Just finished an interview with a promising company in China?
Your next question is, how exactly does the work visa process work? How does my employer help me with getting my work visa for China? I’ll tell you in this blog on how the process works step by step.
Step One: You will receive a formal job offer from your prospective Employer
Congrats! You just passed an interview and you are hired. You will need to sign the offer letter, and send back to your recruiter/HR manager. Once you submit the signed offer letter, the person who hired you will hand you off to either the “visa officer” or the “foreign affairs” manager. That person will request a series of documents for you to submit and here comes step two.
Step Two: Get your University Diploma, Non Criminal Background Check, plus other documents required by your employer Authenticated by the Chinese Embassy.
This is where Authenticate China can help you. Just submit a color scan of your documents that you need authenticated by the Chinese Embassy to us along with a scan of your passport, and we can do all the steps involved to get it authenticated by the Chinese Embassy. This process will take 8 business days.
Step Three: Collect the documents to submit to your prospective employer. This includes the following, but not limited to, as there are minor variations depending on the job and company.
- Comprehensive Resume- From the time you attended University until present, you must put the start and end dates of every single thing you did. For your University, you must have a start date and end date, for all your previous employment, you also need your start date and end date, and if there were gaps between employment, you also need start and end dates. These just need to be detailed. Having a gap between employment won’t affect your chances of getting a work permit.
- Either or- a self health form or a physical done with your doctor’s signature. This will depend on which city you will work in. Some cities require a basic physical done, while other cities just require a self health form signed by you.
- Scan of your passport size photo
- Scan of your passport
- Employment Contract- In order to apply work permit, a preliminary “employment contract” needs to be signed, and after you sign the offer letter, the foreign affairs/visa officer will send you a digital copy for you to sign.
- Work Permit Application Form- Your visa officer/foreign affairs manager will also send you a visa application form for you to sign.
- Scan copies of your Authenticated documents.
**Beijing- For Beijing, you will need to Fedex your authenticated hard copies of your documents to China. Once they are submitted, Beijing Immigration Office will not return these to you.
Step Four: Your Employer will do the initial step of applying for your “work permit notification letter”.
Once you submit all the documents listed in step three, congrats! Your visa officer/foreign affairs manager will apply for your work permit notification letter. This process alone takes up to 14 business days. So once you submit your documents in step thee to your employer, it can take up to 1 month before you get your work permit notification letter because there are few steps they need to do before processing the application.
Step Five: Your Employer will e-mail you a PDF copy of your “work permit notification letter” in both English and Chinese. Now you can go to the Chinese Embassy/Consulate Office to apply for your Z visa.
Print out both Chinese and English version of the Work Permit Notification Letter, along with your Chinese Visa Application Form, passport size photo, and passport and go to the Chinese Embassy/Consulate Office in your Jurisdiction. Once you submit your application, it will take between 4-6 business days to get your Z visa.
Step Six: Once you pick up your Z visa, book your ticket to China and fly over!
Do not book your flight to China until you pick up your Z visa from the Chinese Embassy/Consulate. We say this because there are rare chance that your visa application can be delayed. Although this situation rarely happens, it cost more money to change your flight time than to just book last minute. Unless you are flying to China during peak holiday season, your flight cost will be reasonable.
How long does it take from the time I accept a job to work in China to the time I can fly to China?
This will depend on if you have your documents authenticated or not. If your documents are already authenticated by the Chinese Embassy, then you could be in China within 5 weeks. If your documents are not authenticated by the Chinese Embassy, then you will probably be able to arrive in China within 7 weeks.
If you have any questions related to authenticating your documents, or ordering a no criminal background check, please email us at [email protected].
