New Content Daily Sign Up Here

Is it possible to stop working in Hong Kong under an employment visa, move to another country to work yet leave your family behind to continue their lives in here without you day to day?

QUESTION

Hi, I have got valid Hong Kong employment visa and i am living in Hong Kong since last 4 years with my family.

Now for work I might have to shift to Malaysia.

But as my daughter has recently started school, I want my family to stay in Hong Kong.

So what are my options here?

Can I ask my company to apply for extension even though I will be mainly based in Malaysia?

OR

Should I apply for the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme?

OR

Any other suggestion?

Worst case scenario my family moves with me to Malaysia but I want to avoid as it will disturb my whole family.

ANSWER

As a temporary resident holding an employment visa here, your family will be entitled to secure dependent visas and that will avail them of the ability to live in Hong Kong whilst you carry on your employment duties. However, if your employment visa is unable to be extended for any reason, in this instance because you’re going to be relocating to Malaysia, but unfortunately, the dependent visas which, accompany your employment visa enabling your family to live with you, they will be, effectively cancelled.

At the same time as your employment visa is unable to be renewed because you will no longer have accounting rationale as an employee in Hong Kong because you are not going to be working here, you are going to be working in Malaysia. So for all practical purposes, if your employment contract in Hong Kong comes to an end, thereby disabusing you or disavowing you of the ability to have an employment visa, then unfortunately your family’s dependent visas are not going to continue.

However, if you can enter into an arrangement with your employer such that your employment in Hong Kong will continue, that your deployment to Malaysia will be for just a temporary deployment, and that it’s always going to be the intention of your employer to have you back in Hong Kong and therefore they’re prepared to continue your Hong Kong employment irrespective of the time that you’re going to be spending in Malaysia, then in those circumstances, you will be able to get an extension to your employment visa.

And of course, your family’s dependent visas will also be extendable. And, at that point, effectively your family can live in Hong Kong, you can go to Malaysia, be based in Malaysia on a temporary basis or at least for the life of the assignment there maintaining your Hong Kong employment throughout all this time, and at the end of that temporary, albeit, potentially lengthy stay in Malaysia, you will be returning back to Hong Kong to carry on the employment that you’ve always been doing in Hong Kong. And as I say, your family will have been, able to reside in Hong Kong at all times. So effectively that’s your most realistic option.

Just turning now to the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme (QMAS), the reality is that unless you are something akin to a Nobel Prize winner or you’ve won a gold medal in the Olympics, or you happen to be Chinese because 77% of all approvals go to mainland Chinese, and the fact that the QMAS is a complete black box that you don’t have any visibility over as to how you might potentially be able to stay in Hong Kong or have your family stay in Hong Kong under that programme, I think it’s a very, very long shot to anticipate that the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme is going to address the solution to your particular quandary here.

Now, as regards any other particular immigration status, I mean, the only thing that springs to mind that might help you is if you’ve got HKD$10 million that you’re prepared to invest into Hong Kong under the capital investment entrance scheme. And as long as you’ve owned those HKD$10 million in assets for two years immediately prior to submitting your application, and you have the ability to hang out in Hong Kong for six to eight months for the time that it takes Immigration Department to complete that type of application.

If you’ve got those resources and you’ve got that time at your disposal, then you could be eligible for a capital investment entrance scheme visa. So for all practical purposes, that’s really about the shape of it. Your wife herself could get a student visa availing your child to get a dependent visa, and that would keep your family as an independent unit in Hong Kong, irrespective of where you are. So you might want to think about that.

But beyond that, I suspect all the other options are exhausted. Unless, of course, your wife is an entrepreneur and she wants to go on to secure a business investment visa in her own right, which would then effectively mean her dependent visa, which is reliant upon your continuing employment in Hong Kong, that dependent visa would end and she would be able to secure a business investment visa independently of you, and thereby go on to be able to sponsor your child for a dependent visa, and then your child will be able to remain in Hong Kong, too.

So, in terms of the visa options on the back of you, I think we’ve discussed all of those. But if there is, an opportunity for your wife to independently secure immigration status, potentially getting a job because she is deemed to be a professional under the General Employment Policy, she could take that route as well.

So I would say that those are probably the options that are available to you as two discrete parties, to your immigration and your residence in Hong Kong. I hope this helps.

Check Out VisaGeeza.Ai

All Our Know-How : All Our Experience : Fully Interactive

100% FREE!

More Stuff You May Find Interesting Or Useful

Can I Look For A Job In Hong Kong If I Only Have A Visitor Visa? 

But Stephen, How Do You Make Any Money When You Give All Your Expertise Away For Free?

100% Visa Application Success Rate? Take It All With A Pinch Of Salt

Paying For Visa Help? The Who’s-Who Of The Hong Kong Immigration Services Industry

The Visa Geeza On RTHK Radio 3

PODCAST ANSWER

Podcast: Play in new window