Employment & Professional Development

I am a UK citizen living as a resident in another European country.

I am of the understanding that the Contract of Employment/Residency are intertwined with up to a 14 days extra to leave the country, so mine says anyway.

What if I took up another employment elsewhere commencing the next academic semester?

Would I have to start the whole Z-Visa routine again? Spend inordinate amounts of money in London for a week? Or going to HK and spending similar amounts of money?

My current FAO has no interest in getting the residency permit extended for employment elsewhere and neither does any prospective future employer in an early residency application.

Coupled with that is that I want to go home for the summer.

I also understand that knowing China, there is a certain grey area in that past and future employers can facilitate a smooth handover as it were.( Wishful thinking, knowing China)

Thanks in advance.

I don’t think that I understand the specifics of your situation clearly but it appears you are asking if your current Z-visa is extendable and transferable.

A Z-visa is good for entry into China for the purpose of earning income up to three months from the date it is issued. Once you enter China, you have up to 30 days to apply for a residency permit. Once you have a residency permit, the Z-visa is irrelevant. You cannot extend a residency permit. You need to renew it based on continued employment (or study in the case of full-time students).

Z-visas are not transferable. You cannot receive a Z-visa on the strength of paperwork processed from Employer-X and then try to use that Z-visa to enter China (whether prior to or after the 90-day validity period) to work for Employer-Y.

You will need to process new paperwork received from a new employer for a new Z-visa when you are ready to enter China for the purpose of earning income.

Apologies for any confusion.

I understand thus regarding changing employment.

I finish my contract with College A and get the relevant release paperwork. I go home within the time-frame stipulated.

Having previously secured employment with College B, I now, from home, begin the process of getting a new Z-Visa from my country of origin. (A 5000RMB equivalent trip.)

I then return to China to work with College B and begin the residency paperwork cycle.

If the above is the case this means that I am effectively stuck with one employer. Why?

1) The expense incurred in obtaining a new Z-Visa
2) As stated in previous post, it is not in College A(No renewal of contract) and B (May not be required to be in China until late August) interests to extend my residency, over the summer period whilst I go home.
3) College A automatically does my paperwork to extend my residency.

Is there any other way?

Your residency permit is bound to active employment (or study). You can certainly have four different employers in four years based on a single Z-visa. The problem is there is no way to "extend" a residence permit in China and I learned this the hard way. Residence permits can only be renewed (pending continued or new employment), not extended. Whenever there is a gap between the current residency permit's expiration date and the commencement date of the next position, you will run into logistical problems.

Hypothetically, let's say your residency permit--arranged by College A--expires on August 8th, 2011 and your next position, with College B, commences on August 25th, 2011 (date on contract). Under ideal circumstances, the FAOs from both colleges would coordinate the transition so that the FAO from College B would apply for the transfer and renewal of your residency permit before your expiration date. If, for example, the FAO from College A is angry that you are leaving or the FAO from College B is lazy (or, more commonly, will still be on vacation during this 17-day gap period), you could easily run into problems. In such a case, you might very well have to return to China with a new Z-visa. You would need to be very proactive in such a situation to ensure that you don't have to reenter China on a new work visa.

You are not bound to one employer: Your residency permit is bound to active employment or study unless you happen to be one of the few foreigners in China who has an extended 5- to 10-year residency permit based on marriage, major business holdings, or special need (university professor or researcher who is making a major contribution to Chinese society).

If this reply doesn't address your specific situation, please try following-up with specific residency permit expiration and employment commencement dates.

Basically, if there is a large gap between the expiration date of your current residency permit and the commencement date of your next position, you will have to leave the country to reenter with a new visa.

I had the same situation happen to me back in the summer of 2008. My residency permit was going to expire in mid-August and my next position wasn't going to commence until the end of August. The new FAO was scheduled to be on vacation in August and didn't want to interrupt her holiday to attend to my residency permit problem. I ended up negotiating a "guanxi deal" with a local private school owner in which she would renew our residency permits in exchange for an extended period of website maintenance and teacher recruitment. Otherwise, I would have had to return to the United States and reenter China with a new Z-visa and the time involved in doing so would have cost me the new position.

Dr. Greg wrote:Basically, if there is a large gap between the expiration date of your current residency permit and the commencement date of your next position, you will have to leave the country to reenter with a new visa.

Yes, as I suspected, it seems likely that I will have to follow this route if I were to seek new employment in the new academic year.

Thank you.