Well, my friendly man contacted me yesterday to tell me that he has all the paperwork now and that the company is formed. Great news – all I need now is a visa from my own company and I am all set. But that doesn’t always go smoothly, not in China anyway, and although it’s supposed to take 27 days, I fear it could be longer and then I’ll be left without a visa and missing my flight to the UK. Only time will tell.
Since I first set out on this journey it has taken 3 weeks for stage one to get as far as obtaining all the legal documents and registrations to the point at which there are dozens of forms to sign. From that point it has taken 11 more days to get the final company certificates.
That’s the company set up done but now I need to get a visa from my own company into my passport, which is the most important part because it will allow me to stay in China without having to take a full time job with an employer. In order to start this final process I have to get some release papers from my existing employer. Without these, it is impossible to get a new visa so my advice is not to upset your existing employers, do not leave the job early and break the contract. Do not anger them at all because without the release documents you will be stuffed.
Release documents come from a government office and take a week so it’s a waiting game now. If I had know it took so long, I would have asked for them earlier. Hey ho – I am learning all the time.
In order to get a visa from my own company, I need to have a pile of documents;
- Passport with valid visa
- CV in Chinese
- Temporary residency form from the police (I had to get a duplicate but it was pretty straightforward at the police station)
- passport photos
- company business licence
- company enterprise code (not sure what this is)
- Existing employer release documents
There are other documents, such as health certificate which I don’t need as I am not applying for a visa for the first time.
So it’s unsurprisingly, a race against time again to get all this paperwork sotred out but it will be worth it if I never have to worry about a visa ever again.