Hong Kong Visas Made Easy

27

Mar 2024

I Want To Live In Hong Kong With My Boyfriend – Is The Working Holiday Visa A Viable Option?

Posted by / in Special Programmes, Your Question Answered / 10 responses

Working Holiday Visa

Sometimes, the sun and the moon align beautifully on a set of circumstances to allow an unmarried couple to spend time together in Hong Kong when ordinarily visa circumstances conspire against them. Not on this occasion, however!

QUESTION

“Hi there,

I have just recently returned from Hong Kong to Canada where I am a citizen.

My boyfriend lives in Hong kong and I have travelled there 3 times in the past 2 years to see him only as a quick 2 week holiday each time.

Covid is a problem for us now obviously.

We frequently talk about me moving to hong kong to live together.

Obviously if I was to live in Hong Kong I would have to find work and have an income. I guess the reason for me sending you this message is to find out which is the best visa application for me to look into?  

I had hoped to maybe stay there for up to 1 year.”

ANSWER

In your situation, it would seem that the working holiday visa would be the ideal solution for you.

The working holiday visa is available to Canadian citizens as well as to a number of other different nationals, and the premise of the working holiday visa is to allow the holder a primary intention to holiday in Hong Kong and it’s available to you if you’re aged between 18 and 30 and that you can show sufficient proof of having – in the case of a Canadian, HKD15,000 in your bank account to fund your proposed stay in Hong Kong.

You also need to show that you have a return air ticket when you arrive and also that you have got medical and comprehensive hospitalisation and liability insurance in your name. On the basis that you can satisfy these requirements, you can get a working holiday visa.

The working holiday visa effectively gives you a twelve-month limit of stay in Hong Kong where you can come to work for up to four employers during your time in Hong Kong, with an absolute maximum of three month stay for each employer.

And there is a quota. So, you do have to get your application in good order each year, and the quota for Canadian citizen is 200.

Making the application is very straightforward: you can download the application form from the website – the requisite link is attached to this post on the blog so that you can know where to go for the information, you submit the application directly to Immigration Tower by post. NB, you must be in Canada at the time that you will file this application and you must be ordinarily resident in Canada at the time. But as you’re a citizen- as stated in your question, I don’t think that’s a problem.

Therefore, on the basis that there’s quota available and you can show that you’ve got the money and that you are applying whilst you’re in Canada and you’re ordinarily resident in Canada, I don’t see any problems as to you moving forward with a successful application for a working holiday visa.

It would certainly appear to be the suitable solution in your circumstances given that you only intend to stay for one year in any event; and certainly in that time, it will then allow you to get some relationships moving with employers and understand how Hong Kong operates from an employment perspective, and assuming that you qualify separately for an employment visa in due course, on the basis you can get yourself a job offer, then reason why you could entertain, subsequently, an application for a full employment visa in your own right, once your working holiday visa term has come to an end.

I think that’s a solution for you. All the best!

The Hong Kong Working Holiday Visa Information on the Hong Kong Immigration Department Website

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26

Mar 2024

I Have Lived In Hong Kong For 5 Years. Can I Extend My Work Visa For 2 Years, Quit My Job, Study Full-Time, Then Apply for RoA?

Posted by / in Employment Visas, Long Stay & PR, Your Question Answered / 8 responses

First Published October 9, 2012 – Still Relevant

Apply for RoA

Whilst the implementation of Hong Kong immigration policy is essentially very flexible, as an employment visa holder, until you have gone on to receive the right of abode (RoA) or unconditional stay after seven years continuous ordinary residence, your permissions to remain in Hong Kong are governed very tightly. I am grateful to this questioner for providing an opportunity to have a discussion about ‘strategic immigration status management’ through to the point where it is possible to make an application for permanent residency in the HKSAR.

QUESTION

“Thanks for being so helpful, your posts are very useful. I have 2 questions:

 1) If my visa is expiring in 31 April 2013 and the company extends it 15 March 2013 which gets approved (before the original visas expiry date, i.e. approval on 30 March 2013) to extend until April 2015 – what happens if I quit before the original visa’s expiry date (but my extension has already been approved)? Am I allowed to stay in HK until 2015?

