among my mother, father and two siblings I am the only one not holding a valid I.D. card because of this.

Any thoughts?”

ANSWER

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Can I Remain In Hong Kong As A Visitor After My Employment Visa Expires?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Visitor Visas, Your Question Answered / 1 response

Simple question this one with an easy answer and indicative of the fact that, even though quite a straight forward issue, the information is not otherwise readily available anywhere else on the web.

QUESTION

I am a Canadian citizen, working in Hong Kong holding an employment visa for 7 weeks. I want to stay after my job is finished (work visa will expire at the same time) to see Hong Kong, then travel to Macau and Thailand.

Do I need to have my visa changed from employment to visitor?

Thank you so much for your help.

ANSWER

At the time that your employment visa limit of stay is due to expire, if you don’t have the continuing rationale for remaining in Hong Kong as an employee, because your contract has come to an end and in any event, it was just a short term employment visa;nonetheless then, for you to remain in Hong Kong as a visitor will not be problematic at all, but there will be a process that you need to go through in order to achieve this outcome.

There are two ways to go about doing it. The first is to go down to the Immigration Department to the visitor extension section, wait probably three quarters of a day, and get yourself up to a maximum of possibly two week visitor visa extension upon request of an immigration officer going through the visa extension process, and they will readily grant you, no doubt, a two week extension to your present limit of stay, converting you from an employment visa holder to a visitor at that time.

So that should not be problematic at all. The real problem there, of course, is that even it’s going to take a long time, it gets very busy. And the visitor visa guys at the Immigration Department are  under a lot of pressure and they tend to be somewhat brusque in the way that they process such applicants. But you will get the extension, so don’t worry about that.

Alternatively, and ideally, what I would suggest that you do is – on the final date of your current limit of stay as an employment visa holder, take in a sense the 11:00 evening ferry over to Macau. Arrive in Macau and come back from Macau into Hong Kong on the very next ferry, which will bring you into Hong Kong on the next day, the day after your current limit to stay as an employment visa holder expires.

And at the point of arrival, the immigration officer will only be able to grant you a visitor visa because that’s the only status that will be open to you, given that your employment visa will have expired the day before. And as a Canadian national, you will get a 90 day period of stay; and that’s the same for most western nationalities, such as most Europeans and also Americans for that matter. And, at that point, you’ll be then granted the time that you need in Hong Kong to complete your final activities here as a visitor. Okay, I hope this helps.

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I Have Been In Hong Kong For 2 Years As A Visitor And Have 2 Work Visa Refusals – What’s The Risk Of Refused Entry Again In My Circumstances?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Refusals & Appeals, Visitor Visas, Your Question Answered / No responses

How is the Shenzhen Shuttle impacted where there is a history of long stay visits in Hong Kong combined with multiple employment visa refusals?

QUESTION

Hi,

I have been in Hong Kong for 2 years as a Visitor and my work visa application was denied for the second time a couple of weeks ago.

My visitor visa doesn’t run out until next week. I wanted to ask if my refused visa application will have an impact on my re-entry when I go to Macau to renew my visitor visa. I’ve been going to Macau for renewal every few months and there hasn’t been a problem but all of those times, I either wasn’t applying or it was in progress.

Now that it has definitely been denied, how heavy is the risk that I will be told to go back to Switzerland? (I have a Swiss passport).

I also applied for a Work Holiday visa a couple of years ago that was denied.

My boyfriend lives here with an Italian passport and so I’m very worried about possible separation.

ANSWER

When you present yourself for admission as a visitor to Hong Kong, the examining officer at the airport or at the boundary is assessing your bona fide as a visitor. And in this regard, it takes into consideration a number of factors. He does a risk assessment in terms of, you know, who you are, how old you are, possibly what you look like, an assessment into your means, have you got a return ticket, etc.?

