Business is Personal (Finance)

I've just renewed my Temporary Residence Permit (basically a visa that is only issued inside China) so the visa process is still very fresh in my mind.

If you are interested in a stay longer than a vacation and you are a U.S. citizen, apply for the 12-month multi-entry L (tourism) visa. Write down you plan to visit Macau, Hong Kong and a few other nearby countries to show the consulate/embassy that you need those entries/exits. There are visas with shorter durations, fewer entry/exit rights but U.S. citizens pay the same price no matter what so might as well apply for the best option. (Passport holders from other countries pay different fees depending on the duration, entry/exit count.)

U.S. citizens either born in China (which I am) or married to a Chinese national can apply for a 24-month multi-entry L visa. If you qualify for this visa, this is the easiest option if you plan to stay in the Guangdong province. Every 90 days, you have to take a trip to either Hong Kong or Macau, go through border controls and then come right back in. Since visas determine expiration by the last day you can enter, a 24-month multi-entry L visa lets you stay for 27 months if you go through border controls on the last day. (12-month L visas have 60 day stays so you can stay for a total of 14 months.)

Sounds pretty nice -- unfortunately, these visas an only be applied for outside of China. Once in China and you want to extend your stay, you can only get a "visa" with 0 entry/exits. So the moment you head off to Hong Kong (90 days visa free stay for U.S. passports) or Macau (30 days visa free for U.S. passports) for a fun vacation, your visa is no good any more and you must apply for a new one. From the information we received, the maximum China visa stay you can get in Hong Kong or Macau is 90 days. Before the Beijing Olympics, it was possible to apply for a separate entry/exit permit but that program has been suspended and it is unknown if or when it will be resumed.

To get a Temporary Resident Permit L visa, you need a Chinese resident to sponsor you. It's not really that difficult. You basically have to go to 2 locations:

• Go to your sponsor's local Police Security Bureau to register your residence. Submit:
• passport photo
• copies of your passport (photo page, latest visa page, latest entry/exit stamp page)
• your sponsor's Household Registry and ID card
• To expedite the process, get the photo taken at a shop that is electronically linked to the local PSB. They will give you a number and the PSB can simply pull it into your paperwork. The first time, we did not do that and this process took 2 hours. The 2nd time, it was done in 30 minutes.
• Go to the Entry/Exit Bureau for your region to apply for the visa. Submit the same photo copies in addition to the printout the local PSB gives you. If you are applying for visas for both you and your kids, make sure you have copies of your sponsor's documents for each application.
• Head back to the Entry/Exit Bureau in 5 days to pick up your passport. There may be expedited processing available for extra fees -- I did not inquire about this.
  

This visa is good for 6 months and you can apply for it twice in a row. After that, you must leave the country (Hong Kong/Macau) and apply for a visa to re-enter China.

I have some business that will need attending to in the U.S. later this year so my plan is to fly back just a bit before my visa is up. Once in the U.S., I hope to get a 24-month L visa -- or at the minimum -- a 12-month L. I do not want to drag my kids on two 15 hour flights so they will just head off to Hong Kong for a vacation when their visas expire. A 90-day dual entry visa would then let us also visit Macau before we again apply for the internal 6-month 0 entry/exit visas.

(Filed in china)