Unmarried trailing spouse

[alisima]

Greetings,

I have some questions about visa application.

My girlfriend is going to work for the VNU Exhibitions Asia in Shanghai for 3 years. During that period I would like to accompany her. We are currently unmarried.

For what I understand so far I can apply for a visa based on my girlfriends one. For this I need an invitation from her company declaring that we are together.

Is this correct?

The company says that we need to get married so they can apply a Family member residence permit for me (once I am in china)

Do we really need to get married?

Thanks in advance,

Sebastiaan Koppe

[zhouhaochen]

Getting married for that visa in my opinion would be a rather radical step

I have to admit I am no expert on spouse visas, but your girlfriend's company could definitely issue an F-Visa invitation for you and keep extending it in China. If they are willing to do this. You could also come to China on a tourist visa and then get a company to convert it into an F-Visa for you, for which they will charge you money, but I am pretty sure a lot less than a wedding would cost.

[Tiana]

Getting married for that visa in my opinion would be a rather radical step

What about taking it this way: you want a visa and get a spouse thown-in for free

[Lu]

Perhaps check if a contract that says you two are partners (not sure what it's called in English, I mean a samenlevingscontract) also works. In many ways it works officially like being married, but it's a somewhat smaller step.