Hong Kong Visas Made Easy

I Possess an APEC Business Travel Card – Will It Advantage Me in My Hong Kong Investment Visa Application?

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

This question really is all about the Catch 22 which I have posted on quite a few times previously. However, there is an interesting twist in that the questioner has entered Hong Kong on an APEC Business Travel Card and none of his clients are actually based in Hong Kong. So I am grateful for the opportunity to address these 2 novel dimensions to an issue that raises its head all too frequently.

QUESTION

I’ve entered Hong Kong under the APEC Business Travel Card program (as I hold a passport from an APEC country) as a business visitor.

I’ve established a company in Hong Kong and am going through the process of applying for an investment visa.

The question I have is can I legally run my business while being present in Hong Kong, while I wait for my visa to be approved?

All my clientele are currently based offshore (I have no local Hong Kong clients yet).

There seems to be a grey area for those of us that “telecommute” or service clients over the internet.

ANSWER

Covid-19 challenges aside, as a visitor to Hong Kong, if it’s your intention to establish or join in a business you need to make an application for an investment visa, which you have done.

The approvability test for an investment visa is to show that you can make a substantial contribution to the economy of Hong Kong and in doing so, the Immigration Department have set up a process that effectively encourages you or tacitly endorses you engaging in activities which technically are not commensurate with your condition of stay as a visitor because as a visitor you’re allowed to engage in activities that are preparatory to the commencement of the business. But if you’ve gone through the process of making an application for an investment visa, during the dialogue that you have with the Immigration Department during the four to six months that it takes to finalize a typical investment visa application, they will be calling for evidence of certain sort of new facts on the ground as it were that technically would not be typically construed as fallen within the rubric of your conditions of stay as a visitor. Now this is called the Catch 22 and I have posted on this considerably in the past so in this post I have appended a link to all the entries that exist on the blog that deal specifically with the Catch 22. But for all practical purposes, if you’re in Hong Kong as a visitor and you’ve empowered the Immigration Department to take a view as to what your plans are for Hong Kong through the submission of your business investment visa application, very standard policy is, in a sense to close their eyes to any perceived breach of conditions of stay and given that they are the final arbitraries to whether or not to prosecute for breach of condition of stay. So there is a bit of a poacher turned gamekeeper situation going on but the Immigration Department want to encourage entrepreneurial activity and not throw logs at the feet of entrepreneurs. And so long as you’ve got an application in the system, in my experience, the Immigration Department tend not to create problems for entrepreneurs who are in Hong Kong as visitors going through the process of establishing a business and have submitted their application.

If you haven’t submitted an application, that’s a different situation. But in your case, because you’ve got the application in, my best advice would be to carry on implementing your business plan in the best way that you can possibly and don’t be overly concerned about what the Immigration Department feel today that you’re up to, whilst you’re here as a visitor implementing your plan.

But do have a look at the Catch 22 resources on the post that were discussed previously. So I won’t say anything more about that. But in terms of you being here as an APEC Business Travel Card entrant, effectively that scheme affords you easy access into Hong Kong as visitor but the bottom line is that your underlining immigration status as you point it out in your question is a visitor. So you’re really just applying for an adjustment to the status from visitor through to business investment. And once your visa’s approved, you’ll be granted an investment visa that is manifested in a label and now you make an exit from Hong Kong relinquishing your visitor visa status as you exit and then when you re-enter with the investment visa label endorse on a clean page in your passport so you’ll be entering Hong Kong once again, this time as an employment visa holder, based on having made an investment in Hong Kong.

So, that’s how that process will essentially play itself through. Now in terms of the grey area for the telecommunications or tele-commuting, or the provision of services in Hong Kong for clients that are outside of Hong Kong, its activity is carried on in Hong Kong on your part as long as the business is being directed and controlled from Hong Kong, irrespective of where the recipients of the services that you’re providing are located. If you’re physically in Hong Kong carrying out those activities then you need the permission of the Immigration Department to do that, which you’ve already listed understood through the submission of your investment visa application. Kind an interesting situation, I’m told.

And I hope you find this useful.

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Is There Any Fixed Residency Requirement for Retention of a Hong Kong Employment Visa?

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

First Published September 1, 2018

Not every stint for work or business means full time residency in Hong Kong so what to do about ‘half-timers’?

QUESTION

I am pursuing options to take up employment in Hong Kong and would like to know if there is any residence requirement for retention of a work visa. For example, how long can one be absent from the country in any one year?  This issue is important to me because I also wish to retain my employment/investment interest in the middle east and so am looking at a six month in Hong Kong – six month abroad arrangement.

ANSWER

The first thing to say about this particular instance in Hong Kong Immigration is there is no such animal as a half-time visa.

