What Happens If You Overstay Your Visa?

Today we shall talk about the consequences of overstaying your visa or residence permit. Over the past 5 years, more than half a million foreigners have been investigated for illegal entry, residence and work, and 351000 have been deported according to the National Immigration Administration.

The main reasons people overstay their permits or visas are usually because they just forgot about the date, they think that it is a minor problem and just a slap on their wrist, or that they simply didn’t know the residence permit was canceled.

When you finish your employment with your current company, your company cancels your work permit. The law requires you to also cancel your residence permit within 10 days at the Exit Entry Administration. From there, you will have to bring your passport to the EEA or give it to your employer to hand it in, and you can apply for a new residence permit if you already have a new work permit, or a stay permit that gives you 30 days leeway to either apply for a new work permit, or leave the country.

The problem usually arises after your work permit is canceled. The Foreign Expert Bureau which is responsible for cancellation of your work permit may notify the EEA about such changes, and the EEA will cancel your residence permit in their system. They do not need your passport to do that, so the date on your passport will remain unchanged. They will then publish the names of those who have had their residence permits canceled on their website, but you’ll probably never even find out since you don’t know what the website is, and can’t read Chinese. You will only find out when you either try to apply for a new residence permit or leave China, but it will be too late.

The consequences of overstaying are extremely serious. Punishments include warnings, fines, detention and deportation. For each day of overstay you will be fined RMB 500, which caps at 10,000. Detention starts at 5 days and the maximum is 15 days. Deportation means ordering you to leave China, and sometimes there is even a ban of 5-10 years from re-entering if there are other serious violations like working illegally. Any of these punishments, even the lightest one which is a warning will stay on your administrative record forever, and this might pose as a problem when you try to apply for future residence permits or visas.

Therefore, we can see that overstaying your residence permit or visa is a very serious matter in China, so make sure you don’t overstay. These administrative punishment records are not erasable once they are there. If you are a EU passport holder, you may enter Hong Kong visa free and that shall reset the counter if you have a visa for multiple entries, like a business visa.