 2) If my visa is expiring 31 April 2015, and I decide to quit, can I apply for university courses or a degree course on the employment visa that I am on or do I need to re-apply for a student visa (end date of the course does not surpass the visa expiration date)?

Does this educational period count towards Right of Abode?”

ANSWER

In this question, we’re being asked whether it’s possible to extend your current employment visa, quit your job, then go on to take up studies full time without actually dealing with the question of immigration status. In wake of the change in the rationale for Hong Kong, it’s not commonly appreciated that when you get an employment visa, you get two privileges: you get the privilege to do the particular job that’s underpinning your employment visa in the first place, and you also get the privilege to reside when you stop working for that particular employer that is the party that’s sponsoring your employment visa. Effectively, your privileges to work cease at that point in time, but your privilege to reside continues until your current limit of stay expires or unless the Immigration Department expressly revoke your existing limit of stay and give you a shorter limit of stay, whereupon you’re expected to leave.

Thus, if you have had your privileges to work terminated as a result of leaving your employment, then effectively the question is what is permitted activity other than residing in Hong Kong whilst you’re in possession of that employment visa?  Well, it’s not permitted activity to take up any employment and it’s not permitted activity for you joining a business first without getting the consent of the Immigration Department.

When you possess an employment visa, it is permitted activity joining a part time course of study? It’s not permitted activity whilst you’re in possession of an employment visa to take up a full time course of study. So if your rationale for remaining in Hong Kong in the wake of leaving your job is to take up a full time course of study, you’re going to have to adjust your immigration status from employment through to student, and the limited stay that you’ll get on each occasion will be directly related to your continuing enrolment and your continuing participation in your course of studies. So then, moving on to the second part of the question, effectively, any time that you spend in Hong Kong as a resident will count towards your continuous ordinary residence for the purposes of an eventual Right of Abode approval.

So the test is continuous ordinary residence showing that you have become settled in Hong Kong throughout this time and at the point of making your application, you’ve taken concrete steps to having taken Hong Kong as your only place of permanent residence. Therefore, any time that you spend as a student in Hong Kong, as long as it’s part of a continuous period of ordinary residence that amounts to no less than seven years. Having become settled and taken Hong Kong as your only place of permanent residence, then that time spent as a student will definitely count towards the seven years for the purposes of a permanent residency approval.

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25

Mar 2024

My Employment Visa Has Been Refused – What Can I Do Now?

Posted by / in Employment Visas, Refusals & Appeals, Your Question Answered / 4 responses

My employment visa has been refused …. We have been contacted a lot recently by applicants who’s cases have been refused  – so this question is both timely and, for all those affected, of great significance.

Employment Visa Has Been Refused

QUESTION

“I would like to know if, once  I have received the first rejection letter from an Officer of the HKID for my employment visa application, I can either:

i) file Reconsideration and if still rejected,

ii) then file S53 Review, or

iii) make direct application to the Chief Executive after second rejection?”

ANSWER

When an application from an employment visa has been denied, the letter which the applicant receives indicates that the employment visa application was not approved as the Immigration Department were not satisfied that the person possessed special skills, knowledge or experience or value to are not readily available in Hong Kong; in all the circumstances of case, the employer is justified engaging with services of an expatriate rather than the services of a local person, and this leaves it very difficult to try and interpret exactly what might be wrong with a case and thereby putting together another set of information to have another run at the application by way of an appeal’s process called a case reconsideration.

In order to successfully argue a case reconsideration, you basically need to have significant additional new information which had weight to the original application or are there relevant and important new facts which have come to light since the refusal with comprehensive verifying documentation supplied to support it. So that process in many ways is like another employment visa application.

The case officer will review it and then his colleagues will review it and then a determination from supervisory level staff and managerial staff will be laid down to ensure that in fact the original decision was the correct decision and that any new and previously unsubmitted information which has been supplied doesn’t add the necessary weight to coerce the Immigration Department to switch from one decision to the decision of approval; and that’s a process that usually plays itself out over the course of between two and sometimes twelve weeks. If the reconsideration is refused, then really your options are starting to get a little bit limited in a practical sense.

