Visa confirmation letter

[mudhead]

I am a 65-year-old retired professor. I recently signed a 6-month contract to teach ESL at a language school in Chongqing. For obtaining my Z-visa (work visa), the director of the school sent me the Foreign Expert Work Permit (外国人在华就业许可) from the Foreign Experts Bureau, together with an invitation letter from the school.

When I went to the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa two days ago (10 Oct), my request for a work visa was refused by the visa officer. He said I didn't have the required Visa Confirmation Letter (被授权单位签证通知表), and that the invitation letter from the school was useless for this purpose.

On every Chinese Embassy website that I have looked at, the requirements for obtaining the Z-visa are clearly stated: one must present both these documents. The Visa Confirmation Letter is supposed to be obtained (as I have since learned after some searching) from the Foreign Affairs Office or the Economic and Trade Office of the province, in this case Chongqing Municipality.

It seemed to me that there were two possibilities. Either the director didn’t know about the Visa Confirmation Letter -- but how could this be, he has been in business for 10 years and has hired foreign teachers before! Or he did know that this letter was required and didn’t obtain or send it -- which raises other difficult questions. In either case, I had no further confidence in the school. So I wrote to him last night, told him what had happened, and requested that the contract be canceled.

Today the director called, very upset, and asked me what was this document that I was supposed to present, and where was he supposed to get it? He said that this was the very first time he had heard of it. All the foreign teachers he had hired previously had come to China on tourist visas, which he had had converted to work visas in Chongqing. He asked me to bear with him for a couple of days till he discovered what this confirmation letter was all about.

My question to you all is, can you help me understand what’s happening here?? Is the director’s story believable? Is it possible that he has truly never heard of the Visa Confirmation Letter? If he hasn’t, what does this say about his operation? And if he has, what in the world is going on? He has seemed a plausible sort of fellow up to now, but I know I tend to trust people more than I should. I would welcome your informed opinions and advice.

[roddy]

To be honest I would be wary of anyone who's been employing foreign teachers for ten years and had them all come in on tourist visas. Sounds like recent tightening of regulations have meant they've had to switch to more legit ways of working and they haven't yet figured out what they are. It's certainly unusual to get the Foreign Expert's certificate before you arrive in China - no idea how that happened.

If you feel the people and the school are legit, by all means keep in touch with them - but it's their responsibility to figure out the processes, not yours, and I'd advise you to get in touch with a number of other schools as well, by way of back-ups if this doesn't work out.

You also might be better off at a state-run university rather than a language school - they love professors, makes them feel all academic.

[mudhead]

Roddy, I'm not sure what you are saying in your post. The two documents required for obtaining the work visa are the Foreign Experts Work Permit from the Foreign Experts Bureau, and the Visa Confirmation Letter, which comes (apparently) from an office of the Province or Municipality as I mentioned earlier.

I don't see how it can be "unusual to get the Foreign Expert's certificate before you arrive in China" as you say. It's required for obtaining the work visa, which now must be obtained from outside China. Check any Chinese Embassy web site. Have I misunderstood?

But thank you for your informed opinion about the school. I must say I agree, and I will stay away from them.

The only thing I'm slightly worried about is -- when I get another job, the new employer will also apply for a Foreign Experts Work Permit, and what about the one I already have? Well, I'll just tell them about it and have them do whatever is necessary, if anything.

[roddy]

Whenever I had a work visa (had three or four, although not for some years now) you didn't get any permit before arrival - ie, the red passport type book from the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs. There was a stamped letter from SAFEA saying that Mr So and So was going to work at Wherever, please give him a visa. The embassy in the UK has:

A) Confirmation Letter of Retaining Foreign Experts issued by the State Bureau of Foreign Experts (original);

I wouldn't worry about multiple applications - I don't think they're that joined up, and if they are I doubt they're that concerned.

[liuzhou]

I don't see how it can be "unusual to get the Foreign Expert's certificate before you arrive in China" as you say. It's required for obtaining the work visa

No. I've never heard of anyone getting the Foreign Expert's Certificate before arriving in China and it is not required for obtaining the work visa. The documents required for the visa application are here.

The 'work visa' is merely an entry visa which must be converted to a residence permit within 30 days. To do so usually requires a medical examination in China which is required before the Foreign Expert's Certificate is issued. Then the Z-visa can be converted to a residence permit.

[mudhead]

Roddy and Liuzhou, I think we might be just having difficulties in translation. Let me try to summarize what I think I know.

Here are the Z-visa requirements, from the website of the Chinese Embassy in Canada at this link:

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The specific requirements for an employment/work visa are as follows:

a. An original visa confirmation letter issued by the relevant authority of the Chinese government

b. An original and a copy of "Alien Employment License of the People's Republic of China " issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of P.R.C. or an original and a copy of "Foreign Expert Work Permit" issued by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs of the P. R. China

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The second item in b. is the "Foreign Expert Work Permit" (外国人在华就业许可), issued by SAFEA. It's the one on the right in Liuzhou's nice display. Roddy, this is the document I was referring to -- of course I don't yet have the Certificate or the little book (or whatever it has become recently -- just something in the passport?), since those are issued only in China. My prospective employer sent me this, together with an official-looking invitation letter from his school, and claimed that I had all the documents I needed.

Document a., on the left in Liuzhou's display, is what I have been referring to as "visa confirmation letter" (被授权单位签证通知表), though it is sometimes called (confusingly) "invitation letter". It is supposed to be obtained, apparently, from the Foreign Affairs Office or Economic & Trade Office of the province or municipality where I would be working. This is the document that my prospective employer had no clue about and did not send me.

Can either of you experts tell me for how long this "visa confirmation letter" has been a requirement for Z-visa applications? This will help me decide whether it's worth working for this employer who claims he never heard of it and doesn't know where to get it, after running his language school for almost 10 years.

[liuzhou]

Can either of you experts tell me for how long this "visa confirmation letter" has been a requirement for Z-visa applications?

At least 15 years, that I know of.

[mudhead]

In any case, the director of the school called me last night and told me a weird story of conflicts between government departments etc etc, the upshot of which was he couldn't get the Visa Confirmation Letter because they wouldn't give it to him, so they could revenge themselves on the Foreign Experts Bureau, or something ... and if I would please come in on a tourist visa, he would try and finagle the work permit through connections and guanxi. I told him that this whole story terrified me (which wasn't far from the truth, it sounds like a bad gangster novel), and as a result he has canceled the contract as I requested.

Thank you all for your valuable advice and help. I have learned a lot, and clearly this is only the beginning.