Thorn Tree travel forum

1

Jac, click on the word "Today" at the top of this page and it will take you to your original post, All the best,

http://www.usefilm.com/photographer/28275.html

2

Even after it's been posted twice, I'm still confused by this question.

Are you returning to China to work for another year with the same employer or a different employer in the same city? If so, your current or new employer should be able to renew your Residence Permit for another year with no trouble. Should take about a week. If not, your current/prospective employer and/or local PSB like to do things the hard way and you're out of luck.

Are you returning to China to work for another year with a different employer in another city or another province? If so, they can also renew your current Residence Permit, but you have to go to that city/province, have any required documents ready to go, and wait the necessary time for your new employer to take care of things with their local PSB.

Are you not returning to work for another year, but just needing some extra time to travel and prepare to go home? Do you want to return to China but don't have a job arranged yet? Then yes, an L-Visa "extension" is the best you're going to do from the local PSB and you'll need to leave China and reapply for the Z-Visa from your home or wherever.

No matter the situation, you cannot renew/extend a Residence Permit on your own. Your current/prospective employer has to do it for you. And by the way, you're not "living in China on a Z-Visa", you're living in China on a Residence Permit that also funtions as a multi-entry visa. The "Z-Visa" is a bit of a chimera: good to enter China, but disappears as soon as your Residence Permit is issued. Confusingly, all classes of visas and the Residence Permit look very similar: a page-sized sticker in your passport.

3

I agree with chengdude's confusion and his answer. If you can't get your current (or new) employer to take care of getting a new Residence Permit for you, you'll either have to leave China, get an L tourist visa and return, or you'll have to use a visa agent in a major city like Beijing or Shanghai to take your passport and get the L (or F) visa while you hang around in China. The latter option will cost an agents fee on top of the regular official visa fee--price depends on your passport and the exact type/length/# entries you need. Those are your only options other than overstay (which I don't recommend).

4

Your Z visa only grants entry to China, it doesnt grant residence status and it expires 30 days after you arrive. Only your employer can obtain the residence permit by undergoing the residence formalities which often include a supplemental health exam from you. If transferring employment, in 99% of situations the new PSB needs a signed letter by you previous employer that illustrates you completed the job in good terms..

International Travel and Business Consultant
International Travel, Medical Insurance
China Visa Service
ESL Teacher Cafe

5

Ah time for some clarification. Here we go:
I have a two-year contract with my Chinese employer and with the development organisation I'm working for. So I will go back to the same institution after the Summer hols. This institution arranges and pays for my permit. The problem is not the residence permit itself, I'll get one for sure, but what to do during my trip after the current permit has expired. As said before, I'll be far away from my hometown so I won't be able to return for an extension. The local PSB cannot extend the residence permit before my departure. So my question was/is - is it possible to buy a tourist visa for say a month in between two residence permits - and without actually leaving China?

Hope this helps. Sorry about the confusion, thanks a lot for your anwers!

Global donkey

6

OK, now this situation makes more sense. It sounds like you want to leave the area (but not China) for the holidays--which I assume is for a couple of months or so--and somewhere in the middle of this time period your residence permit expires. Normally, the PSB issues new residence permits for foreigners within the month before the expiration date of the previous permit. Is this the reason they say they will not renew it now, that it is "too early"? Has your employer/development organization tried REALLY hard to get them to move up the date? Or do they also refuse to push the system--keep in mind your employer may not want to draw down from their PSB favor bank for something like this. I've had to get an earlier-than-normal permit on one occasion in the past, and ended up with a new residence permit good for 14 months instead of a year from some magnanimous visa official in Beijing :-). But the various PSB locations differ in how much to use their discretionary authority, sounds like you may be stuck with a hard-ass bunch. If you don't want to leave China and don't want to use a visa agent to get you a "bridge" tourist visa while you stay in-country, the only thing I can suggest is to reorganize your holiday plans to come back to your work location for a week at the appropriate time to get this done, and then resume your holiday. The Chinese bureaucracy isn't particularly amenable or sympathetic to bending their procedures to meet the personal holiday needs of foreigners (or Chinese for that matter!)

7

Agreed; if your local PSB, your employer and your sponsoring organization can't or won't do anything for you (bending the rules, basically), you are SOL. Best to break up your holiday, go back and deal with it.

On the flip side, if your local (hard-ass, in jiejie's words) PSB is advising you to get an L visa to tide you over, that must mean they will convert said L visa back to a Residence Permit upon your return. This is technically illegal, but it can be done and it seems they are agreeable to doing it. If they'll do that, why they won't extend your RP a bit in advance is beyond me. Or am I reading this wrong?

Double-check with your employer and local PSB before leaving. Downgrading to an L visa to extend your holiday is a big risk if you haven't confirmed that it can be upgraded again upon your return. Anyway, jiejie's advice is still the best: go back and deal with it at the proper time and adjust your travel itinerary, if at all possible, to lessen the drama.

8

Yeah, you don't wanna mess with your existing Z visa by getting a tourist visa added.. Better to deal with it as somone preciously said. Otherwise, in most cases they cannot convert a L visa to residence status.

International Travel and Business Consultant
International Travel, Medical Insurance
China Visa Service
ESL Teacher Cafe

9

Thanks so much for your helpful answers. The situation felt a bit tricky from the start, I will now change my plans, pity but that's the way it is.

Global donkey