Advantages of being born in Hong Kong

I suppose that depends where the "expat" is from.


As far as I know with Australian laws, if my child is born in Australia - she has to choose her passport when she turns 18. However, if she's born in HK, she's entitled to HK passport, and UK and OZ passport via descent. When she turns 18, she can still keep all three - she doesn't have to choose Oz or not.


Of course, if you gain an "expat" passport via descent, you cannot pass it on to your children. So my daughter would have to live in UK or Oz in order to become a "full" citizen and be able to pass the passport along to her children.

Oh, my apologies regarding the HK SAR passport.


Anyway, my point about the Oz passport is still the same though - ie. my daughter would be born here and can get both passports via descent, instead of having to choose only one passport at 18 years of age.


So I suppose it only matters if you want your child to have full citizenship rights in your expat country... as HK residency is no different - as Cara pointed out. :-)

At a slight tangent......I am sure that I read recently that although a child can get PR through it's dependant status after living here for 7 years, when the child turns 21 they lose that until they "requalify" by spending 7 years here in their own right.


Does anyone else believe that rings true, or was I dreaming?

Cara,


I was born in HK and have no Chinses decent but I do have a HKSAR passport and a BNO and an Irish passport

We are ethnically not Chinese, I hold a British passport and have held PR status in HK for a number of years. my child is nearly 5 months old (And born in HK), when we went to HK Imm centre to try to apply for a HKSAR passport for our child, we were told categorically we could not get one since we were not chinese....had either my husband or I given up our home passports and taken up HKSAR passports I believe we MAY (caps for emphasis!) have been able to get a HKSAR pasport for the bub. I was hoping to get both HKSAR and british passports, to make travelling easier...depending on destination.

My mother was asian not chinese and in 1994 they put three stars on my I/D card. Not knowing what would happen post 1997 I asked them to remove the stars. After 1997 they advised me that I was eligable for HKSAR so I applied and got it. I also applied for BNO due to HK birth and got it I have had the Irish one all along. HKSAR and BNO have since expired and I don't really have any intention of renewing yet. As my mom was herself thrid generation HK maybe they assumed she was chinese???? maybe try renew and see what happens

My wife has a BNO passport (born and raised in HK) and I have a US passport. Other than the US option, does the BNO passport confer any other options?

if I have a US passport and my wife has a BNO, what passport(s) can my children have? (other than US obviously). What I meant to ask was, what passport to children of BNO get? hksar? british?

Yes, BNO does not allow you a full UK passport, nor UK citizenship rights, I believe.


I wonder if the BNO passport can be passed down by descent? HK is no longer a UK territory, so your child born here wouldn't get a BNO by birth. Nor HKSAR, unless either of you are Chinese.

Cara,


What passport is given to children of BNO parents who are NOT chinese? Also, how is "chinese" defined? My wife was born and raised in Hong Kong, and has 1 grandmother from Fukien Province, but the rest is a mix of several nations. She certainly doesn't identify as a Chinese, more as just Hong Kongnese.

Madtown


Found where I read it:


4. Who can enjoy the Right of Abode in the HKSAR?


d. A person not of Chinese nationality who has entered Hong Kong with a valid travel document, has ordinarily resided in Hong Kong for a continuous period of not less than seven years and has taken Hong Kong as his place of permanent residence before or after the establishment of the HKSAR.


The continuous period of seven years ordinary residence must be immediately before the date when the person applies to the Director of Immigration for the status of a permanent resident of the HKSAR under this category.


The person is required to make a declaration in the form the Director of Immigration stipulates that he has taken Hong Kong as his place of permanent residence. If the person is under the age of 21 years, the declaration must be made by one of his parents or by a legal guardian. For this purpose, the person will have to furnish information to satisfy the Director of Immigration that he has taken Hong Kong as his place of permanent residence. The information may include whether he has habitual residence in Hong Kong; whether the principal members of his family (spouse and minor children) are in Hong Kong; whether he has a reasonable means of income to support himself and his family; whether he has paid his taxes in accordance with the law.


A person claiming to have the status of a permanent resident of the HKSAR under this category does not have the status of a permanent resident in the HKSAR until he has applied to the Director of Immigration and the application has been approved by the Director of Immigration.


e. A person under 21 years of age born in Hong Kong to a parent who is a permanent resident of the HKSAR in category (d) before or after the establishment of the HKSAR if at the time of his birth or at any later time before he attains 21 years of age, one of his parents has the ROA in Hong Kong.


The person on attaining the age of 21 years ceases to be a permanent resident of the HKSAR under this category. He may, however, apply to the Director of Immigration for the status of a permanent resident of the HKSAR under category (d) at any time.


This is the link to the page:

http://www.immd.gov.hk/ehtml/topical_3_4.htm


Having read this again it seems that at the age of 21 they have to reapply in their own right, but not do have to do a further seven years, as I implied above. This makes more sense.

"As for the above post on Right of Abode. Once you have been here for 7 years continuous you have it forever. Can go away for 50 years & come back. When you return you will be given Right of Abode immediately & upon requesting a new PR HKID it will be issued without any waiting period."


Actually that's not quite true. If you obtain PR through being here for seven years you are obliged to land here at least once every three years. I know this because my sister (PR) left it to the very last day to return and, when she got to Immigration the officer said something along the lines of "If you'd arrived in 5 hours, you'd have lost your PR". Same thing happened to an ex-colleague of mine.


See the final para here: http://www.hklii.org/hk/legis/en/ord/115/sch1.html

Me thinks you have misinterpreted dadda.


The PR system was streamlined a few years ago so that PR = ROA.


Click this link here:


http://www.immd.gov.hk/ehtml/faq_roaihksar.htm


And in A3 you have another link which says:


Circumstances under which a permanent resident of the HKSAR will lose his permanent resident status (i.e. ROA) are listed on a notice (ROP 152).


Which links to this:


http://www.immd.gov.hk/ehtml/faq_roaihksar.htm#q4


Which is what said above.

madtown


They are the same thing. Up until a few years ago (2004 I think) you had to apply for ROA. Once that was granted, you could then apply for your PR. They were different things and it was possible to have one without the other. Another ex-colleague had ROA but never got round to getting his PR until the Smart ID came out.



Now, however, they streamlined the whole thing and you do both at the same time.


Know nothing about the HKSAR passport apart from the fact that it now has more visa-free access to countries than the BNO passport.

My wife and I have lived in Hong Kong for about four years now, and we can see ourselves living here (I work here) three more years. I understand that once we hit that seven-year mark, we will be eligible for right of abode i.e. the permanent ID card in Hong Kong.

We just had a baby last year, and my wife gave birth outside Hong Kong - in our home country. Once his passport (from our country) was issued, I applied for a dependant visa for him, and then he moved to Hong Kong with no trouble.

My question is, the day my wife and I complete our seven years in Hong Kong, and become eligible for PR, will my baby be automatically be entitiled to right of abode in Hong Kong too? He will be barely four-year old at that point. I have been told that minor children automatically become PR when their parents become PR, if the baby was born in Hong Kong. What will happen in our case?