Changes to Chinese visa

[JohnSydney2000]

Evening friends, not sure where to ask this.
Each year or thereabouts I go the the PRC Embassy, the 1 year visa available changes, and is , on the last occasion, totally different in scope to what was stated on their website that morning.
May I kindly ask if there is an Australian Passport holder , who has applied for a China tourist visa recently, who may be able to confirm they are selling a 1 year multiple entry visa, or only a 1 year dual entry visa at the moment.
Thanks most kindly. John.

 

[Flashback]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Evening friends, not sure where to ask this.
Each year or thereabouts I go the the PRC Embassy, the 1 year visa available changes, and is , on the last occasion, totally different in scope to what was stated on their website that morning.
May I kindly ask if there is an Australian Passport holder , who has applied for a China tourist visa recently, who may be able to confirm they are selling a 1 year multiple entry visa, or only a 1 year dual entry visa at the moment.
Thanks most kindly. John.

Paging Mal to the courtesy phone.

 

[hummel]

I'd be curious to know is business visas have changed also...

 

[Mal]

Offered visas depends on your passport and where you apply for the visa.

In the UK, multiple entry and 12 month is an offered option, but as I didn't apply for it, don't know if they would have approved it.

You may be better off chatting to a visa specialist Chinese travel agency in Chinatown.

 

[opusman]

Don't they have a 10 year visa now?

 

[Flashback]

Don't they have a 10 year visa now?

They do for holders of US passports, not sure about others though.

 

[Isochronous]

Get an APEC Card if you can. Getting the multi entry is always a pain but probably doable if you pay a Chinese travel agent to handle it for you.

 

[mushez]

Hi John,

Not 100% sure on what the issues you are having, but I hope I can shed some light onto Chinese Visas.

Yes they do change the rules depending on the day and who you see, more specifically there are rules but they tend to have some flexibility if you know how to persuade them on the day of applying.

First to apply for any Chinese Visa you need to prove intentions of travel, either letter of invitation for business, letter of invitation from Chinese friend for tourist, or booking with tour company also helps.

Unless you have entered China in the past 12 months, you will only get a single entry visa valid for 6 months from date of issue, and then at times they might limit it to 3 months of validity.

If you have entered China once in the past 12 months, you can apply for a double entry visa, often is 6 months of validity, but can be extended upon just asking to be valid for 12 months.

And if you have stamps in passport showing 2 or more entries into China in the 12 months prior to application, you then and only then can apply for a multi entry visa which is valid for 12 months and allows you to stay no more than 90 days per visit.

Getting information from them is hard, as right now I am trying to find out how to get a 91 days (or more) per visit visa so I can get my Chinese drivers license, and are getting told no so far and I am 6 months down this path.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Evening friends, not sure where to ask this.
Each year or thereabouts I go the the PRC Embassy, the 1 year visa available changes, and is , on the last occasion, totally different in scope to what was stated on their website that morning.
May I kindly ask if there is an Australian Passport holder , who has applied for a China tourist visa recently, who may be able to confirm they are selling a 1 year multiple entry visa, or only a 1 year dual entry visa at the moment.
Thanks most kindly. John.

Hi John,

Not 100% sure on what the issues you are having, but I hope I can shed some light onto Chinese Visas.

Yes they do change the rules depending on the day and who you see, more specifically there are rules but they tend to have some flexibility if you know how to persuade them on the day of applying.

First to apply for any Chinese Visa you need to prove intentions of travel, either letter of invitation for business, letter of invitation from Chinese friend for tourist, or booking with tour company also helps.

Unless you have entered China in the past 12 months, you will only get a single entry visa valid for 6 months from date of issue, and then at times they might limit it to 3 months of validity.

If you have entered China once in the past 12 months, you can apply for a double entry visa, often is 6 months of validity, but can be extended upon just asking to be valid for 12 months.

And if you have stamps in passport showing 2 or more entries into China in the 12 months prior to application, you then and only then can apply for a multi entry visa which is valid for 12 months and allows you to stay no more than 90 days per visit.

Getting information from them is hard, as right now I am trying to find out how to get a 91 days (or more) per visit visa so I can get my Chinese drivers license, and are getting told no so far and I am 6 months down this path.

There were plans to end 1 year tourist visas from the end of 2013. The theory was that there are few genuine tourists who need a one year multiple entry visa. If you are travelling consistently to china you are most likely there for another reason rather than pure tourism.

There was a lot of buzz back in 2013 about the proposed change, but it was never clear when, if at all, it came into effect.

Certainly at the time I was eligible for 1 year multi entry visas, and had been for the 5 or so years preceding 2013. I had built up to this exactly as described in the process above - single entry, followed by duel entry followed by 1 year multiple entry.

I was never granted a visa in excess of 30 days per entry (even at the end with 4 previous year-long visas, each of 30 day entry).

because everyone seems to get different visa lengths, and different periods of stay, it's often hard to work out what anyone in a particular case will get. Clearly for me I wasn't gonna get 60 days (or even 90, which would have made my life a lot easier!)

Since moving back to Australia I only use TWOV. Based on mushez's post - looks like the ban on 1 years wasn't fully implemented, was reversed, or doesn't apply to everyone. But I'd still expect new applicants to have to build up to that via the single, dual, multi entry method.