Posted by
titouamoi
18 yrs ago
i have a friend wanting to live in HK, who is willing to travel out after 90 days each time (she is french and that is the maximum stay at any one time), but what i want to know is how many times she can do this and how many days in between must there be, if any, etc?
thanks if you have any info or experience doing this.
Please support our advertisers:
how many times = no official limit
how many days in between = even one day trip to Macau is enough
Please support our advertisers:
There is no official limit to the number of times you can leave and re enter, but Immigration tend to become very suspicious if you do it too often, and depending on whom you get at the counter, if you end up doing it once to often without adequate reason, they may refuse you entry or shorten the entry period substantially, so do be careful.
Please support our advertisers:
thank you very much for your replies.
yes, basically it would be a pretty permanent set-up for at least a year, but she is happy to go out of the country every 3 months either a quick trip to macau, or else back to europe to visit family, which would be a bigger holiday, and maybe not cause as much suspision. thing is, her hubby is starting a job based out of India, and she doesnt want to live there, but wants to live somewhere adequately close....where she has friends (she has twin newborns, hence no yearning to live in India). I would hate her to get blacklisted by some tired overworked border control immigration guy here in HK, she'll have an apartment here and everything...
Please support our advertisers:
We did this every 3 months for 18 months (as a family) until our visas were approved, only asked once what we were doing. We simply said that we "make holiday, Hong Kong is very beautiful" and on we went.
I know of a lady that came in and out for 7 years no problems.
Please support our advertisers:
question for Digital Blonde: what would u suggest is 'adequate reason'? thx
Please support our advertisers:
Team NZ, that's a promising reply, cheers. seems like it's easier here than the US at least. I reckon she can give it a shot.
When you said you went in and out, was it just back and forth to Macau or where? and how long out each time? thx
Please support our advertisers:
Whenever we could we took the chance to have a break up to usually 4-7 days to somewhere in Asia. Twice we literally walked across to Macau and Shenzhen had lunch and came home.
Immigration never asked to see our return tickets to NZ (that was lucky as we didnt have any).
I actually rang immigration and spoke to them, (honesty is the best policy in my world) their reply was it is fine to make holiday in Hong Kong for as long as you want as long as you are financially independent. We set up a home, bank account etc no worries.
Please support our advertisers:
brilliant. thanks for your advice and honesty Team NZ. good to see someone already done it that way. cheers, enjoy life in Hk :)
Please support our advertisers:
Well sometimes everything is not a rosy as portrayed above and immigration do get suspicious. Plenty of people who after a few time have been pulled aside and given a short time stay of 7 - 14 days. This is alarm bells and should not be taken lightly.
Please support our advertisers:
Good reason could be you have family that is sick that you are taking care of. I don't know, yes a lot of people do the visa extension scam pretty successfully, there are also a lot of people that fail, so do be careful. one thing in your friends favour is she holds a French passport. Immigration here can be quite racist and target people from the Philippines India, or Indonesia first before they target EU or US passport holders.
nevertheless, your friend should be aware of the risks with the strategy
Please support our advertisers:
yes evildeeds and digital blonde you are both quite right, she must be careful, and not let her guard down to the idea of being questioned or given limited stay. but surely if one's boyfriend and father of her 2 boys, say, lives in HK, and she is dependant of him, that's a good enough excuse....
we'll see :-)
Please support our advertisers:
leghk
18 yrs ago
Although lots of people do get away with it and have no problems, the visitor visa specifically states that it does not allow the holder to take up residence in HK.
Please support our advertisers:
I think you can open a bank account in Hong Kong with a passport, I dont think ID card is neccessary, though I'm pretty sure you will need one to rent property. If the persons boyfriend and father of her two sons is living in Hong Kong and she is dependant, she should at least check with immigration about whether it is possible to get some kind of visa to reflect that. It would be better than leaving every three months to renew a tourist visa.
Please support our advertisers:
Her boyfriend wont be living in HK, that was just an excuse she could have used. He will be working one month on, on month off for an airline in India. But he is offered no accom allowance, and with very young twin boys, she doesnt fancy living in Hyderabad!!!! The HK option was cos she has friends, us, living here an the obvious practicalities and closeness to India.
It's not an easy situation, but it should hopefully be a temporary one. I suppose we can get around the bank account if needs be, by using a passport, if it works, great, if not, not the end of the world. I now need to be certain she can get a flat without an ID card then....
thanks for all your replies. fingers crossed :-)
Please support our advertisers:
Honestly speaking, it doesn't sound very practical, if her boyfriend is a pilot with one month on, one month off, she would be better of staying where she is, and having her boyfriend come and see her when he is off. Its five hours flying time to India from Hong Kong, and there is actually no direct flight to Hyderabad India, you have to wait in transit either in Kuala Lumpur or Singapore and its a minimum of between four to five hour wait at either airport, so total travel time is the best part of a day. You could travel to Europe in that time. I've done it many times for business and it is a pain in the backside.
Please support our advertisers:
You must be logged in to be able to reply.
Login now
Copy Link
Facebook
Gmail
Mail