Hong Kong Visas Made Easy

The Hong Kong Immigration Department Are Still Allowing Visitors Into Hong Kong Again (Mostly)

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Family Visas, Investment Visas, Long Stay & PR, Sherpa, VG Front Page, Visitor Visas / 2 responses

The Hong Kong Immigration Department are still allowing visitors to Hong Kong again (mostly).

After a tumultuous 48 hours of  COVID19 boffin flip-flopping and the HKSAR Government now sending everyone to a minimum of 14 days virus jail to enter our hallowed shores here are the new arrangements for folks, residents and not residents alike, who want to come and visit / live in / return to the Quarantine Prison of the Orient.

Quarantine for Travelers to Hong Kong – From August 20 2021

This spiffy graphic is courtesy of  @kathmaemagramo & @gigi_choy of the SCMP. Follow them on Twitter.

I do not propose to restate ad nauseum the blurb of the government Press Release Or the Dedicated Covid Website in this post.

Full Details

• Refer the Press Release here:

https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202108/17/P2021081700867.htm

• Keep your eye open on the HKSAR Government COVID19 page here (not updated as at this date):

https://www.coronavirus.gov.hk/eng/inbound-travel.html#quarantinemeasures2

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Will the Immigration Department Extend My Employment Visa if I Am Subject to a Police Investigation?

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

How do the Hong Kong Immigration Department consider the likely impact of possible criminal charges on a foreign national temporary resident and his or her ability to remain here pending the outcome of the processes leading to a determination as to whether or not to press charges? Here follows a question-answer dialogue I had by email recently (permission to post kindly granted by the correspondent).

QUESTION

My employment visa has expired but Immigration will not renew it because I am involved in a police case and am on bail.

My 2 year contract is up at the beginning of  October and normally my employment visa would run until then, but my passport needed renewing on July 1, and so the current employment visa was only valid until expiry of the passport.

My employer has provided a letter to accompany the application for a new employment visa and they want me to sign another 2 year contract (which I intend to do).

My questions:

1) Am I still able to work while the visa is pending the outcome of the police case? (I have not been charged with anything and the police appear ready to offer for me to be bound over. I am still consulting with my lawyers.)

2) Am I able to exit Hong Kong and return while in this ‘limbo’, or will I be refused re-entry?

MY RESPONSE

This question is highly case specific and I’m afraid I can’t offer any meaningful advice without talking to the responsible ImmD Officer on your behalf.

The best thing to do is to call the Officer, quote your extension application reference number and make an appointment to see him / her and get specific guidance as to how they are handling your situation.

FOLLOW UP

Thanks for your reply. I thought that you would be interested to know that Immigration told me that I can work while the police case is pending and have given me a temporary visa to exit and return to Hong Kong for a holiday that I had already booked. Immigration have been very helpful luckily!

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Will One Month As A Visitor Between Residence Visas Break My Continuity of Residence for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong?

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

First Published On June 20, 2013

This question raises its head in many different guises but this is the first time that anyone has asked it in such a pointed way in the context of training visas – so I’m pleased to be able to shed some light!

QUESTION

Hi,

Great that you provide this service!

I have a question.

I am currently on a 1 year training visa (expiring 30 June). I do not yet have another job offer lined up. I am currently interviewing for other employers, but things are slow.

It is likely that I will need to leave Hong Kong just before the expiry and then re-enter on a tourist visa.

My question is – if my visa expires on 30th June (with no new job offer or sponsor lined up by this time) but I get a job offer in say in mid-July….will the month or so spent in Hong Kong on a tourist visa count against me in obtaining the ‘7 years’ to acquire PR?

Will the clock be reset to zero if I am on a tourist visa, even for just a month or two?

Many thanks for answering!

ANSWER

Typically if you find yourself in Hong Kong between residences visas, the only immigration status that tends to be available to you as you move from one period of residency into another period of residency, is a visitor visa.

And this question really gets to the heart of the possibility of any time spent in Hong Kong between residence visa periods of stay spent as a visitor, will that time spent as a visitor break your continuity of residence for the eventual right of abode application seven years down the road.

