Work visa application in Suzhou

We all know that the visa policy become more and more strict currently. I got many inquiries from expats. Many of them are still holding student visa or business visa and working in Suzhou. So I collected some information about visas.

Question one: Can you work with student visa, business visa or family visa?
According to current Chinese immigration law, expats are not allowed to work with student visa or family visa. Most of the business visa is from the companies abroad or agents, so they are illegal for working in China too. ONLY residence permit with work permit card is a legal work visa. It is very risky working in Suzhou without work visa. The worse case is to be put in jail and to pay high fine bill, or be repatriated by the immigration bureau.

Question two: What are the requirements for getting a work visa?
These requirements are also the basic requirements for the recruitment in Suzhou or China. We cannot deny that some cities are not as strict as Suzhou, but China will be more and more serious about bringing foreign talents to our mainland. Here are the requirements for getting a work visa:
1. Bachelor degree or above (degree needs to be notarized by the Chinese Embassy), except some engineers will have related senior certificates.)
2. Clean criminal record (also needs to be notarized, and “clean” means no record, including DUI.)
3. If you are coming for teaching, then you should either have at least over 2 years teaching experience or get a TEFL/TESOL/CELTA for at least over 120 hours training.
4. Health check

Question Three: How long will it take to get a work visa?
As our experience, it takes about 1 month for you to prepare these documents. The employer can only start the application after they received all scanned copies of these documents. It takes about 3 weeks to get the work permit, then 2-3 weeks for you to get “z” visa in Chinese Embassy. After you arrive China, there will also be many steps until you get work permit card and residence permit. The total process can last 2-3 months.

I don't know if I answered your basic questions about visa. I hope it is useful for new comer, and Welcome to Suzhou!