Double entry visa, 90 days duration. 180 days duration possible?

[Antti]

Good evening to all users of chinese-forums,

I have a question regarding my double entry visa which I received from my local embassy after little bit confusing application process.
 have done some initial research but all the answers have confused me and embassy is on long holiday so they cant answer to my question. 

My question is: Can I stay for 180 days in China with double entry visa with 90 days duration? If I understood correct, after my first entry to China I can stay for 90 days. When the 90 days in coming to an end, I have to travel to Hong Kong example and return to mainland to start second entry and 90 days period. 

To add up more information I am planning to travel to China 10th of June. So:
I travel to China 10th of June and stay 90 days period until 8th of September
I travel to Hong Kong
I return to Mainland 9th of September and start new 90 days period which lasts until 8th of December.

First entry & 90 days - "Holiday" in Hong Kong - 2nd entry & 90 days and visa expires. 

Did I understood correctly? 


 

[victor557]

If that 90 days comes under the "duration of each stay" heading, then yes. You can enter twice, for a maximum of 90 days each time. Just make sure it's within the validity period of the visa.

[abcdefg]

First entry & 90 days - "Holiday" in Hong Kong - 2nd entry & 90 days and visa expires. 

Did I understood correctly?

 

Yes. You've got it right.

[RosaDoyle11]

My visa is also double entry for 90 days. I used up my second entry at the end of March (I live in China so still currently here) so I should be able to stay until the end of June. However my visa also says 'Valid until 17th May' (yesterday I know). Does the valid until date translate as 'enter before'? Can I really stay until end of June?

By the way my boss says my visa is fine but it's hard to be sure because he himself was unsure a few times. Would gladly accept any help!

[abcdefg]

However my visa also says 'Valid until 17th May' (yesterday I know).

 

What kind of visa do you have? (What category?) And where was it issued?

 

My visa is a multiple entry tourist visa (L) issued in the US. It does not contain that wording ("Valid until...") anywhere on it. It does have an "Enter before" date, however.

 

If I were you I would get an official opinion from the PSB in the city where you reside. You could already have overstayed. Don't rely on opinions from forum members (including myself) or from your boss. Your boss may have reason to favor one interpretation over another and may be telling you what is in his best interest, not yours.

[RosaDoyle11]

Yeh that's what I'm worried about.

 

My visa is an F visa double-entry, permitted to stay 90 days 'each time since the next entry'. Issued in Ningbo, China.

 

My  boss has a contact at the PSB office who told him there was no problem but during my Hong Kong trip the immigration officers at Ningbo Airport couldn't even understand my visa. I was hoping to find someone on this forum who has the same visa.

 

Thanks for your help!

[Antti]

Thank you for replying and helping a "fool" here. +1 to all of you guys.

Glad you mentioned the valid part. As I don´t either have "valid until xxx". I have M visa.

I though have enter before 16th of November. Can I asume that my visa expires on the date of 16th november OR when I have stayed my last 90th day?

[zhouhaochen]

@RosaDoyle:

That is an interesting question, if the valid date applies to the day you have to enter and "activate" the visa or the latest day you can still be in China legaly. If it said "enter before" that would be easy, but as it does not, I would suggest to follow abcdefg's advice and check. Keep in mind though that even the PSB in your city might tell you something that the people at the border will not necessarily agree with. I know this is not very helpful, I wish I could give more advice, but I have never encountered that situation.

I personally would first try to extend the visa right now (can be done with L visas in Beijing for 15 days without much problem if you have the right documents, not sure what you are on there) and if that works all is good. If not I would leave China straight away and get a new visa outside, just because it is not worth the risk to be caught up in this system and anything anyone says gives you no guarantee what the immigration officer at the border will say, which is the only thing that really matters.

 

To help people in the future who might be in a similar situation it would be great if you could report back what the people at immigration said once you leave the country.

[abcdefg]

Original Poster -- Please clarify your situation.

[RosaDoyle11]

Hi abcdefg, I have an F visa.

 

Zhouhaochen, my boss has a contact at the PSB office here in Ningbo who says it's fine. I also contacted visainchina.com to check with them and they also said it's fine. I know I should probably stop worrying about this but like you said, the PSB office and airport immigration aren't always on the same page (airport immigration in Ningbo couldn't understand my visa when I left/came back from my visa run to HK).

 

The thing is that I'm going travelling for the month of June and the first part of my trip is a flight to Xi'an. My plan for now is just to go to the airport very early so if I have problems with immigration I can call my boss and he can sort it out in Chinese. Hopefully that's not taking too much of a risk but I'll post on here to see how it goes.

Thanks for all the help!

[jdmkoch]

The enter before date is exactly what it means "enter before this date". After which it is your stamp that acts like your exit visa and permission to stay. If you stay over the day limit you may be refused exit by passport control (some coworkers have reported being able to leave only a day or two late but I would advise against it). As long as you enter before your visa expires and leave before your stamp expires (the circle stamp YYYY-MM-DD) you will have no issues leaving the country (mainland) legally. Otherwise you are subject to the 500 kuai a day penalty up to 10,000 kuai...