Well the bottom line is that, if you move through from one residence visa through to another residence visa, as long as the time spent in Hong Kong as a visitor results from a state of what I’ve termed ‘administrative flux’, where it can be objectively said that you haven’t abandoned your residency in Hong Kong, whilst you attempt to reorganize your life circumstances so that you can re-establish yourself with a residence visa once again. As long as any time in Hong Kong spent as a visitor is between residence visas in a state of administrative flux then, in my experience, Immigration Department do not hold that time spent as a visitor against you, allowing you to break your continuity avoiding residence, unless it’s for a manifestly long period of time all things considered.

So in your situation, if you’ve been here as a training visa holder for a year, with the expectation on a training visa by the way, that you’re going to leave Hong Kong once your period of training is up, that you’ve been allowed to remain in Hong Kong to complete that training and take the value associated with that training back to your home country. Given that the training visa regime anticipates a return back to your home country, if you’ve now subsequently determined that you wish to remain in Hong Kong, you’re going to leave the employee engagement to the party that is extending the training to you and then seek to join the local workforce, whilst it’s certainly possible for you to go out and find alternative employer, submit and application to adjust your status from visitor through to employment and thereby getting a new residence visa again.

If you find that’s several months are passing, in the interim before you’re able to secure a job offer and get  to a residence visa again, it is possible after two or three months possibly even more, that your continuity of ordinarily residence will be broken in your circumstances simply because you came to Hong Kong temporarily in pursuit of training, effectively made an undertaking at the end of that 12 months that you would leave Hong Kong. If you decide to adjust your status, to apply to adjust your status through to employment once again, then that application is expected to kind of occur immediately, consecutive to your previous residence visa situation. And as I said, the longer you leave it and the longer you stay in Hong Kong as a visitor, the more likely the Immigration Department will hold it against you hard and fast come the seven year mark.

So get your skates on, basically that’s what I’m saying and don’t anticipate that anything longer than three possibly four months will hold you in good stead because in my experience, in your situation with only one year prior residence on a training visa, I suspect the Immigration Department might conclude that the time spent as a visitor in the wake of your expiry of your training visa could have broken your continuity of ordinarily residence.

Ok, I hope that helps.

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UPDATE: Hong Kong – Singapore Travel Bubble Will NOT Start May 26, 2021

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Family Visas, Investment Visas, Long Stay & PR, Musing, Refusals & Appeals, Sherpa, Special Programmes, Visitor Visas / No responses

UPDATE: May 17, 2021 – due to recent new wave of COVID19 infections in Singapore the bubble has once again been postponed – likely to June sometime – watch this space.

Never easy is it?

Travel Bubble Website Here

 

UPDATE: April 26, 2021 – At a Press Conference today Edward Yau announced the following rules of engagement:

• HK residents will required 2 doses of a vaccine before travel

• Travel 14 days in other places other than HK or Singapore, cannot use the Air Travel Bubble

• 7 day moving average of unknown source cases over 5, bubble cancelled for 2 weeks.

• Travellers from Hong Kong are required to use the Singapore tracing app.

• Singapore travellers will need to use LeaveHomeSafe app.

The vaccination rule is not applicable to the following Hong Kong residents:

(i) aged below 16;

(ii) not suitable for COVID19 vaccination due to medical grounds;

(iii) with less than 90 days’ stay in Hong Kong before departure; or

(iv) using non-Hong Kong travel documents for departure.

Full Press Release Here

Travel Bubble Website Here

****

UPDATE: February 21, 2021 – Local English press are reporting the Bubble might be up for grabs next month. Fingers crossed: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3122491/coronavirus-hong-kong-singapore-talks-again-over

****

COVID19 continues apace. Bubble put back until 2021 at the earliest… I’ll update this post with news as it comes in.

Sigh…

****

Hong Kong – Singapore Travel Bubble!

The long-awaited air travel bubble between Singapore and Hong Kong will [NOT] start on November 22 with a quota of 200 passengers each way on one dedicated flight per day. It’s a start!

Picture Credit: CX

This will be increased to 2 flights daily from  December 7 onwards.

Visitors to Singapore from Hong Kong have to apply Air Travel Pass (ATP) between 7 to 30 days before entering Singapore and applications opened on November 12.

For details on the Singapore end, see this link.

For FAQs on the Hong Kong end, see this link.

