Job Discussion Forums

[adventuramust]

I thought I read somewhere, not sure if it was an individual contract or some general employment regulations that you could opt to have 70% of your earnings converted to your home currency each month.

Does anyone know about this? Or where I may have seen it?

[Yu]

Might depend a little on the school. Might not be written policy, but I do think there are ways of doing it. My former school did not let me convert anything. This time I converted 100% (though I am not sure why I was able to do this.)

[Roger]

70% is the maximum. You must be legally employed and your FAO should set up for you a bank account with the BOC.
It's not always a smooth ride and you are bound to waste lots of hours haggling with incompetent bank tellers!
To convert your salary into foreign currency you must breing documentation including your contract.n

[vikdk]

one says a 100% the other says 70% - I'm already confused - Why does one poster say they've actually done something that the other says shouldn't be possible? Is this just China at its best or maybe its more like what you can expect when asking for advice at daves

[7969]

converted 100% of how much? a full years salary? my school says 70% but i never convert it anyway as i manage to spend most of what i earn here. surely the rules can always be bent here to accommodate anyone.

and what if my home currency is the zambian kwacha? can i convert RMB into those at BOC? yes vikdk, this is the type of advice you get at daves

[Super Mario]

In the back of the FE Certificate there's a section for your FAO to fill in, saying how much you can convert a month. Mine wrote 8,000, which was 100%. My salary was paid into the ICBC, not BOC.
When ready, I withdrew the cash, headed downtown to my foreign bank, together with tax certificates, red and green books and passport, and did the transaction in 15 minutes.

[jeffinflorida]

A guy at my last school needed to do this.

He and Dumb FAO Chick went to the bank, she rattled off his needs in Chinese and the bank gave him lots of money in American Dollars.

The contract said 70% but the actual transaction was everything in his bank account. When i asked him he said there was no conversion of a precentage done - they were told to convert it all to US Dollars and they did.

No hassle. No waiting.

[Yu]

My undersanding was that I should only be able to convery 50% (I am here with a kid... might even be 30%... anyway some ridiculously low percentage) and my currency wasnt converted by the bank through my knowledge. I brought the amount of money I had been paid to date back to my employer and asked to have it all converted. A few days later I picked up the money from the finance department. I am not sure when the next chance will be to convert money. I will ask next time I get paid. Sometimes I dont know the rules. I dont think everyone follows the rules, so if I am able to work the rules to my advantage, I am gonna work it.

The other way I convert money is that when I have visitors, I tell them to pay my mom in USD the amount they spend when they are here. We just check the current exchange rate they would get if they changed dollars here and use that. This way the person travelling does not have to deal with getting traveller's checks or carrying around large sums of cash, and later when I return to the states, I will not have a problem doing this either.

[vikdk]

[kev7161]

In my contract, my school wrote 50%. The first time I went to the BoC in Suzhou, they changed 50%. This was fine by me as that is the maximum I ever change. However, before the Spring Festival, I wanted more USD than usual. The bank reluctantly exchanged more than 50% but advised me to have my finance office here at the school change it to the maximum allowed (70%) and stamp their little seal on the second page in the back of my FEC. Nobody had a problem with this: my school or the bank.

The rule is . . . well I've read online that 70% is the maximum allowed . . . somewhere. I think if you discuss it with your school and they stamp it, then it shouldn't be a problem to exchange 70%. The first time I went to the bank, I had to bring a copy of my contract so they knew 50% (and later 70%) of what amount, but now it's just my passport and FEC and it's sufficient. The main lady who does the exchange paperwork knows me now and we chat while someone makes copies of my documents. Rarely does it take more than 10 or 15 minutes. When I finally get to a teller window, about another 5 minutes.

The trick I've found is to try and become a familiar face in banks, stores, post offices, etc. In other words, visit the same branches as much as possible. More often than not, you'll get "less hassle" service and maybe even a friendly smile. It seems to work for me.

[7969]

i just changed all my RMB from my first job into dollars when i was in hong kong afterwards. only had RMB15000 but HK seems to be easy enough and no hassles there. at any rate, it didnt matter to me, i was coming back to china anyway.

[clomper]

As far as I know you can exchange up to 70% of your income at the main branch of BOC. However, I went to the main branch of ICBC wherein I have an account and they were able to change 100% of my salary to USD. I just need all the papers they require everytime I exchange it. Now, I just use the black market.

[adventuramust]

I discovered the bank where I am does not give foreign currency and that I would like to go to the big city to do this.

I want to know what items I need. I just checked per the above post and there is nothing in my red book that indicates how much I make or how much is convertible. There is also nothing in my contract about how much is convertible either.

I see from above I will need a tax statement. Anything else?

Thanks for the information. I am really have a difficult time getting any information. Only the FAO and one other person speak English and respond to everything with "I don't know" and won't find out. I don't have phone service (not that I care) for that reason.

Thanks again.

[Mytime]

Here's a thought. Take your RMB to the guy at the cigarette/booze shop with the calculator on his desk and change it there.

[Calories]

my school pays me in cash (i thought that is how most people are paid here) so, if i want my home currency I'll ask them and they can usually do it.