Because if you’re going to get an employment visa, the assumption from the Immigration Department is that you’re effectively going to be undertaking your employment duties in Hong Kong on a full-time basis. So if you wish to secure an employment contract with somebody, where you’re expected to have a 6 months on, 6 months off arrangement, you can expect the Immigration Department to grant you an employment visa only to cover the 6 months that you’re going to be in Hong Kong. They won’t give you a 12-month period of stay in those circumstances.

So, if your intention is to come here for business and you have the intention to spend a great deal of time away from Hong Kong, showing interest other than those you’re establishing in Hong Kong and that you’ve got permissions in the first place to be here to do that.

Effectively, there is no issue, per se, about spending time away from Hong Kong, just so long as that you’ve got a good reason for being away from Hong Kong for such protracted periods and that your Hong Kong business interests have not been compromised as a result of your time being away.

So, in the application, you probably wouldn’t explain that you’re going to spend so much time away from Hong Kong but if after the fact you did spend that time away from Hong Kong, those are the conditions that you need to consider in terms of how the Immigration Department would grant you an extension on an on-going basis if they concluded from the fact, that your time spent away that you didn’t actually need permission to stay in Hong Kong to do the things that they gave you permission to do in the first place.

So the real question underlying, the real issue underlying this question is, how will this might come into play in the context of an acclaimed permanent residency seven years later. The test for permanent residency is that you need to show that you’ve continuously knowing residency in Hong Kong for a period not less than seven years. And any absences from Hong Kong will have to be of a temporary nature as evidenced by your intention at the time that you made each departure.

And so in the overall scheme of things, what you did in a particular place at a particular time, that needs to be seen in the light of how your life has been conducted throughout the seven years as a result of that pattern of your lifestyle and that in all of those circumstances, it can be said that you have been actually ordinarily residency in Hong Kong all of that time even though you had spent a lot of time away from Hong Kong so you can then go on to qualify for the right of abode. So that’s the real issue at play in this question.

I think that probably covers it all and I hope you found this useful.

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Will You Qualify for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong if it is Not Your Intention to Live Here Permanently?

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

Qualify for the right of abode in Hong Kong ? A critical part of eligibility for the right of abode in Hong Kong is your intention, at the time you apply, to make Hong Kong your only place of permanent residence…

First Published on October 15, 2013

 

QUESTION

Hello, I have been working in Hong Kong since February 2007 with the same company that has sponsored my work visa.

My current work visa expires in 2015.

I have resigned to join another firm and will no longer be working with my current employer at the end of December 2013.

While my next job will eventually be in Australia, my new firm is happy for me to relocate there permanently in March so that I can complete my seven years in Hong Kong and therefore apply for my HK PR.  

My current firm will no longer be sponsoring my visa but will it be sufficient to show that I have remained in Hong Kong until March 2014 to get my PR?

Or do I need to ask my new employer to sponsor my Hong Kong work visa until March 2014?

Thanks for your help.

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What’s the Deal if You’re in Hong Kong With a Dependant Visa & Your Employment Visa Holding Spouse Wants to Leave but You Want to Stay?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Family Visas, Your Question Answered / 4 responses

First Published August 7, 2013

What’s the deal if you’re in Hong Kong with a dependant visa and your spouse wants to leave but you want to stay?

QUESTION

Hello,

I am here on a dependent visa with my husband. He is planning to leave his employment in Hong Kong and return to his home country but I am thinking of staying for a couple more years.

What happens with my dependent visa (limit of stay in 2014) when he quits his job and leaves?

Can I, too, use my consents to reside in Hong Kong even though only via a dependent visa to look for an employer to then change my visa status?

ANSWER

When dependant visas are issued to the spouses of foreign national principle visa holders, employment visa holders, the basis of the grant of the dependant visa is effectively family reunion on the strength of the sponsoring spouse being able to support the dependant by conceptually putting a roof over his or her head or food on his or her table and once the dependant visa has been granted, the holder is automatically availed of the privilege to work or joining a business or a study or in fact undertake any kind of lawful activity in Hong Kong without any limitation.

So, where you have a situation such that the spouse is holding the employment visa is decided that they want to leave Hong Kong, not to continue to live in Hong Kong with their spouse whether the relationship has ended or not irrespective of that. Effectively the dependant visa holder from a technical perspective no longer has the prevailing conditions in play in relation to dependancy and family reunion.

That said, the reality is that the Immigration Department, if you notified them of these changes in your circumstances, which nobody ever does, they would simply write back to you and thank you for the letter stating that they would, they had noted the contents and then advising that you will be allowed to remain in Hong Kong until your current limit of stay expires, whereupon you’d be expected to leave and actually enough because your spouse wouldn’t be in a position to have an employment visa extension himself, your dependant visa could not be extended so your ability to remain in Hong Kong on the dependant visa basis would have expired and so you would have to leave.

