# Married to Chinese and visas



## kreisler1730 (Aug 20, 2012)

Hi all,

I have been married to a Chinese lady for more than nine years, and for most of that time I have worked so have always had a Z visa + work permit. 
However in the last few years I decided to stop working, you know retire. The upshot of this was that my wife applied for a family visa, which under the old system was designated an 'L' visa.
This seemed fine until the last time we renewed it in June of this year. We were told that it could be renewed, but next year (2014) if I wanted to continue living in China I would have to travel to Hong Kong get a visa there (not sure what kind of visa) and then return to China.
This would then allow me to do the family visa thing again for another two years!

I know that since July this year several new visas have been introduced namely the Q1 & Q2 both designated family reunion, one being up to 6 months the other more than 6 months.

My questions are :

(1)What are your experiences of dealing with your local PSB and what do you know about these new visas?

and

(2) Now that a specific family reunion visa has been introduced will it be necessary for me to travel to Hong Kong next year?

Hope somebody can answer my questions.

Thanks to all that make comments and suggestions.

Regards


Paul


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## cschrd2 (Oct 31, 2011)

Hi Paul,
The latest visa rules can be found here: http://www.mps.gov.cn/n16/n84147/n84181/3837123.htm which is the July version. There has been a miner update per september 1st but thats mainly on the time it would take to arrange visa. Officially it has never been allowed to arrange visa unless is a residence permit extension. All others should be applied outside, however in the past there was some flexibility around that system by redefining "emergency status" which is the event that makes it possible to get visa arranged while in China already.
Enjoy,
C


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