Lost Tzu

Hope someone can help me out.

My British Passport expires in May of next year.

My Chinese Residence Permit needs to be renewed for another year by my employer in August. The employer will only renew the Chinese Residence Permit for one year.

There is no possibility of getting a six month Chinese residence permit.

Therein lies the conflict.

With my current passport set to expire in May of 2012, a new Chinese resident permit for one year can not be obtained on a passport that will only have ten months validity. My employer will only obtain a 12 month Chinese Residence Permit.

I thought I could bypass this problem by having my Passport renewed now, so that I could just get the new Chinese residence permit placed in a new Passport.

However, the UK in China Website, and the Passport Service Websites indicate that a new passport can only be issued for up to nine months before the old one expires.

It appears I can't get a new passport to accommodate the new Chinese Residence Permit with a year's validity. I can't get a year's residence permit in a passport that will only be good for another 10 months.

And, since the Issuance of Passports is now handled in Hong Kong, not in
Beijing or at Mainland Consulates, the whole process takes on a even stranger twist.

To apply for a new passport from within China through the Hong Kong Processing Centre, I would not have to send my current passport, but only a photocopy. Once a new passport is issued, the old one, with any current Chinese Residence Permit inside is cancelled and nullified for international travel.

My schedule for the next six months does not allow me to travel to Hong Kong.

I am confused.

Anybody got some advice? Both the Shanghai Consulate and the Passport Service have so far provided nothing helpful.


Thanks.

bakedbean

I cannot help with the China Residence bit as I am located in Malaysia, but I got a new passport from Hong Kong late last year. I sent the original passport to Hong Kong by DHL. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is that you can renew the passport earlier but you will lose whatever is left on the old passport (for you, one year I guess). If you send the passport off with 9 months or less on it (I think) they will add that 9 months or whatever onto the new passport. This is what I did.

You might want to check with Hong Kong if you can send the passport off earlier. Will be a bugger to lose a whole year, but it's a bit of a visa/passport conundrum that all us expats suffer

I got my knuckles rapped at the Thai/Malaysia border last December when I travelled with brand spanking new passport but with my Malaysian visa in my old passport. Was told by others that it was okay to do it, but they didn't like it

Best of luck.

nonthaburi

I did mine recently and it still had years to run on it but I had run out of space. I didn't have to send the original, just a photocopy. Maybe try it and see what happens. With me they carried over nine months extra on to the new one.

nonthaburi

forgot to add but regarding the visa ( still valid ) in the old passport I then had to take both passports to immigration to get a new stamp in the new passport but interestingly enough they actually left the visa in the old passport and then when I was crossing a border I had to show both passports, one for travel and one to show the visa. This is Thailand though so it's probably completely different to China. Don't know if that's any good to you but good luck with it.

p.s. I think it's an outrage that you should have to send stuff to HK anyway. It cost me an extra 20 quid for the DHL. What do we pay these people at the embassy for !!

bakedbean

I heard somewhere that we're going to have to send to the UK in the future. I'm not sure when this kicks in, or maybe it's not definite yet. Fact is there's so many cutbacks now, anything to do with UK.

nonthaburi

and how much will that cost to DHL or whatever to the UK ??

outrageous !!

andrewrh

Hi, my experience :

I came to China with 2 UK passports, the second one 5 years newer in order to avoid any worry about renewing. You can have 2 passports if your employer confirms on your application that you travel a lot on business.

Then, my understanding was that, like for UK visa applications, you could get a visa for longer than the passport validity as long as you carry both the expired and new passports with you when you travel.

The other point is, you don't have to send your passport to HK. They accept a copy. It is illegal not to have a passport with you while in China.

moneypenny20

From what I can gather, everyone worldwide will soon have to apply to the UK for new passports. It's going to be chaos imo and lord knows how long it will take. Here in Aus, we now have to send to NZ for renewal, you couldn't make it up.

andrewrh

Must be a really cushy job, working in an Embassy.
In China, they are open 23 hours per week, (half day Friday) and you now need to make an appointment, even just to speak to someone !