So, then the questions begged us to you know what will happen to you between now and the expiry of your current limit to stay. Well yes, you know, anything that you wish to do is perfectly lawful so you can go out and look for work and take up that work knowing that that’s the point where your visa expires you’re not going to be lawfully employable any longer.

So, it would mean to involve a conversation with your existing employer if you do have a job by that time about a couple of months before your current limit to stay is due to expire to see what their appetite is to allow you to be sponsored by them to carry on doing the work that you have been doing.

But it’s important to note that in the process of making that application to adjust your dependant visa to take up employment under an employment visa for your current employer, the approvability tests of special skills knowledge and experience or value are not really available in Hong Kong will apply but in my experience if you are converting from a dependant visa to an employment visa predicate in a job that you’re already doing, nine times out of ten the Immigration Department whilst they apply the probability test do look at the application favorably.

On the other hand, if you’re looking at joining the workforce towards the end of your current limit of stay and then making your application to the Immigration Department to take up an employment with a new employer that you haven’t yet started work for, then the department will look at your application in many ways as though the approvability test was hard and fast against you. That is, that they wouldn’t look at the situation with a favorable set of eyes. They just simply apply the probability test to those circumstances like they would to for example a visitor who would be applying to just his own status through to take up employment, that is a non-resident applicant applying for an employment visa.

So, there’s definitely an advantage to getting an early employment if you don’t already have one and as the time comes close to you getting to a point where you’re dependant visa is going to expire navigate the labyrinth of the adjustment from dependant to employment and in my experience in those circumstances you should be able to make your adjustments to an employment visa accordingly assuming of course that the employment is for the type of employment that is deemed to be professional under the general employment policy.

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Help!! All My Family Are Permanent Residents of Hong Kong and I’m Stuck as a Visitor Due to My Time Spent Studying Abroad – Is There Any Way Forward?

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

First Published July 13, 2018

Sometimes the sun and the moon simply doesn’t align on your Hong Kong immigration situation and, with the system working against you, find yourself orphaned from the rest of your family and questioning the fairness of it all…

QUESTION

I’m about to kill myself over this visa situation I’m in.

I’m Singaporean, but I grew up in Hong Kong since I was 11 until I was 16, after which I went off to Canada for university. I came back each year to keep my dependent visa going, but on the last year that I needed to extend it, I couldn’t make it due to academic commitments.

Thinking it would all be fine, I came back in 2016 to find myself on a visitor visa. Worse yet, the Canadian immigration authorities lost my passport in the mail (I have the letter to prove it) so I lost the dependent visas on those passports.

I explained the whole ordeal in my Verification for Eligibility for Permanent ID card thing, but the ‘director’ said I must be a resident UP TO the day I applied, and since I applied as a visitor, my application was null.

Anyway, I went on and secured an employment offer with a respectable company in Hong Kong who made an employment visa application on my behalf. But the application was rejected.

We made an appeal to reconsider, but it was rejected once again. Why?!

My entire family are permanent residents of Hong Kong, by the way. I’m the odd one out. Am I all out of options here? I thought securing an employment contract would end all my woes. I fear I’ll soon be put on SCL, with no choice but to leave my friends, family and new job behind.

Is there some sort of family-dependant-type of visa I could try for?

Or should I make an employment visa application on my own, and restate the entire situation?

ANSWER

Oh dear, what a terrible situation you find yourself in.

I really do empathise with you, this must feel absolutely shocking but there is light at the end of the tunnel so let me just talk you through what’s going on and how to get where you need to go.

Right now your principle challenge is to get yourself a Residence Visa again because once you get a Residence Visa endorsed in your passport you’ll be making yourself eligible for another crack at the Right of Abode. Effectively what would have happened is the Immigration Department would not have formally denied your application for the Right of Abode, which would then put you in the right registration personal appeal tribunal for your next step. It’s my belief from the facts that you’ve told me that the examining officer has not progressed your application because you weren’t in possession of a Residence Visa at the time that you made the application. So your Right of Abode situation is absolutely not dead by any stretch of the imagination.

Now, in terms of your application for an Employment Visa and how it got refused, this is a classic example where typically an employer submits an application for an Employment Visa based on a lot of experience of getting cases approved in the past that haven’t readily understood in the circumstances that you’re facing that certain argument needed to be presented and certain facts and information needed to be put forward to the Department so that they truly understand what was going on in your life instead of all the circumstances and without that background it’s likely that the Immigration Department refused your Employment Visa application on the strength that they believe you’re just a fresh graduate with no working experience.

