My biggest concern is the ability and feasibility for my girlfriend from Mainland China to be able to join me in Hong Kong.
Please can you advise on possible options.
She only graduated just over a year ago, so a Mainland Talent visa, I assume, is definitely out.
Thanks for your time, much appreciated.
ANSWER
As you have identified already the mission of Mainland Talents and Professionals Scheme which provides an opportunity for mainland graduates who are deemed to be talents or professionals to come to Hong Kong to take up employment on the strength of having received a job offer here from a suitable employer.
This visa programme is not going to be suitable for you in your circumstances because of the fact that your partner is a new graduate. So because of the floodgate mechanism that works in Hong Kong, in a sense to keep down the numbers of mainland residents taking up residence here, realistically, having looked through the options available to you, I would suggest that your best possible chance of being able to carry on your joint lives in Hong Kong is for her to get a student visa, potentially go ahead and participate in a master’s degree programme from a Hong Kong university – and it must be a graduate degree in this respect, or she could take an undergraduate programme as well if she wanted to take another bachelor’s degree on board. However, my advice would be to apply to do a master’s degree and thus get a student visa that would then allow you one year together until she graduates. And then at the end of that one year upon graduation, she could apply for a visa under the immigration arrangements for non-local graduates, which effectively gives her a carte blanche visa to go and work for anybody, no questions asked, for another year, and at the end of that year, as long as she’s got and employment with a suitable and credible sponsor, and the compensation that she’s receiving for the work that she does is broadly commensurate with market rates, then she’ll be able to carry on getting extended in Hong Kong under those arrangements on an indefinite basis through to seven years, as long as she’s in full time employment each time that she makes an application to extend her visa.
So, really cutting to the chase, if you want to carry on your lives in Hong Kong, really the only option you’ve got is a student visa, then immigration arrangements for non-local graduates. I hope you found this useful.
VisaGeeza.Ai – Making Hong Kong Immigration A Lot Easier
Do the Hong Kong Immigration Department expect every foreign national employee of Hong Kong registered companies to have employment visas even if they have never worked (or never will work) in the HKSAR?
QUESTION
Is there any problem with a Hong Kong registered company employing someone currently resident in Malaysia for a role supporting one of our clients offices in Malaysia?
I don’t think a Hong Kong employment visa is required because he won’t work here and in the short term at least he can work in Malaysia on a visitor visa as long as he is employed offshore.
ANSWER
Insofar as employment visa permissions for Hong Kong it’s very straightforward. The law says that any foreign national who intends to take up employment in Hong Kong, paid or unpaid, needs the permission of the director of immigration, which means that you need to have an employment visa for all practical purposes.
If a Hong Kong company on the other hand is planning to deploy staff into another jurisdiction to work in that jurisdiction, then it’s really the law of that jurisdiction that comes into play rather than the law of Hong Kong. If the employee is not going to be taking up employment in Hong Kong, no employment visa is needed, but if he goes to Malaysia and malaysian immigration law demands that he has an employment visa, then clearly he’s going to have to get an employment visa there and comply with the terms of malaysian immigration law. Now, I’m not entirely sure what malaysian law says about these things because it’s not my jurisdiction but I have a sneaking suspicion that they probably would have something to say about foreign national working on their soil without the requisite permission.
So it’s worthwhile really looking into that closely and not take anything for granted as such because there may be implications for the Hong Kong company who’s doing the deployment into Malaysia, and it could end up being that Hong Kong company gets itself in hot water with the malaysian immigration authorities that could come back to haunt you.
So, insofar as Hong Kong goes now, don’t have to worry about it. But I’d urge you to check out carefully the requisite immigration laws in Malaysia to make sure that you’re not inadvertently falling foul of the way that immigration in Malaysia is practised to. Okay, all the very best with this.
VisaGeeza.Ai – Making Hong Kong Immigration A Lot Easier
How important is sponsor-profitability, especially for start up businesses less than 12 months old?
QUESTION
I have been recruited by a newly established company (12 months old as of this week).
They have never hired a foreigner and have tasked me with completing the visa forms, both employee and employer versions.
The Employer-side application requires “proof of financial standing.”
Although registered one year ago, the company has only recently begun making sales, which do not amount to much.
Will the companies lack of profit negatively affect my chances at being approved under this Hong Kong work visa application?
If so, is there anything that can be done to mitigate this?
Thank you in advance for your reply.
ANSWER
Whenever the Immigration Department are asked to ascribe a suitable and credible sponsorship status to a newly established enterprise, the Immigration Department will look at a number of different factors when taking into account a good financial standing of the business. As a newly established company with no history of trading, that will not come as a surprise to the Immigration Department if only just turning revenue now, that’s okay.
