6 month extension with 1 entry means...

[Mr. Shopping]

Just want to double-check.

I just got a 6 month L visa extension here in Beijing with 1 entry. This means I can leave the country once and come back during the duration of the visa, right? I assume so because a 0 entry should be you can just leave and not come back.

Thanks.

[Mr. Shopping]

More information. The visa is indeed 6 months, but there is a remark at the bottom which reads:

"Permitted to stay until xxxx date for this time, and to stay for 30 days each time since the next entry."

This brings up a bunch of different questions for me.

-Does that mean if I leave on a trip before my visa is up it invalidates the rest of my duration and knocks it down to 30 days?

-Does that mean that if I leave AFTER the duration, I can come back any time for 30 days?

I'm thinking yes on the first one, which really doesn't make any sense, and for the second, I can only leave and come back once during the 6 months I have.

Any thoughts?

[roddy]

That remark's a new one - any chance of seeing the Chinese, and any other info (enter by date, etc)

[Mr. Shopping]

No entry by date, just the issue date. It's an L visa extension issued in Beijing. 1 entry.

The Chinese means exactly the same thing:

准予本次停留至2014年xx月xx日, 下次入境停留30天。

Weird, huh.

It's a shame because I wanted to go out of the country on vacation in September but I guess I'll have to stay. I'll be contacting the PSB tomorrow to ask for some clarification but...you know how it is. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is the beginning of a new trend.

[roddy]

Isn't there anything to indicate when you have to use that entry by? You've got a 'must be out' by date, but is that also the latest you can use the entry?

Thanks for posting about this, anyway - things are indeed in flux.

[Mr. Shopping]

There's nothing to indicate when I have to use the entry by, and that's the puzzler.

Yeah, no problem with sharing. Pretty interesting, huh? Good thing I decided to hold off on planning my trip and making reservations until I got my visa back!

[roddy]

Let us know what the PSB say (they might end up posting on here to see if we know)

[Mr. Shopping]

The officer on the PSB's hotline was very surprised and had never heard of this before, so he went to ask his supervisor. He then told me to go to the PSB's 领导台 and ask directly (meaning his supervisor probably didn't know either).

I wonder if this is an error of some kind.

I'll go there in person tomorrow with photocopies of all my required documents and see what happens.

The saga continues!

[roddy]

Take a photo in case they cut it out and deny it ever existed.

[Mr. Shopping]

So I visited the PSB.

Definitively:

-This is part of a the new visa regulations, so I expect this will come up a lot. The officers at the 领导台 had gotten this question many times because of how vague the remark is. As I said, not even their service hotline knew what it meant.

-You can only use your entry/entries during the visa's valid duration.

-Once you leave the country and come back, the maximum amount of time you can stay in the country defaults to whatever you have on the subsequent entry no matter how long your first entry was for. For example, if you leave the country a week into a 180 day visa and have one 30 day entry, you will automatically lose all that time and only have 30 days left. Beware!

-The 30 days is dependent on the expiration date of the visa, so if you leave and come back with, say, 10 days remaining on your visa then you only get 10 days.

I believe this is extremely important information for anyone planning on getting a single or double entry extension in China as they'll be using this new regulation from now on. I urge anyone planning to extend their visa to consider this unsaid rule - the officer did not explain this to me when I processed it - I was under the impression you could only get a single entry on a 探亲签证 as per the previous regulations, otherwise I would have gone for multiple.

From what I gathered everything is in flux in Beijing right now. Concerning the new law's various types (Q, M etc) they don't even do that now at the Beijing PSB, as per the conversation I had with the officer, they only offer extensions on existing types.

This too, will change, but it's certainly an interesting period for visas right now.

I hope this information helps anyone who was as confused as I was!

[gato]

-Once you leave the country and come back, the maximum amount of time you can stay in the country defaults to whatever you have on the subsequent entry no matter how long your first entry was for. For example, if you leave the country a week into a 180 day visa and have one 30 day entry, you will automatically lose all that time and only have 30 days left. Beware!

-The 30 days is dependent on the expiration date of the visa, so if you leave and come back with, say, 10 days remaining on your visa then you only get 10 days.

The unusual (or new) part in this case is that you were allowed to stay for 6 months on a tourist visa.

The 30-day per stay limit on a tourist visa and the distinction between single and multiple entry visas existed before the new July 1 rules.

[Mr. Shopping]

It's not exactly a tourist visa, it's an L-type 探亲 that's an extension of a Hong Kong tourist visa. Obviously I'm aware of the distinction between single and multiple entry visas but this remark is definitely new. If it's a clarification of an existing rule (as I suspected), it's very vague and leaves room for interpretation.

If this were just a 60 day or a 30 day L visa, the remark would make a lot more sense, I agree.

[roddy]

Thanks for the extra info!

[pheasant]

This is the first time I heard after you back only can stay for 30 days.For what we have previously. It only have Entry(s) / Valid until / Issue date. These 3 important info on the visa where we extend in china. Now they got a new regulations. wow.....thank for you info.