In your question, you mentioned the issue of section 53, review of the immigration ordinance. This is a procedure that’s not very often used these days because whilst the review procedure is ongoing the applicant is not allowed to be in Hong Kong as a visitor. So because it can take between six and twelve months for a review process to be completely finalised, most people who’ve been denied employment visas and haven’t been successful in reconsideration don’t travel down that path because it simply just takes too long to be anything close to practical.

Additionally, making an application for direct intervention of the Chief Executive is an appeal manoeuvre that is not recommended in the average sort of run of the mill case, as it were, and because you haven’t provided any information as to what the nature of the case is, or allow us to understand a little bit more about how we might be able to make this advice more tailored to you. However, it would seem unlikely, given the volume of instances that we have made an application for the intervention of the Chief Executive that in your instance, it may probably not be irrelevant or indeed an appropriate channel or place to follow. So in many ways, even direct intervention request of the Chief Executive isn’t a particularly practical solution to your dilemma. However, as I say, only in the case where there’s a significant matter of public interest involved would you want to follow that route.

So those are the array of the options you got available to you – your first port of call is, without doubt, reconsideration; and then if you are refused on the reconsideration and it’s becoming really apparent to you that they are making the wrong decision, you could potentially submit another reconsideration with, again, further new and previously unsubmitted information that would allow the Immigration Department to take another look at it. But, in a very practical sense, by the time that process is played itself out, it’s arguable that you don’t really have anywhere else to go and the appeals process is not going to work for you. Unless, of course, you genuinely believe that your employment is a matter of great public interest, such that the Immigration Department should be redirected by the Chief Executive to have a better and closer look at it, but it would seem to be unusual.

I hope that helps.

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24

Mar 2024

Can You Freelance Or Start Your Own Business Under A Hong Kong Working Holiday Visa?

Posted by / in Investment Visas, Special Programmes, Your Question Answered / 5 responses

Freelance or Start Your Own Business Under a Hong Kong Working Holiday Visa

The working holiday visa for Hong Kong is designed for certain types of employment activity – but does this include freelance work or starting or your own business?

First Published On April 15, 2013 – Still Relevant

QUESTION

Hi

I have recently moved to Hong Kong with my partner (who has an employment visa) and I obtained a working holiday visa for 1 year.

My plan was to get over here and then look for work opportunities and then transfer over to an appropriate visa. I registered my own company in Ireland and it looks like the most work I will do here would be as a freelancer.

Am I able to work as a freelancer on the working holiday visa or do I need to get another visa – say the investment visa?

We do plan to be here a few years.

Thanks

ANSWER

The working holiday visa for Hong Kong is designed specifically to allow nationals of certain countries, not every country, to come to Hong Kong for a maximum period of twelve months with the primary intention to holiday here. And, as a result of the bilateral arrangements between several countries in Hong Kong, parties who hold a working holiday visa for Hong Kong are able to effectively work for up to four employers in that twelve-month period, and not being able to work for a single employer for more than three months at a time.

Anything more than that is a direct breach of conditions of stay. The programme is really all about sort of cultural exchange if nothing else, and doesn’t anticipate nor provide for holders of such visas to go out and work for themselves, that is ostensibly registering perhaps the sole proprietorship business and then undertaking activities as a freelancer.

Moreover, going to the next step and applying to incorporate a company and then starting to engage in business through that limited liability company is effectively not permitted activity under the working holiday visa.

So whilst you might be able to get away with your sort of plans on the ground as it were, to freelance or to start a business, if your long term intention is to stay in Hong Kong on the strength of the business that you’re planning to undertake it’s really important that you don’t be tempted to start that business whilst you’re a working holiday visa holder, and this is because if at a point of you subsequently making your application for a business investment visa, your activity whilst holding an working holiday visa will be disclosed to the Immigration Department, and they’ll know then that you’ve actively been engaged in activities which are a breach of your conditions of stay and that could lead to the Immigration Department considering a subsequent application less than favourably.

So, yes. If it’s your intention to freelance sort of starting a business, the moment that those intentions crystallise, irrespective of the immigration status you hold presently, you need to make an application for a business investment visa.

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23

Mar 2024

What Paperwork (If Any) Goes Into Your Passport To Recognize That You Are A Hong Kong Permanent Resident?

Posted by / in Long Stay & PR, Your Question Answered / 1 response

Dead simple question this one with a very short answer (for a change!)

