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Q: Has anyone in Shandong ever received a green card?
Hi all,
I live in Shandong province in a beautiful city called Linyi. For the past three years I have been attempting to apply for a green card as I do quality for one but every time they really give me a different excuse as to why I may not apply. The last excuse they gave me last year was that my passport was to old so I went to Beijing and reviewed it. I wanted to apply again after that but then they said that my Security Clearence Certificate has to be sent to the Chinese Embassy in South Africa to be notorized and then it needs to be sent back to me here in China. Oh and before I forget, the amount of money that my wife and I have got to have in a joint account went from 30 000 yuan to 60 000 yuan. I have been fed up with this for more than three years so I got some information from my fellow expats living in Linyi. The Russian lady that we know has also been here for years and has also been applying for the same ilusive green card. She has the same issues with the government here as I. She says that one upon a time long long ago a green card was issued to an elderly Singaporean gentleman and after he received it the said gentleman left China two weeks later and never returned. The Chinese government official that works at the exit/entry visa place got into so much trouble that he never issued another green card in for Shandong ever again. Has anyone on this site ever received this illusive green card because as far as I can remember from seeing it in the press, only people from Shanghai get green cards?
5 years 45 weeks ago in Visa & Legalities - China
I have one in Guangdong, but don't fool yourself it's not a real 'green card' as I'm the US green card, it's just like a 10 years visa with less strict rules than a working visa because you can work anywhere full time or part time or making your own money and it's not tied to any company.
The way it works is that the card number is tied to your passport number so you have to show both your passport and the card when you enter or exit China. The linked passport can be updated at the PSB since obviously your current passport may expire before the card unless you planned and got a new passport when getting the card which seems unlikely.
The #1 requirement to get a green card is not how long you have been in China or how well you speak Chinese, they don't care about that. What they care about is how much tax you are paying, I'm not sure about the plateau but I would say a steadily growing >100k in taxes over the course of 3 years may give you a green card. Also you have to continue paying a lot of taxes once you get it or it may be revoked.
I personally did not apply for it. I opened my company 7 years ago and I have been paying enough taxes over a long enough period of time I guess so they offered it to me when I was going to renew my visa.
As always, each office will have their own guidelines.
I enquired about it a few months ago. The officer said they gave out 10 last year in this small city in the PRD. Of course I asked how to apply for one. She told me not to bother unless i paid millions in tax each year and employed a large number of local people. Apparently the people who received them were Japanese and Korean businessmen who had invested vast amounts of money and opened huge factories in the new hi-tech development zone. Or you could be an internationally known sports star.
I have one in Guangdong, but don't fool yourself it's not a real 'green card' as I'm the US green card, it's just like a 10 years visa with less strict rules than a working visa because you can work anywhere full time or part time or making your own money and it's not tied to any company.
The way it works is that the card number is tied to your passport number so you have to show both your passport and the card when you enter or exit China. The linked passport can be updated at the PSB since obviously your current passport may expire before the card unless you planned and got a new passport when getting the card which seems unlikely.
The #1 requirement to get a green card is not how long you have been in China or how well you speak Chinese, they don't care about that. What they care about is how much tax you are paying, I'm not sure about the plateau but I would say a steadily growing >100k in taxes over the course of 3 years may give you a green card. Also you have to continue paying a lot of taxes once you get it or it may be revoked.
I personally did not apply for it. I opened my company 7 years ago and I have been paying enough taxes over a long enough period of time I guess so they offered it to me when I was going to renew my visa.
It met someone who had it in Huizhou, he was from Philippines, a nuke engineer. The position speaks for it self, he was very talented and thats why he got a green card and plus 5 yaers of marriage and the 200,000 RMB frozen in the bank for 2 years.
As frustrating as it may be at times in China, I accept that China is not for everyone. Thank you very much for all your answers and guidance throughout the years on eChinacitites.com. Not only for the help that you have all given me on this subject but on others as well. I am simply going to continue doing what the government has told me to do and see how things turn out. I will however keep you all posted and updated on my future endeavour on obtaining the ever illusive green card. I will now be posting my Securiy Clearence Certificate to my sister back in South Africa and ask her to have it notorized by the Chinese consulate there and then post it back to me. If I ever give up on this then I have only myself to blame.
