do they extend the student residence permit if the passport expires in 4 months?

[rezaf]

My passport will expire in December and I applied for a new one through the Iranian general consulate about 6 weeks ago. at that time they told me that it would be ready before september but now they are telling me that I need to wait until October. The thing is that my student residence permit will expire in 2 weeks and we should renew it next week. Do you think that I can use my current passport although it is just valid until December?

[Marietta]

I think you can get the residence permit to your current passport, but they will give it to you only 10 days longer than your passport expires, (at least in Kunming they did so). So if you have the new passport you have to ask for a new residence permit.

But this is just my opinion, the best if you ask the chinese officials in your city, because as I experienced their system is not the same in every city.

[roddy]

I can't imagine they'll give you a permit valid for longer than your passport. Not sure if they'd give you a short residence permit, or shift you onto a tourist visa or something. Let us know . . .

[rezaf]

Thanks for your replies. As long as they don't ask me to leave the country and apply again I won't have any problems.

[m000gle]

If your passport expires in December, but Residence Permit expires in a couple of weeks, I believe the process is as follows:

1) applying for a new residence permit ASAP, and use your current (old) passport. This will end up being valid only until the day your current passport expires, but ensures you don't overstay your visa and remain here illegally;

2) wait for your new passport to arrive;

3) when it does (and your current one becomes invalid), bring both passports (as your visa and residence permit are attached to the old one) to the PSB and apply for a new residence permit again. Its validity may vary based on how long your plan to study for

It may also be possible to simply transfer a residence permit, so it may not be a whole new application, but I don't know.

The main, potential complication I see is if the embassy requires you to surrender your old passport upon receiving the new one, which would mean you may no longer have the same passport number nor the original copy of your visa and residence permit. If this is the case, I'm not sure what is best to do. I, thankfully, still have my old passports, but the passport office cut off a corner and but a big "CANCELLED" stamp on the main photo page.

[rezaf]

Thanks for your help, here is the update:

Last month my university helped me to renew my residence permit until the end of Dec when my passport expires and I finally got my new passport this week but I have a new question:

I need to travel to another city in China because of an unexpected urgent matter in a few days which means that I don't have time to get a new visa in my new passport and the embassy punched two holes in the cover of my old passport. Since my visa is in my old passport do you think that I can still use it at the airport? Do they check the visa at the airport for domestic flights? Because if they don't I can easily use my new passport.

[rezaf]

Update: I used my new passport and they didn't look at my visa at the airport.

[skylee]

Do you look more like Chinese now? Living among the Chinese, eating Chinese food, going to Chinese hospital, speaking the language, have they made you more Chinese-looking? I don't know why but when I read your #7 suddenly an old Woody Allen film came to mind - Zelig (it is a good film).

[rezaf]

Recently people have told me quite a few times.