You Are a Hong Kong Permanent Resident?
QUESTION

What paperwork/ piece of paper, if any, goes in to your passport to recognize that you are a permanent resident of the HKSAR? 

For the last 7 years I’ve had a dependant visa

I need to know as I have one page left in my passport. 

And will immigration take my passport away to facilitate me getting permanent residency?

ANSWER

If you’ve lived in Hong Kong continuously for a period of not less than seven years, you can make the application to convert your status from temporary resident to permanent resident. During the currency of your application for permanent residency, the Immigration Department will call to inspect your original passport at the point of them verifying your eligibility that you are in fact a permanent resident. And that’s the only use of the passport that the Immigration Department take whilst your application for permanent residency is ongoing, so they don’t hold it at all; you are in fact able to travel freely or otherwise with your passport whilst the application for PR has been considered and ultimately finalised.

Once the approval of your PR comes in, effectively your passport is now defunct for immigration purposes as regards Hong Kong because your Right of Aboard is reflected in the issue to you of a permanent identity card and that permanent identity card, therefore is your travel document in and out of Hong Kong, and your passport is no longer needed to be presented to an immigration officer at the point of arrival. Therefore, there’s no endorsement in your passport to reflect your PR.

I hope you find this useful.

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22

Mar 2024

QOTW: What Documents Are Needed To Extend A Hong Kong Business Investment Visa?

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

First Published August 13, 2014 – Still Relevant

Extend a Hong Kong Business Investment Visa

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.

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21

Mar 2024

Why There’s No Such Thing As Migrating To Hong Kong But Rather, It’s All About Your Rationale

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

migrating to Hong Kong

Question:

Hi there,

I am interested in migrating to Hong Kong, wasn’t sure what is the best route – getting employment take times, and I wonder what might be the alternative. I am going to open a domain company but not sure if that works.

I need some help to explore some of options but I notice your fee structure is based on specific visa type. Since I wasn’t even sure what approach I should take, I am particularly sure to approach this with your company.

Any advice would be appreciated, including the exploration of skilled talent immigration.

Also can you share with me what are the different level means and what is the differentiator of each service level?

Thanks

ANSWER

The problem in providing kind of an answer to this question is that you have, understandably, an operating assumption that Hong Kong as a jurisdiction operates like other immigration jurisdictions do from a sort of a migration stroke quality of life perspective. The reason why quality of life programmes exist in other jurisdictions is because other jurisdictions such as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the UK, US to a degree – they all are seeking to augment their populations through the addition of further long term population through immigration, through a structured immigration programme.

Hong Kong basically doesn’t operate like that. Hong Kong is not a quality of life migration jurisdiction like the others are. And consequently, what it means is that you need to have a rationale for coming to Hong Kong and that rationale will be reflected in the particular visa type that you go after. And our websites are structured in such a way as to reflect the rationale focused nature of Hong Kong immigration, rather than the kind of call to arms for a general population increase through certain types of qualified people. It doesn’t work like that. There always needs to be a rationale.

So, for example, if your rationale to come to Hong Kong is to study, you apply for a student visa. If your rationale is to come to work – an employment visa, to invest in an operating business, a business investment visa as an entrepreneur, joining family, you apply for dependent visa for the purposes of family reunion, if you’re coming for short term visit purposes, then you can potentially get a travel pass. So the instruments of Hong Kong immigration reflect the specific rationale and reasons for why people are coming to Hong Kong. So the Immigration department can control those activities according to policy and that’s how it’s managed here.

So, all I can suggest that you do is have a think about your rationale -what’s best suited to you, then explore the visa type and then make some determinations about how you can sort of craft the circumstances for you to be able to access the immigration programmes in Hong Kong.

It is therefore more a case of what is it that’s really bringing you here and how can you get immigration status to be able to reflect that rationale and how does that immigration status that you get work into long term permanent residency aspirations which require a full seven years of continuous ordinary residence in Hong Kong, holding the particular residence visa type that reflects the rationale that’s brought and kept you here throughout the seven years claimed.

And at the end of seven years, you’ll be able to adjust your immigration status to permanent residency, which would then give you the kind of effective migration type outcome that you’re seeking. But, having done it through the auspices of the immigration programme here, which, as I said, is configured from a rationale first perspective.

I hope you found that useful.

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