Does A Blacklist Exist For Expats?

I am actually very excited to talk about today’s topic as it is an extremely popular question that I have seen numerous times in my groups, and it is – Does the dreaded, scary blacklist for expats exist?

A lot of expats working in China have received a threat from their job agent or employer that sounds something like this: If you don’t do this, I will put you on a blacklist. You will never find a job again and I will kick you out of China. This sounds absolutely terrifying for someone who does not know the law, so I am here to clear this up for you once and for all. We will analyse this topic from 4 perspectives, which are the employer’s perspective, work permit system perspective, , administrative law perspective and criminal law perspective.

Employers can make an internal blacklist for their branches or subsidiaries, or fellow agents that specialize in expat headhunting. However, note that this kind of a blacklist is only internal and it certainly does not affect your chances of looking for additional employment on a macro level. If you had a bad experience with one of their branches, I believe you wouldn’t want to work for another one of their branches, would you?

Regarding the work permit system perspective, it is possible for employers to leave a negative comment in the system, and this will be shown to your future employer. This serves the same purpose as leaving you a bad reference, so this can be overcome as long you explain to your new employer about your previous experience.

Moving on to the administrative law perspective, if you had an offence in the past, and when I mean the past I mean anytime at all since the Big Bang, that sticks on your record forever and it affects chances of you getting a residence permit in the future. Administrative punishments may be as mild as warnings or fines for minor offenses like smoking weed, prostitution, overstaying your permit, working illegally, drinking and driving, and getting into a bar fight.

Getting a criminal record is basically waving goodbye to China. If you get convicted of a crime, sorry but that is the end of your China journey. You will be unable to get a non-criminal record in the future as well. However, note that this is different to the administrative record. Getting caught for overstaying is a violation of administrative law, not criminal law, so this is classified as an administrative record. It does not show up on your criminal record, as administrative violations are minor breaches of law. We’ve got to distinguish the rapists and murderers between the weed smokers and jaywalkers, don’t we. Nevertheless, an administrative or criminal record stays there forever and that would be the closest thing to a blacklist that we are talking about here.