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How Does Time Spent Between Residence Visas Impact on Your Eligibility for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong Subsequently?

January 16th, 2020

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


 

First Published December 3, 2014

Does time spent ‘between’ residence impact on your eligibility for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong after 7 years ?

QUESTION

I am a Canadian citizen living and working in Hong Kong for the last 4 years.

My employment has ended and I have not yet been able to obtain a new offer of employment in order to arrange for a change of sponsorship.

Since my authorization for stay expires on 4 January 2015, I anticipate I will need to exit and re-enter as a visitor in order to continue looking for employment.

With a mind towards eventually hopefully applying for PR status, am considering the possibility of registering for language lessons in a suitable program and applying for a student visa.

The provider has verified they can sponsor a student visa for a certain length of course.

I am still under my current apartment contract in Hong Kong.

My question is, if I can file the student visa application on or before the expiration date of the work visa, will that be sufficient to support a claim later to claim the time as ‘ordinarily resident‘ in Hong Kong until I can find other suitable employment?

What if the student visa application is filed within 2-3 weeks after the expiration of the employment visa?

Finally, will transitioning from employment, to student, back to employment visa be a liability in an eventual PR application, or will ImmD only look at the fact that the time in HKSAR has been covered by residence visas with only minor ‘visitor’ breaks in the middle while the paper work is being processed by Immigration Tower?

So, all things considered, does time spent ‘between’ residence visas like this impact on eligibility for the right of abode in Hong Kong allowing me to qualify for PR after all?

Thank you.

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The Hong Kong Visa Geeza (a.k.a Stephen Barnes) is a co-founder of the Hong Kong Visa Centre and author of the Hong Kong Visa Handbook. A law graduate of the London School of Economics, Stephen has been practicing Hong Kong immigration since 1993 and is widely acknowledged as the leading authority on business immigration matters here for the last 24 years.

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