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What is the story if your Hong Kong entrepreneur visa extension application is refused by the Immigration Department?

QUESTION  OF  THE  WEEK

If my Hong Kong entrepreneur visa extension application is rejected, is there a grace period after the visa expiration?

If there is a grace period and during which I secure an employee visa, will it reset the permanent residency time counting to zero?

Thanks for your help!

ANSWER

As a business investment visa applicant the test for approval is that you need to show you can make a substantial contribution to the economy of Hong Kong once you get your approval.

The Immigration Department are essentially at the point of approval satisfied of your ability to make that substantial contribution.

If unfortunately, during the time that you’ve held the investment visa your business plan doesn’t really come to fruition, the question is will the Immigration Department deny your extension application or will they, in some way, give you an opportunity to sort of make good on your business plan understanding of course that when

planning a business, no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.

The Immigration Department usually keep those applicants who have been granted a

business investment visa who upon review are not looking as though they’re

actually fully implementing a business plan that was originally projected they keep those people on a very short tight leash so the chance to get refused is of course manifest but by the same token the Immigration Department don’t want to

pull the rug from underneath you if you haven’t been able to fully deliver on

your plan; so in the instance where they’re not satisfied and there’s the potential for you to be refused an application in my experience they prefer to grant you an extension but as I say keep you on a short leash and give you an opportunity to deliver on your plan the next time around and the next time you’re around that you go for your extension usually after 12 months they have another good look at it to see

whether or not you are making a substantial contribution to the economy of Hong Kong; if you get refused what will happen is the Immigration Department will typically grant you a very short extension potentially if you’re here as a visitor by now, because your original investment visa has expired and you’ve been in the Twilight Zone and the only immigration status available to you would be a visitor visa.

They’ll usually give you sort of three days to 5 days to in a sense prepare your arrangements and then you can exit and then come back into Hong Kong in order to finalize your arrangements, close down your business and ostensively leave if on the other hand you decide that you want to stay even though your business investment visa extension has been denied then you will be able to seek to adjust your status subsequently from visitor through to employment if you have received a job offer for which you are obviously a professional, that you possess special skills knowledge and experience of value to and not readily available in Hong Kong and that the compensation is broadly commensurate with market rates in those circumstances you’ll also expect the Immigration Department to receive from you an undertaking that you’re going to close the business down and not engaging in any further so that they will be satisfied that you won’t be tempted to engage in the business on the side which would be unapproved activity if you’ve been granted an employment visa subsequently and in so far as the issue as regards permanent residency goes as long as you have a relatively short time spent on visitor status converting through to employment status then that will typically not break your continuity or residence of course as long as you’ve been in Hong Kong throughout all of that time and your settled purpose for being in Hong Kong hasn’t been in any way compromised.

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