Monday 23 February 2009

Visa update for The Year of the Ox – shorter stays for foreigners all round.

Ironically, this year is my year. I was born in 1985, two whole oxen ago and so, in my opinion (I have no real idea what it entails if it IS your year in the Chinese zodiac) this year should be all good for me.

However, if you read my previous post about visa intricacies in China you may well know that the turn of the year wasn’t so good for me in terms of legality.

My student visa was up just at Chinese New Year, making it a little awkward to organise anything within China while at the same time making it slightly annoying to organise anything outside of China (getting plane tickets isn’t the easiest or cheapest thing to do around then).

I circumvented this problem however by managing to wangle a month-long tourist extension at the end of my Fudan stay, which – I was told – would let me go through one of the many travel agencies in China to change my L (tourist) via into an F (business) visa.

Well, when it came round to doing so I was told finally and very bluntly that no, I couldn’t get it done. Being as it was a final extension, it effectively meant that I had to get the hell out of the country at the end of it.

Which leads me to my current location: right now I’m outside the Chinese visa office in the Wanchai district of Hong Kong – a place well known by foreigners in China as one of the default visa top-up spots in the world.

Having joined the post-lunch queue on Harbour road, I handed over my passport, picture, and application form in the hope that my clever entry of “Longest planned stay in China: 120 days” would slip by the consulate officer and I would be on my way to an easier time all round when I got back to Shanghai.

It didn’t.

This came as no surprise though. Last week – after I was told politely that I had to get out of China – I made a few phone calls. Independent travel agencies, visa offices and China Travel Service (CTS) branches in Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Thailand and the UK all got calls from me wondering what the situation with F and L visas were like at the moment. Not one of them could offer anything more than a 30-day maximum stay.

London, which just before the Chinese New Year offered 60 and before Christmas offered at least 90 now only offers 30.

Hong Kong, which was previously the place-to-go for 90 days, now only offers 30.

The reasons for this: I have no idea. As is always the case this might be totally different in a month. But for now, if you’ve scheduled a visa run somewhere soon, don’t be optimistic about getting anymore that that.

(If you do however, please let me know how, and where, you got it done!)

And on a final note, the base cost for arranging visas internally has sky rocketed for UK passport holders. What was around the 3500 mark for six months before the beginning of February is now 4800, and a year is 7500

7 comments:

  1. The solution here is simple in some respects, although admittedly life-changing: marry a Chinese person, and you can apply for a one year, 180 day maximum stay multi entry L visa. I was issued with one in London last month. Obviously this doesnt help with your present situation and I hope the 'rules' change quick, and concurrently that China doesn't adopt a visa system as ludicrously strict as the UK.

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  2. An... interesting solution. Not sure that would be the best option for me though...

    But yeah, as long as we don't start seeing regulations and laws like the UK!

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  3. I just married a Chinese and am in China with a soon to expire F visa. Is that one year multiple entry L visa with the 180 max stay very difficult to get?

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  4. G'day all,

    I'm on my way to stay with my girlfriend in beijing for a few months. I just made the stupid mistake of applying for a 12 month multiple-entry visa. It sounded good at the time (with no advice from the guy behind the desk and a queue breathing down my neck) but now I realise I'm going to have to do the border shuffle every 30 days... and there's no convenient border crossing near Beijing!

    Anybody suggest how I can improve my situation? I do have another passport (British) and it has crossed my mind that I could use this to get an alternative visa if there is one that would better suit me.

    Thanks all!

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  5. G'day all,

    I'm on my way to stay with my girlfriend in beijing for a few months. I just made the stupid mistake of applying for a 12 month multiple-entry visa. It sounded good at the time (with no advice from the guy behind the desk and a queue breathing down my neck) but now I realise I'm going to have to do the border shuffle every 30 days... and there's no convenient border crossing near Beijing!

    Anybody suggest how I can improve my situation? I do have another passport (British) and it has crossed my mind that I could use this to get an alternative visa if there is one that would better suit me.

    Thanks all!

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  6. The visa situation is definitely a tense one sometimes. Right now I am temporarily in China helping with a volunteer effort to provide standard Chinese as a foreign language online for free (www.zhongwenred.com
    ) I am not sure what I am going to do when my visa expires, although as one person put it, "In China there is always another way."

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  7. Most expat services can extend your visa upto 12 months on either L or F visas, whats the big worry all about?

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