They will also look to see your pattern and frequency of visits to Hong Kong. And essentially, if you’ve been coming and going nonstop for two years now, engaging in what I’ve couched as the Shenzhen shuttle, albeit going by Macau, you are, in any event, irrespective of what’s happened down at the Immigration Tower, regards your previous visa refusals, at risk of not being assessed as a bona fide visitor to Hong Kong if for no other reason that the officer can see you’ve been here for two years and may suspect that you’ve been breaching your conditions of stay by uptaking unauthorised employment.

So, presently, when you present yourself, you may get an experience with an officer where he essentially waves you through at the point of doing the assessment. The immigration officer at the border or at the airport won’t have immediate access to the knowledge that you have had previous visa applications refused. But once they do stop you and inquire into further details as to what’s keeping you in Hong Kong, then clearly that will come out. And, the fact that you do have efforts on file of trying to take up residence for employment purposes that have been repeatedly refused makes you a very high risk candidate for admission as a visitor.

So, you are essentially at risk in any event, but elevated. So because of your history of prior refusals, by the way, your working holiday visa was refused not because there’s anything wrong with you as an applicant other than the fact that you’re a nationality that doesn’t qualify for one.

So it’s your two prior employment visa refusals that are an issue for you. But then you see, you’ve got the issue as regards your relationship with your boyfriend and that is clearly a reason for you spending as much time here as you are. Is it sufficient for the immigration department to just admit you nonetheless? Well, given that they won’t have all the facts and information and evidence on hand at the time that they’re assessing you for admission as a visitor the next time around it’s difficult for them to essentially rely on the representations that you’ll be making to them as to the nature and the state of your relationship with your boyfriend.

So what I would suggest that you do to try to at least ameliorate this, if you do get stopped, is to have with you all his information. A copy of his passport, his visa label, a copy of his ID card, his mobile number. Indeed, a letter from him addressed to the examining officer at the airport or at the border stating that you’re in a loving, committed relationship and that he’s prepared to assume responsibility for you during the currency of your next visit; and it may well be that information could be just enough in a go or no go situation for the officer to admit you for a further three months.

However,  that approach is certainly not sustainable and you are in a sense relying on the discretion of the examining officer to cut you some slack in real terms. Because two years as a visitor is a long time. Your nationality gets three months. That’s a reasonable timeframe to be visiting Hong Kong as far as policy goes.

Of course I know that you do have a reason for being here longer than, but unfortunately immigration rules all over the world are such that they don’t allow unlimited de facto residents to people who visit; and you are at risk of the steam running out of your engine in this respect.

Now a longer term solution might be that if you’re in a loving committee life partner relationship and you and your boyfriend are both free to marry but choose not to, and you can show to the Immigration Department that during these two years you have been cohabiting in Hong Kong, then you may be able to secure a prolonged visitor visa upon application to the department on the strength that you are essentially de facto spouses.

Your boyfriend will clearly have to participate in this application and sponsor you for this; it’s an out of policy application. So there’s not even a section in the immigration department that’s set up to deal with these applications. You really are once again throwing yourself at the feet of the immigration officers to positively consider an application for you not to be separated from your boyfriend given the nature and the longevity and the committed sense of your relationship with them.

So there are plenty of resources on our websites that speak to prolonged visitor visas; the mere fact of having one in the pipeline, again, doesn’t automatically address your bona fide as a visitor when you are undertaking the Shenzhen shuttle; and because it does take between, well, six to eight months for these things to play themselves through, normally could be a little bit quicker; but normally, because it’s out of policy, they are quite sort of long in the applying. So you will have to run the gauntlets of the Shenzhen shuttle probably on two or three more occasions to you get an outcome on that application. So that’s really the sort of the lot of it for you, I’m afraid.

In a nutshell, there’s a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, but you keep relying on the Shenzhen shuttle, then I think you’re going to find sooner or later, the hammer’s going to fall, and the sword of Damocles will have worked to end your time with your boyfriend.

I hope you found that useful.

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How Can I Resign From My Current Job BEFORE My Hong Kong Change Of Employer Application Has Been Approved?