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Do You Need To Leave Hong Kong To ‘Activate’ A Hong Kong Employment Visa Extension?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Family Visas, Investment Visas, Sherpa, VG Front Page, Your Question Answered / 8 responses

Do you need to leave Hong Kong to activate a Hong Kong employment visa extension of stay together with an accompanying dependant visa? Has Covid19 made any difference to the way the Hong Kong Immigration Department extend such status for currently resident foreign nationals?

QUESTION

Hi Visa Geeza.

I’m asking a question that has already been answered however …

Do we need to leave Hong Kong and re enter in order to activate a visa extension?

My partner is renewing her current visa with a current employer. So it’s an extension without a change of employer.

However, her employer is of the view that she has to exit and re enter and is saying that HR is saying the same thing.

But right now, we’re in COVID, lockdown, etc and believe its not actually necessary.

We have previously referred her employer and the HR team to the question previously answered in your podcast where you state that because it’s simply an extension you have already entered, your visa is active and you’re just extending it and that’s what I believe as well.

However, could you maybe give us a more defined concrete answer so that we can definitively address this and avoid the need for the significant disruption an exit and re-entry would cause

So to restate:

Do we have to exit and re-enter Hong Kong in order to activate a work visa extension?

Thanks.

ANSWER

COVID-19 has not in any way changed the way that the Immigration Department process routine extensions of stay for employment visas with accompanying dependent these extensions thrown in.

The protocol is exactly the same as it’s always been that is that you make an application for your extension four weeks before (or within four weeks before) the expiry of your current limits of stay.

Immigration Department will then take a few days to process everything and give you a return date upon which you will go back to the Immigration Department collect your passports with the new extensions endorsed in your passports and your new extension of stay becoming active from the date that they are endorsed in your passport accordingly.

So there is no requirement to exit and re enter Hong Kong because you’re not actually activating a new visa, you are extending an existing visa.

So there is as I say no requirement to exit and re enter Hong Kong in order to complete that procedure.

I also checked with my team and in the last 60 days we have completed these procedures in this fashion some 38 times.

Hope you found that helpful.

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If I Hold an Employment Visa in Macau and Hong Kong Simultaneously But Live in Hong Kong Should My Wife Get a Dependant Visa for Macau too?

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

Life can get a bit complicated if you work in 2 places at the same time…

QUESTION

I work for a Hong Kong company in Macau and my wife is my dependent in Hong Kong where we live.

My colleague was the same but has now been employed by a Macau company.

Does this change his wife’s dependency status in Hong Kong?

And should she become a dependent in Macau?

He is, as myself, a Hong Kong resident.

Thanks!

ANSWER

The real crux of the issue here is if your friend is going to secure an employment Visa in Macau and is going to be physically a resident in Macau and clearly in that case, he wants his spouse also to be a resident with him in Macau.

If during this exercise the employment arrangements in Hong Kong for your friend terminate and at the time that his next employment visa extension for Hong Kong, when that comes due, he doesn’t have a Hong Kong employment, then he will not be able to secure an extension to his employment visa in Hong Kong, even if he has an employment Visa in Macau.

Consequently, his wife who has a dependent visa sponsored by him, on the basis of his employment in Hong Kong will not be able to get an extension to her dependent visa. So that will effectively leave her in a kind of immigration limbo between Hong Kong and Macau without any specific residency permissions, unless she goes ahead and makes an application to get a dependent visa on the strength of her husband’s employment in Macau. That’s a Macau dependent visa not a Hong Kong dependent visa.

So, in reality then, if they’re going to be living in Macau, then she needs a dependent visa to support her husband there, which will be granted on the strength of the fact that he’s got an employment visa in Macau. If he doesn’t have an employment visa in Hong Kong, as I say, she won’t be able to get a dependent visa for Hong Kong any longer, because the conditions that are in play for successful application won’t exist. Therefore, she’ll need to get a dependent visa from Macau.

You can’t live in Hong Kong and have a dependent visa in Macau and you can’t live in Macau and have a dependent visa in Hong Kong. They are two separate jurisdictions.

It isn’t immediately clear, however, from your question, when you say that he’s a resident of Hong Kong, whether he’s a permanent resident or is in fact an employment visa holding temporary resident. The initial advice that I’ve given you is on the assumption that he’s a temporary employment visa holding resident. If, on the other hand, he is a permanent resident, then he will be able to sponsor a dependent visa for his wife, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to work in Macau or will be working in Macau for the foreseeable future. So, that kind of you know takes care of all of the issues in relation to dependent visa status and the circumstances and facts that you essayed them.

