Resident permit expiration

[chird]

Hi, I'm a bit confused,

I have a resident permit for foreigner stamped in my passport, which is valid till next year. I have now left the language school through which is was registered, on semi-amicable terms. They have advised they will cancel my 'visa', and have asked me to bring them my passport.

I want to stay in China till the end of this year and not work.

Is this legal?

If the school cancel my 'visa' with the PSB, will the PSB hunt me down and force me to leave? (police will have my address I suppose)

Will I have problems/fines when I try to leave the country, despite having a valid resident permit in my passport?

What about if I left for HK and came back, could I be refused re-entry?

Thank you for your input,

C

[liuzhou]

A residence permit is tied to the employer under whose auspices it was obtained, so yes, if you are no longer in their employ, then your residence permit is no longer valid.

Most employers do nothing abut it and the holder gets away with it, but if they want to formally cancel it, then they can. It is certainly legal. In fact NOT cancelling it is technically illegal.

If they report it, you could be refused re-entry at Hong Kong, yes. On the grounds that your permit is no longer valid.

In your circumstances, I'd be looking for a tourist visa to replace the residence permit.

Good luck.

[chird]

dern it, I received conflicting advice on another forum a few weeks ago. I believe the school will do what they must to cancel my 'visa' without having possession of my passport to be 'above board', and I assume now there is no real difference between a 'visa' and a resident permit in this case.

I'm not so bothered about going to Hong Kong and back on the resident visa, I just don't want to get in trouble while staying in China or when I finally try to leave.

[roddy]

The school can't really cancel your visa, all they can do is inform the PSB that you no longer work there, and then it's up to them. Ideally I'd like you to let that happen so that we have a concrete case study to refer to for future need. I suspect there's a lot of local variation though (how unusual).

[chird]

School...

you should give us your passport, then we will change your visa to the tourist visa. but if you wont give us your passport before saturday, we will cancel your working visa by our company.so that you dont have a visa in china ,you will be fine everyday.

Not sure when and where this 'fine' would be payable though, or whether the school is wrong. Another person has told me they think it is the 500 yuan per day fine they are referring to, and the border officials will check on computer system whether visa is still valid upon exit. hmmm

[gougou]

I assume now there is no real difference between a 'visa' and a resident permit in this case.

At this point, you don't have a visa anymore - that was canceled when you got your residence permit. And I'd be surprised if the PSB didn't revoke your residence permit once they learn that you don't work for that company anymore - especially currently with the census going on, which seems to have made everything about visas a bit more complicated.

[andelicek.andy]

fine is 500rmb/day, right. as i say, in china everythink is possible, but probably you should give them ur passport & let them give you travel visa. than you can extend travel visa, maximum 3months, than you have to leave mainland china (ie.to HK or wherever) & get another visa. OR find another job in china ^__~ good luck. after that give report

[chird]

It wasn't really possible to give them my passport anyway, they gave me a deadline of 1 day to bring them the passport before cancelling at the PSB (allegedly).

I've heard there is a difference between cancelling the employment permit without the passport(easy), and cancelling the resident permit without a passport (possible, but hard as it involves departments outside the province). I'm sure my school has no real interest in doing more work than they have to as we didn't have any bad blood, but as you say it's up to the PSB really. Also, all of this is conjecture.

So I believe my options are to get out now before all the documentation goes through the national system, or pay the potential fine when I try to leave in 6-9 months. I don't think there's a concrete answer on what can/will happen, which is what leaves one feeling anxious. To be honest paying a 5000rmb fine at the border is ok with me in exchange for living here for another 6-9 months or so, as long as I'm not detained or sent all the way back to my province to get a rubber stamp. I've paid rent in advance, so it makes financial sense to stay even with the fine.

It seems possible there would be few problems as what I'm doing is hardly criminal and I don't plan to work illegally. One could hopefully be forgiven for thinking a visa stamp that says I can stay till next year means just that.

[abcdefg]

To be honest paying a 5000rmb fine at the border is ok with me in exchange for living here for another 6-9 months or so...

The fine can be 500 RMB per day.

[anonymoose]

Well that's only about 135000 RMB for 9 months.

[roddy]

I think 42 (first bit) is the relevant one - it's capped at 5,000Y. However they can also keep you for a while if they feel so inclined, and if they reckon you've been deliberately playing games with their visa system I wouldn't be surprised if they do. An oversight of a day or two will get you a little talking to and sent on your way, deliberately overstay for several months and they're not going to cut you any breaks. I also wouldn't be surprised if you find you can't get any more Chinese visas either.

What would actually happen, nobody really knows. But it would only take a phone call to your school to confirm that you knew exactly what was going on, and at that point I don't fancy your chances of making your flight. A visa run or two to Hong Kong and in-country extensions won't cost that much more.

[chird]

Late bump to advise outcome. Went to another province and joined a university who I had advised the situation to and they had said it was no problem at all, so I almost forgot about it. However when they went to change my visa there was indeed a problem, the PSB advised me my old visa had been cancelled months ago. I was genuinely surprised and I think it was perhaps because of my apparent shock they said they would let it slide but I was advised to go to Hong Kong and come back. Essentially they would cancel my old visa, give me a 30-day tourist to get out and then get a new visa in HK, but there wouldn't be any black marks on my name or anything, or any fine.

The Hong Kong journey turned into a nightmare, I tried first using my guesthouse's agent for a next-day visa but they were apparently confused by the small 'cancelled' sticker on my old visa although I was sure this is a normal occurrence. I rushed to the Chinese embassy myself, and they indeed said there was absolutely no problem with the cancelled sticker, but then decided my passport maybe was refused because it looked 'water damaged', and they wouldn't give me a visa till I got a new passport. I was pretty angry at this point because there was clearly nothing wrong with my passport. I even booked a ticket back home in despair, before deciding to try one more time, putting a letter with the passport for the agent basically saying 'there is nothing wrong with my passport I just stopped working, this is normal'. I gave it to a same-day agent (It was one of the one's directly across from the Chungking mansions), and 6 hours later I had a new 30-day visa.

After that there was no problem, came back to the PSB here and they gave me a new student visa. This was back in September 2010, and I renewed for another year last month.

Obviously the moral is ensure you stay on the right side of the visa situation, I think I was very lucky in my outcome not to get fined or anything. I believe the outcome could have been very different if I had different PSB officers, a school with no guanxi, different province, previous visa issues, bad attitude, or bad luck, etc, etc. I am very happy and grateful to those who helped.