Ideally what you should do is make another application for the Employment Visa if the job offer is still on the table and state your entire case situation and your background and what’s going on and ask them as part of the application for favourable consideration in light of your entire circumstances and provide lots of information in terms of you family, their ID card details, what they’re doing; just allow the Immigration Department to completely understand how you find yourself in this situation that you are in so that they will not apply a policy strictly against you, they will give you a favourable consideration.

If for some strange reason they do go on to deny you again, my best advice would be to enroll as a student to do a master’s degree and once you get your Student Visa endorsed in your passport, apply for the Right of Abode at that point in time because the student Visa is a Residence Visa for the purposes of eligibility for a permanent Identity Card. In my experience you should find the Immigration Department helpful again if you explain all the circumstances and as long as you’re pattern of behaviour indicates settlement in Hong Kong, your Right of Abode application should get approved and I think you’ll find that you’ll get the result that you’re looking for.

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The National Security Law – Impact On Hong Kong Visa & Immigration Applications

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Family Visas, Feature Article, Investment Visas, Long Stay & PR, Refusals & Appeals, Sherpa, Special Programmes, VG Front Page, Visitor Visas / 2 responses

The times they are a changin’…

The National Security Law – Impact On Hong Kong Visa & Immigration Applications

It is inevitable that the National Security Law will impact how the Hong Kong Immigration Department will undertake their duties as the front line guardians of our borders.

As is all things Hong Kong immigration, ImmD do not publish any updates on their website or to a government gazette setting out how policy is to be implemented from time to time.

Consequently, it is only through the observations of patterns in their decision making and case management practices, that we can glean changes under way.

This is what we have come to understand and which now guides the advice we give to our clients and in some instances has changed our approach to taking on client case work subject to a double-your-money-back-guarantee.

Increased Diligence – All Types of Cases

(1) Cases taking longer – COVID interruptions aside most cases are taking 2~3 weeks longer that the usual stated time frame indicated by ImmD.

(2) Documentation requests – more detailed information, heightened elaboration on arcane points being called for.

Employment Visas

(3) Language instructors’ employment visa applications being frequently refused with ImmD citing a high unemployment rate amongst local graduates from english-as-teaching-medium Universities in Hong Kong – and extensions of stay for current teachers are often being refused too.

(4) ImmD routinely scrutinising the extent to which the local labour market has been tested before offering work to a foreign national.

Entry Business Investment (Entrepreneur) Visas

(5) The test for approval has always been ‘substantial contribution to the economy of Hong Kong‘. In the last few weeks, we have received refusal decisions for several cases which 2 years ago were complete shoo-ins. At this moment in time, it is hard to glean exactly where ImmD sit as regards what it now takes to secure such an Entrepreneur visa for a non-resident applicant. Previously, ImmD were prepared to offer the ‘benefit of the doubt’ to Entrepreneur visa applicants who had a strong business plan, sufficient funding resources and a clear pathway to the creation of local employment opportunities. But with the borders closed to visitors these last 12 months and there being no way for foreign national entrepreneurs to get here to start working on implementing their plan BEFORE approval of their Entrepreneur visa applications, it is all but impossible to create the requisite ‘new facts on the ground’ which ImmD need to see prior to being satisfied of the applicant’s ability to contribute substantially to Hong Kong’s economy. Understandably, with COVID still a problem, no  visitor access to Hong Kong and the uncertainty of eventual visa availability, offshore Entrepreneur visa applicants are reluctant to take on the significant burden of employing Hong Kong locals ahead of their visa approval.

(6) Current residents seeking to move into this status do not appear to be impacted in the same way.

Foreign Domestic Helpers

(7) FDH’s are held on a very short leash in any event but news reports indicate that ImmD have been clamping down on FDH Job Hoppers. With the borders closed and flights few and far between due to Covid, many helpers here have suddenly found themselves readily marketable and have been tempted to try to cancel their present contracts to move to other employers mid-engagement. ImmD have set up a specific unit to address these activities.

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Return2hk – Quarantine Travel Scheme for Hong Kong Residents

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Feature Article, Musing, VG Front Page / No responses

Fast moving – no experience with it yet – here is the Government blurb …

Introduction

Pursuant to section 12 and 12A of the Compulsory Quarantine of Certain Persons Arriving at Hong Kong Regulation (the Regulation) (Cap. 599C), the Secretary for Food and Health would specify Guangdong Province and Macao as Category 2 specified places in China with effect from November 23, 2020. She would further specify the conditions for the purpose of section 12(2) of the Regulation.

This Scheme aims to facilitate Hong Kong residents who, upon fulfilment of the conditions specified under sections 12 and 12A of the Regulation, including not having been to places other than Hong Kong, the Guangdong Province or Macao in the past 14 days prior to or upon the day of arrival in Hong Kong, to be exempted from the 14-day compulsory quarantine requirement when returning to Hong Kong. More…

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