I am married to a wonderful Chinese woman and we have been married four years.

I am wondering about the option of the spousal visa I have read about online. Not the resident visa thing which I hard to get but it is supposed to be a type of L-visa with spousal benefits of some sort.

I have heard you cannot work for a year, or at least you cannot get a Z-visa type job. I have heard of people working PT or of schools making exceptions. I have read too that you may have to return each year to the spouse's hukou city to renew the visa. That could er hassle as my wife's hukou is Shanghai.

Anyone get one of these yet of heard of it?

never heard of a spousal visa, but then again, i'm not married.
almost, on several occasions, but always regained sanity in time.
seems you're stuck with a non-working tourist visa.

saw this recently....online residence permits in shanghai.

shanghaiist.com/[...]

www.echinacities.com/[...]

I'm pretty sure there is such a thing as a spousal visa in China.

www.thebeijinger.com/forum/2009/05/27/Spouse-visa
I believe it is an L visa with spousal recognition. I was just wondering if anybody in KM had had experience with getting one here. Thanks for the links.

From recollection of what they said in Shanghai, but note that Shanghai is not Kunming. My wife has a Shanghai HuKou.

If married and resident in China for 5 years, you can get a residence permit on these grounds. In Shanghai it is valid for 5 years (NB I am UK citizen, there seems to be variation of other rules depending on nationality). We needed to deposit 100 000 rmb in a special bank account that we could not touch for 6 months as a condition.

This residence permit would allow me to work.

At the time we did not have 100 000rmb in cash and so I have moved around the Z visa game since.

BillDan, the temporary residence permit you describe is better than the spousal visa. Neither of them entitle you to work. The spousal visa is just an L visa (tourist visa), the difference between it and a normal tourist visa is duration, it lasts a year and can be renewed in Kunming each year - you'll never need to leave China if you don't want to (although it is multi-entry should you wish to).

However the spousal L visa costs the same as any other L visa. Therefore if you are British or American its really expensive for the year. I'v been on both and can't see any difference but price. So when you're entitled to a temporary residence permit for about 40 RMB there's really no point getting a spousal visa for a couple of grand as neither of them entitle you to work. For that you need a Z visa and work permit - unfortunately being married makes no difference to the ease of getting this. It is entirely down to your employer and the local government.

The permanent residence permit that tigertiger refers to sounds different but difficult to get I would imagine.

Tigertiger/Greg

I don't have a 100,000 RMB laying around either. My wife's hukou is Shanghai as well and we don't feel much like living there really. Or is this residence visa for China and not just Shanghai? Maybe I can check into this and get back privately Tiger.

Now, does the spousal visa not allow even PT work? and isn't the work issue with one only for a limited time, like a year? I knew a guy in BJ who worked and had the marriage visa but never asked the details, and that was BJ too. Some language schools I have been reading only want PT work and they do not give a visa for that. How do people work there then?

Greg, you are married to a Chinese woman? Tiger is. I can't tell from your mail. The experience I just had (that so far has worked out for the better) is that a z-visa is great as long as you're working and the company wants you back at the end of the contact. Some school boss here decided not to renew my contact at the end of the term and we were assuming it would. We talked about things with the school and they renewed it but the experience was intense. The z-visa has it limitations too we found out and even if I no real work (which I want) I want to stay in China with my wife and deal with the issue from that angle. I would pay the extra money for that sense of "security" but I do want to legally work eventually.

I think my wife and I will go down to the visa affairs place (I think there is one on Wen Hua Xiang) and ask some questions there and get back.

I just don't understand really. A lot of people are working in China without a z-visa are they not? Many are trying to upgrade to z-visas and working on what then? If the work restriction on the marriage l-visa is temporary no big deal, but are you saying I can NEVER ever work with one?

I guess I need to start studying this issue but it seems overwhelming suddenly.

Bill