They’ll look to see for a set of management accounts – I appreciate you won’t have an audited management account at this point, but certainly up-to-date management accounts that shows the balance sheet and the profit and loss so that the Immigration Department can see what’s going on now, that will be beneficial to the application.
The fact that there are no revenues, as you say, then what does the bank balance look like, and what the extent of the funding available to be used for the business. As long as all of that stacks up, it will not stand in the way of you getting your approval because you’ll satisfy the financial bona fides accordingly.
I hope you found that useful.
VisaGeeza.Ai – Making Hong Kong Immigration A Lot Easier
I Lived In Hong Kong For 11 Years – And Have Been Gone For The Last 7 – Can I Still Get Permanent Residency?
It happens a lot more often than you might imagine. You’d think that the many early years in Hong Kong ought to count towards your right of abodebut 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 it’s 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 13 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 programs that I would like to apply for in Hong Kong which require 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 Service 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, so many years later that you are a permanent resident of Hong Kong.
However, that’s some theoretical and hypothetical in this situation because you weren’t born in Hong Kong, you were born in Singapore. So consequently, your eligibility for permanent Identity Card wasn’t established at the time of your birth 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 at of a dependant Visa and as you’ve stated in your question you held the dependant Visa all the way through to the age of 11 and then effectively you left Hong Kong.
Now the interesting thing is that after you had been in Hong Kong as a dependant Visa holder just after your seventh, possibly your eighth 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 11 years of age on the strength that you had been ordinarily resident in Hong Kong with your parents for a minimum of seven years 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 state, your right of abode in fact would have been maintained and effectively the question that you’re asking today would have been answered in the affirmative.
However, unfortunately because you only held a dependant 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 and 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 programs 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 that 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 is, that’s effectively going to take you to three and a half years and one assumes that a three to a four-year working career in Hong Kong we’ll have seen you continuously non-ordinary residence 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
Extend a Hong Kong business investment visa? Not so long ago the Hong Kong Immigration Department made life quite easy for certain entrepreneurs when it came time to extend a business investment visa…
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
For extending my Hong Kong investment visa for the first renewal, do you recommend submitting any other materials aside from the cover letter, employment letter and the ID91?
ANSWER
Getting a business investment visa extended can be a challenging, or it can be a very simple process. It all depends on the circumstances of your initial approval, your last extension and where your business is today.
The essential starting documentation for an extension to a business investment visa is the simple cover letter explaining that you’re still in business and you’re confirming that you’re engaged in the business.
The ID 91, which is the extension application form, and also a copy of the updated business Registration certificate which tells the immigration department that the business still is ongoing. The question is asked though is if you need to supply any other information to assist the processing of that application.
Now normally it all depends on whether or not your last extension was subject to business review or indeed if it’s your first extension, if your original approval was subject to business review. This can be a double edged sword if you are subject to business review, because what will happen is the immigration department will want to see proof of the nature and the type of the business that you’ve been engaged in over the previous twelve months.
And that’s so that they can be reassured that you continue to satisfy the approvability test showing that you are making a substantial contribution to the economy of Hong Kong. So in pursuing this particular objective, what you need to do is to anticipate the kind of information the Immigration Department would be asking for at the time that they respond to your initial request for the extension.
These documents include proof that you’ve been employing local people through the provision of MPF documentation, proof that you’ve got a properly set up office through the provision of a stamped tenancy agreement and also a copy of your management accounts or your audited financial statement (if you’ve completed an audit since your last extension was approved).
By looking at these documents, the Immigration Department will be able to satisfy themselves that you can or are indeed making a substantial contribution to the economy of Hong Kong. Whether you should apply with these documents from the get go, or whether you should wait for the Immigration Department to come back to you after the application has commenced, is really a personal decision.
My advice and what we do for our clients is to always anticipate that every investment visa extension will be subject to some kind of review of one sort or another. And in this regard, by submitting the information in advance of these formal requests of the Immigration Department, you can expect to reduce the timeline to the formal consideration process, normally from what should be about a two and a half or a three-week exercise, potentially down to one week. This means that once the Immigration Department have received all the information from you in advance, they don’t have to go through the correspondence exercise, and you then don’t have to running around, try to find all the information that they’re asking for.
Thus, my advice is definitely submitting the application for your extension with a full portfolio of information, and not wait for the Immigration Department to come back and raise these requisitions that you have to answer in response.
VisaGeeza.Ai – Making Hong Kong Immigration A Lot Easier
Hong Kong is such a draw but sometimes it’s just not going to be…
QUESTION
Hi Stephen,
I am 25 Years old Indian National. I don’t have any kind of degree. I own a business from past seven years in India.
I am applying for jobs from past 4 months but in most of the cases I just get rejected since I can’t speak Cantonese or my employer is not willing to sponsor my Employment Visa.