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

Hong Kong change of employer application – how can you readily manage the should-you-resign-before-your-change-of-work-visa-sponsorship-application-has-been-approved conundrum?

QUESTION

I have held a Hong Kong work visa for 2 .5 years now and I am currently in the process of finalizing an offer letter with a new employer here.

I need your advice in relation to the timing of me notifying my current employer that I am set to leave.

So should I resign after a sign the offer letter or wait for my change of employer / work visa application to get approved from Hong Kong Immigration Department?

ANSWER

The Immigration Department are very familiar with this problem and therefore they work the system to the extent that they will receive an application from you in anticipation of you joining a new employer, and as they give due consideration to the application and they are about ready to approve your application, they will then ask you to supply what we’ve couched as a bye-bye letter, which is essentially correspondence between you and your employer, which speaks to the final date of employment termination in your current job.

And when you submit a copy of that, and usually it’s a copy of your resignation letter or if you’ve been a redundant, your redundancy letter, but specifically, if you’re still employed and you want to move to a new position, it would be a letter of resignation from you, acknowledged as received by the current employer, and on that letter will be the final date of employment termination.

And when you adduce that letter to the Immigration Department upon their request, they’re essentially sending you the signal that your application is about to be approved, and therefore you can quite safely resign from your current employer, knowing that the moment that you submit your bye-bye letter to the Immigration Department, they will issue you a letter of approval stating that you’ll be able to uptake the new employment normally from the day after the date on your bye-bye letter.

So that’s how the Immigration Department manages that process.

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Can A Newly Qualified Foreign National Permanent Resident Of Hong Kong Automatically Secure PR For His Parents Too?

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

So, just what immigration options for parents accrue to a foreign national holding a Hong Kong permanent identity card?

QUESTION

Hi there!

 A foreign national became a permanent resident after many years study and work in Hong Kong.

Now he wants to sponsor his parents holding Canadian passports to become a P.R.

In Hong Kong too – any way to do that? 

How long will it take for the application? 

Thank you.

ANSWER

In Hong Kong there is no facility to automatically secure permanent residency for foreign nationals other than the process of undergoing seven years of continuous ordinary residency in Hong Kong. So notwithstanding the fact that there is a situation where an individual – foreign national, has recently secured permanent residency that in of itself is not going to parlay or translate into opportunities for permanent residency for any other family member automatically, other than for dependent children under the age of 21 who were born in Hong Kong whilst such a person was a temporary resident here.

In any event, in order to secure status to allow dependent parents to be residents in Hong Kong sponsored by a foreign national permanent resident, the only manoeuvre that’s available is to apply for dependent visas for the elderly parents, and elderly in that regard is over 60 years of age.

The application is relatively straightforward, but you need to show that there is dependency on the part of the parents, and that the sponsor can put food on their table and a roof over their head.

Once those dependent visas have been independently secured, those elderly parents will maintain their residency under dependent visa status throughout all of the seven years that follow the issue of the dependent visa in the first place, and at the end of that seven-year period they will be able to independently apply for permanent residency in their own right.

So, to answer your question, no ability for permanent resident foreign nationals to automatically undergo process to get permanent residency for any other supporting family members or accompanying family members, but there does exist a mechanism for elderly parents in this type of scenario to become permanent residents after seven years of holding dependent visas. I hope you found that useful.

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How Hard Is It To Transfer From A Hong Kong Working Holiday Visa To A Full Employment Visa?

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

You know how it is… you arrive in Hong Kong for a year of fun and adventure and then you want to stay… This article deals with the transfer from a Hong Kong Working Holiday Visa to a full Employment Visa.

QUESTION

Hi there!

I’m an Australian citizen in Hong Kong, working under a working holiday visa which only permits me to work 3 months per employer.

Is the only way around this to be sponsored by my employer or can I transfer to another visa?

I presume it’s quite expensive and tricky to be sponsored for an employment visa by a company – is that true?

Thanks in advance for your help! 

