Job Discussion Forums

[pandasteak]

I have a Foreign Expert certificate good for a year.

and

and F visa good for 90 days after arrival. (I applied for it by mail, with letters of invitation, etc, so I was surprised when it didn't come back a Z)


Do I need to bother (through my school) changing the F visa to a Z, or does the little red FE book outrank it?
thanks!

[Chris_Crossley]

It is ILLEGAL to work in the PRC without a Z visa in your passport, even if it is a visa issued after, not necessarily before, you enter China. I re-entered China on an L (tourist) visa last December and the school I currently work for made all the arrangements for getting me a Z visa - at their expense. The Z visa acts as an insurance, because it means that the school is legally responsible as your "sponsor" in China, i.e., it is providing you with the financial means to support yourself in return for working at the school during your stay.

You must bear in mind that, if and when you leave China at any exit point, the authorities will check all your documents. If your passport shows that you have a visa other than a Z visa, the officers may question you if they cannot verify the total period of the stay from the visa(s) you have in your passport. If you are unable to show that you have been in China legally for the entire period of your stay, you may be detained.

It is a serious offence for foreigners to overstay on whichever visa they have in their passports. If you are working, you must have a Z visa in your passport - that will be the first thing they will check. Your Foreign Expert Certificate (FEC) has to be given up to whichever school or other institution had hired you before you leave (according to what it says on the second-to-back-cover page), but you are allowed to retain your green Foreign Residence Permit (FRP) so you can show both it and the passport at the exit point. The FRP will show the date of expiry, which is basically the last date you are permitted to stay in China unless you have either had it extended or else you have had a new visa put in your passport which indicates a legal extension of stay.

Usually, the last day of a contract coincides with the expiry date of the FRP, so, if you wish to stay in China for, say, travel after you finish your contract or even for changing jobs if you don't intend leaving, you MUST get a visa extension from the PSB.

You MUST pay attention to the expiry dates in your documents - overstaying can attract a maximum fine of 500 RMB per day and/or ten days in detention. I would advise anybody who is going to leave China to get an extension before the expiry date of the FRP, so that you have a few days' grace before you go out of the country, even if it means paying for the visa yourself - a visa extension does not cost all that much.

Which would you prefer? Spend a few kuai on a visa extension or get fined 500 RMB per day for overstaying? Think before you answer.

To answer the original question in this thread, there is no "precedence" of either the FEC over the visa in the passport or vice versa. You must have a Z visa in your passport to show the authorities that you have worked (or are still working) in China legally as and when you leave the Chinese border. You must have both the FEC and the FRP with you while you are still working in China because they provide the legal evidence of your status in the country.

I hope that clarifies the situation.

[pandasteak]

not trying to be cheeky or nothin', but Chris, do you have a source for all this?

At an airport last year upon re-entering china after xmas vacation, authorities were flipping though my passport through a few chinese visa pages - but when I flashed the red book, they waved me through no problem. wow

And I've heard from a bunch of people (including some schools) saying "don't worry, as long as you FEC is ok, you're fine - cause it "outranks" the visa on your passport"

(I was skeptical about this all the same, hence this post).

I don't know why I was issued an F visa, because my application said I was gonna work at a university for a year. strange... I figure I'll have to start nagging them to have it switched over before it expires.

All the same, the visa people asked no questions about the F visa during the processing of my FEC. If working without a Z visa is illegal, why would they not have raised questions when they had my passport during this processing?

thanks again

[JimmyJam]

There is a book from the SBFE (State Bureau of FOreign Experts) and all provisions are outlined there.. All that Chris said in his post is correct and is based there...
On my second year in China, I was given an X re-entry visa but it was supposed to be Z because i've been working already and I both have the FEC and the FRP.. so i told them, my reentry visa and my documents don't match.. so, what they did was to cancel the X visa which they mistakenly issued ('twas the visa requested by the staff because he thought i was a student then.).. and they issued me a new one.. no hassles...
I have the feeling that immigration officers look higher on those who have an F visa... or it so happened that the immigration officer did not want further trouble because he cant speak english so he/she just let you go when you waved the magic booklet.. i have no basis for this.. its not in the SBFE Manual..

[Chris_Crossley]

From what I know, I believe that any valid Foreign Expert Certificate (FEC) issued to you that has not expired will suffice, because it shows that you have legally applied to work in the PRC and have received official government approval already within the country, since FECs cannot be issued outside it. Having said that, you would still need a visa in your passport to re-enter China after vacationing.

I imagine that a Z visa would not have been appropriate precisely because you already must have had a Z visa issued to get the FEC, anyway. An L visa would not have been appropriate, either, because you are not a "tourist" any more as such so long as the FEC remains valid and has not expired. Hence, I imagine that the F visa was the most appropriate choice in your case, as far as the authorities were concerned.

In any case, from my experience, including re-entering the PRC on an L (tourist) visa (because I was between jobs at the time), Z visas don't last a full year, anyway, strange as that may seem. I had a Z visa issued when I got a job at my current school only after I had re-entered the PRC, and the validity of that visa was very short, only about a month or so. The expiry date would, I worked out, have been the date by which my FEC and Foreigner Residence Permit (FRP) should have been issued, as, indeed, they were. After that, I needed only to keep the passport and FEC safe and carry the FRP around with me as proof of ID within the PRC. That's my personal experience.