What’s the Situation About the Need for Business Premises as Part of Your Hong Kong Investment Visa Application?
Posted in Hadley Says…, Investment Visas, The Hong Kong Visa Geeza /
The Hong Kong Immigration Department expect that, as part of any application for an investment visa, the entrepreneur will naturally establish a home for his or her business out of which the enterprise will operate.
Whilst it often makes financial sense for a brand new start up enterprise to initially work from the spare bedroom or kitchen at home, this arrangement, unfortunately, will not pass muster with Wanchai’s Finest down in Immigration Tower.
Where, for example, are the new employees going to report to work each day? Not from your home address, that’s for sure, not so long as the Immigration Department have a say in your plans, it won’t.
Instead, investment visas which get approved these days either:
- Open their own offices right from the very get go, or
- Establish a virtual office initially, and then grow into fully serviced offices subsequently, or
- Take a formal agreement to share another party’s office, often with an aligned business or commercial partner
If you take the latter route, however, it is important that the other party has a formal stamped tenancy agreement to prove that the arrangements are genuine.
Oh, and it helps to submit photographs of your office premises as part of your application bundle.
More Stuff to Help You Along
10 Must Have Resources for a Hong Kong Investment Visa Application
Novel Solution to an Unusual Hong Kong Employment-Investment Visa Situation
Please select the social network you want to share this page with:
The Hong Kong Visa Geeza (a.k.a Stephen Barnes) is a co-founder of the Hong Kong Visa Centre and author of the Hong Kong Visa Handbook. A law graduate of the London School of Economics, Stephen has been practicing Hong Kong immigration since 1993 and is widely acknowledged as the leading authority on business immigration matters here for the last 24 years.