ANSWER

The working holiday visa is an excellent form of immigration status for people who are under 30 years of age who want to come to Hong Kong and experience Hong Kong for an extended holiday and embark on a little bit of a cultural exchange. However, there are conditions that accompany a working holiday visa depending on your nationality; and in this instance we’re talking about an Australian citizen. An australian citizen is allowed to be in Hong Kong for twelve months to work, but can’t work for any single employer for more than three months at a stretch. So in effect, what happens in the case of a working holiday visa holder who finds himself in a position that both him and his employer wants to regularise and make into a full time, in a sense, a permanent employment, then it is possible to make an application to adjust your status from working holiday visa through to employment.

But bear in mind that the Immigration Department will still apply the approvability test for the employment visa to deem you a professional for the purposes of the General Employment Policy. And that will mean that you will need to show in the context of the job offer that you have got for full-time employment that you possess special skills, knowledge and experience of value to are not readily available in Hong Kong.

Now I’ve dealt with the approvability test for the employment visa under the general employment policy ad nauseam elsewhere on the blog, so I don’t propose that we labour it on this occasion, but the procedure is very straightforward – you can be in Hong Kong possessing a working holiday visa, and you can make your application to adjust your status whilst you’re here and whilst you’re still carrying on providing your employment services under the working holiday visa.

In terms of the expense, well that’s a question of whether you pay for professional assistance to help you through that process or whether your employer has got the necessary resources internally to be able to complete that application on your behalf.

Or indeed, you’ve got all the resources available to you on the Hong Kong Visa handbook and indeed on this blog with me answering questions like this for you so that it doesn’t necessarily have to be an expensive exercise. You can certainly navigate the labyrinth which is the Immigration Department for very little or indeed no cost at all. So that shouldn’t put you off.

In a nutshell, the key thing to understand is that the working holiday visa isn’t designed to be a gateway visa through to full employment; the conditions that you got your working holiday visa under are quite strict. They tell you clearly in advance this is for short term educational and cultural exchange. If it just so happens that you find a really good opportunity whilst you’re here and both you and your employer wish to go through the process of regularising their employment, you can certainly make the application. But understand that the approvability test for the employment vision of the general employment policy is going to dictate whether you ultimately get approved or not.

Okay. I hope you found this useful.

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How Does Your Prior Immigration Record In Hong Kong Impact On Future Visa Applications Here?

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

So, how does your prior immigration record in Hong Kong impact on future visa applications? Do the Hong Kong Immigration Department cross-refer previous applications for a visa to current application for a visa?

QUESTION

Hello!

I have a question regarding to my working visa.

Previously I have been working in Hong Kong in the skin care industry as promotion manager. I wanted to change employers and change the industry related to investments and real estate (I have education in business management, but not in Hong Kong).

I submitted an application to the Immigration Department already and have even spoken with the  Immigration Officer handling my case together with my employer.

However the Officer had concerns about my past experience. Unfortunately I needed to withdraw my application as I felt it would be refused.

My question is – can I apply for a working visa again with the same company, but re. a different position (one that would suit better to my past experience as I worked in marketing before)?

I know from the company’s HR department that they will open position in marketing for me and if I pass the interview for that role I would be submitting documents to Immigration once again.

Would it be inappropriate in the eyes of the Immigration Department. Or you would suggest to find new employer?

Second question. Will the Immigration Department keep that record if I withdraw my application? Would it affect my further visa applications?

ANSWER

1 – ImmD have ALL your records and cross refer to them frequently.

2 – There is no reason why you cannot apply again for the same company with a different job title.

You still have to prove no local person can do the job, that the compensation is broadly commensurate with market rates and that you are a Professional for the purposes of the General Employment Policy but the fact that you withdraw one application with that employer doesn’t preclude you from making a new application with the same employer for a different job.

Be aware though ImmD might seek to learn in more detail if the new application is a proxy for the old one so you may need to explain in some detail how the 2 jobs are different and the decision process between your employer and yourself as to how you find yourself making such a 2nd application which is unusual but not remarkable.

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