Recent changes to the Hong Kong Immigration system now makes it slightly harder for an individual to obtain an employment visa, with the guidelines becoming stricter. An applicant must first have a job offer from a company in Hong Kong, ideally before the applicant has moved to HK. Although this is not always practical, the immigration service say you should not move to HK before obtaining your visa, but they know that sometimes isn’t practical, and may need to be in HK to search for a job. In general application can take between 7 and 8 weeks, but can take a lot longer.
The application guidelines that need to be adhered to are as follows:
- An applicant must have a graduate degree, with at least 5 years technical experience in the position they will be working.
- If an applicant doesn’t have a degree, they must have at least 10 years technical experience in the position they will be working.
- The salary of the job you’re applying for must meet the local professional standard, which must be higher than HK$16,000 a month.
- The company you’re planning to be working for needs to prove that you’re special skills will be required, and the position can’t be filled by someone local.
- That the business you will be working for is sustainable and that the company is more than 12 months old
- That you as an individual will contribute to the local economy.
All of the guidelines above will need to be satisfied for an applicant to pass the approvability test, which allows for a successful application.