I have a girl friend in Hong Kong who is PR. I want to shift with her but financially she is not strong enough so that she can sponsor me for Dependent Visa after marriage.
The employers are not ready to sponsor my case cause I don’t have any special talent which can be justified in front of Hong Kong Immigration Department.
I do not qualify for QMAS and lastly it is too late for me to apply for university so that I can come as a student and even if I come as a student, I fear it would be very difficult for me to support myself without a job.
It is very difficult every time to come to Hong Kong on Visitor Visa and leave country after 14 days.
I would like to know is there any special visa category under which I can shift to Hong Kong?
Someone suggested me to apply as a domestic helper or imported worker and once I am there for 2 years I would get enough time to check out other possibilities but getting a job as domestic helper or imported worker seems impossible for Indian National.
Can you please suggest me something which can sort out my issue or I should just forget about starting a new life in Hong Kong.
Please let me know.
Thank You.
ANSWER
Yes, I can understand how extremely frustrated you may be given that you principally don’t have any means for qualifying for any kind of residence visa for Hong Kong. But if you think it through, actually the policy behind the current immigration arrangements in Hong Kong for foreign nationals is designed to ensure, just like every other nation, in fact, that the brightest and the best, if you will, are able to come and contribute to Hong Kong society.
And in that regard, you know, they’re looking for certain qualities from foreign nationals who can take up residence here. And as I said, clearly, unfortunately, in your circumstances, you don’t qualify. So if life in Hong Kong is serious for you, I would suggest that you look closely to the various criteria for approval under the various immigration programs and make sure that you qualify for at least one of them.
Just turning quickly to the idea that you can become a foreign domestic helper or you can participate as imported labour well, effectively, even if you come under the supplemental labour schemeas imported labour, you’re still going to have to have a certain skill set that will be deemed not locally available in Hong Kong.
So given that you have a business background, it’s difficult to understand what might carry the day in that respect and you would still need to have a job offer; and given that foreign domestic helper visas are based on a contract that is bilaterally negotiated between the government and Hong Kong and other governments, and that India not part of that scheme, you would not be able to remain in Hong Kong as a foreign domestic helper in any event.
Sorry to say it doesn’t look very good for you, all told. But thanks for reaching out with your question and letting us know how things have been for you, it’s certainly useful to the leadership generally. Thank you.
VisaGeeza.Ai – Making Hong Kong Immigration A Lot Easier
How Can I Prove The Veracity Of My CV For My Hong Kong Employment Visa Application If A Prior Employer Is No Longer In Business?
If you’re claiming skills, knowledge or experience on your CV as part of your argument for a Hong Kong Employment VisaApplication – what’s the gig if you can’t fully support your claims with references or testimonials?
QUESTION
Hi, I am 8 weeks into applying for an employment visa (I’m British).
I have given the documents and a couple of weeks ago had to supply a reference which I managed to get hold of.
And yesterday my would be company heard from them again asking for another reference that was listed on my CV.
However.. the person has now left the company (the company may have even closed and now they have changed careers (it was a 5 year ago position I was referencing).
Do you think it’s OK for this person to state that they have left the company and just provide a letterheaded reference from their current place?
My other friend said it may be tricky.
Please help if you can. I’m not sure what to do.
Thanks a lot!
ANSWER
Naturally enough if you are claiming certain skills and experience on your CV and you’re expecting the Immigration Department to rely on them as being a true and accurate statement of your experience and work capabilities, it’s incumbent upon you to produce the kind of documentation which speaks to the veracity of your CV.
Now, of course, on occasion, it might prove impossible as you’ve encountered to pick up a particular reference from sometime prior particularly if that employer is no longer in business. So usually what the Immigration Department is prepared to do is to at least receive the second best evidence that you can supply and if that happens to be a reference or a document that speaks to your time in that business, or that employer organization and it’s from someone who knew at that time or possible was your superior, the Immigration Department will certainly take that into consideration. Whether it will prove ultimately satisfactory or not, in the final analysis, depends on just how important the time spent in that employment is to the relevance of your current application.
If for example, you’re saying that you’ve been responsible for producing moon widgets for that company and your special skills knowledge and experience for the new employer is to show that you’re going to be producing moon widgets and the Immigration Department have got no way of concluding effectively that you have the experience that you claim, then you know, it could speak to the approvability all told. However, it’s just general affirmation that you spend time in that role in that position, it’s nothing too sensational about it from the approvability perspective, and then you can expect that second best evidence will suffice.
But the final analysis you have the burden of proof in relation to the extent of your CV. So, as far as you can satisfy the requirements the stronger you’re putting yourself forward for an eventual approval.
Okay, I hope you find this useful.
VisaGeeza.Ai – Making Hong Kong Immigration A Lot Easier