One important thing to remember in all of this, however, is for any applicant that is planning to go on to secure a permanent residency in Hong Kong on the strength of having been continuously and ordinarily resident in Hong Kong for a period of not less than seven years, needs to appreciate that both Hong Kong and Macau are separate immigration jurisdictions. And if you are living in Macau while still holding a residence visa in Hong Kong and the amount of time that you are spending in Macau overshadows the time that you spend in Hong Kong and you are unable to show to the Immigration Department that you’ve been settled in Hong Kong throughout all of this time, even though you’ve been holding a residence visa for Hong Kong, but you’ve been physically living in Macau, time spent in Macau unless you’re very careful about how you construct your affairs, may serve to break your continuity of ordinary residence for a right of abode application subsequently.

So, as I said in the title for this post, life can get a little bit complex where you’re effectively living in one place, but potentially working in two countries or if you are indeed working in Hong Kong presently and in the throes of relocating to work in Macau, it can get a bit messy, bit complicated, but that notwithstanding.

I hope you found this useful!

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What Impact Will A Temporary Yet Long Term Secondment Overseas For Work Have On My Hong Kong Permanent Residence Application 3 Years From Now?

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

Hong Kong being a small, dynamic city which punches above its weight in the region, this situation happens all the time. So what IS the impact on your subsequent eligibility for the Right of Abode if your employer wants to shift you off-shore temporarily to manage a project?

QUESTION

I have been working in Hong Kong now for 3 years on an employment visa and my company wants to send me temporarily for 6-12 months to Malaysia to manage a project.  I will be on secondment as an employee of the Hong Kong branch still and will return to Hong Kong when the project is done so am wondering how this will affect my continuous residency? 

Does this mean that I will have to start the 7 years again when I return to Hong Kong?

ANSWER

This situation happens quite a lot in Hong Kong.

A, because Hong Kong is a small geography physically and, B, because we do punch above our weight regionally, naturally enough foreign nationals who work for Hong Kong companies do from time to time find themselves on long term projects working outside of Hong Kong in pursuit of their Hong Kong employer’s business interests overseas.

So, the Immigration Department see this quite often and it’s not typically a major problem as long as everything is lined up properly to allow the eventual test for a right of abode application to be satisfied at that time. So, the test for the right of abode is that the person that has to have been continuously an ordinarily resident in Hong Kong for a period of not less than seven years and there any absences from Hong Kong in that time need to have been of a merely temporary nature and there must be manifest evidence to show that the applicant is settled in Hong Kong at the time that the application is made.

So, the issue here is really a question of settlement. So, firstly once you are sent overseas, as long as you leave behind in Hong Kong the vestiges of your life to return back to, the normal vestige of your life to turn back to then you ordinary residence will be on the face of it maintained.

Secondly, if you are going to be overseas for your employer’s interests then your Hong Kong employment contract will continue and your MPF payments and your liabilities in relation to Hong Kong salaries tax ostensibly will continue and you’ll certainly be reporting to the Inland Revenue Department as you should do in relation to your earnings as an employee of a Hong Kong entity.

Thirdly, if your family are not going to be joining you and they’re going to be remaining back in Hong Kong that is excellent evidence that you’ve made the secondment merely on a temporary basis.

Fourthly, naturally enough your employer should be kind of appraised of the potential impact this temporary secondment can have on you and your continuous ordinary residence for the purposes of your eventual right of abode application and so a conversation with them can ensure that all the necessary bits and pieces from a documentation perspective are put in place to show that your secondment is basically mandatory and that it is only temporary and that your employment will continue in Hong Kong throughout all the time that you do spend abroad.

So, for all practical purposes if it is a temporary secondment and you’ve got your docs lined up and you can show that you’ve got all the vestiges of your normal life waiting for you when you come back for all practical purposes your continuous ordinary residence will continue.

If your employment visa is due to expire during the time that you’re overseas then naturally that will have to be extended because it’s important to have had back-to-back residence visas throughout the other qualifying seven years for your rights of abode application in due course.

So, no, you won’t have to start the seven years all over again when you return to Hong Kong so long as you follow those essential precepts to evidencing your continuing intent to remain settled in Hong Kong throughout.

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