Current Visa situation

[Peacedog]

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[JonathanArthur]

Not difficult to obtain 6 month F visas at the moment, but can be a expensive changing L-F. F-F changes bring the price down considerably but 90% of what you pay is greasing the wheels of bureaucracy. And that 90% is Not an exaggeration.

Send me a PM and I might be able to help you with something.

Best wishes,

Jon

[bailewen]

yzp,

In the US, 6 month visa's are not issued. As a rule, they only issue single month visas with options to extend.

My advice is toeither go with a Chinese travel agentor plan on making Hong Kong your first stop. Chinese agencies often have mainland connections and can obtain better visas. My last one got me a 2 month multiple entry visa. Hong Kong used to offer 6 month or even full year tourist visas for just an additional fee but I noticed recently that their govt. website requests that all non Hong Kong residents applying for Chinese visas do so in their country of origin as they can not keep up with demand.

[JonathanArthur]

Omar, I should have specified that any visa obtained outside the country will usually only be valid for a maximum of 90 days with 30 days given for each stay.

As Omar said, fly to HK and get a one month F visa, once in the mainland this can be extended to six months for around 3000-4000 RMB. If you fly directly to the mainland with an L visa the change to an F visa valid for six months will be twice that. The director of the company I work for went through this process within the last month and I was in contact with several agents by phone, this seems to be the case at the moment from what I understand.

If you are sponsored and apply directly to the PSB within China you can receive an F visa valid for a maximum duration of three months for a fraction of the cost quoted above. But you'll need help with that.

Regards,

Jon

[Michael]

I think a lot of this depends on the nationality of your passport.

[jasonf]

This is a great example of how cofused online advise can get a person...everyone seems to have a different experience.
I'm from the US and in China now on an L visa that reads valid for 90 days after entry duration of each stay 90 days.
I had my visa processed in New York through my travel agent and said make sure you get me at least 90 days, she said "90 days is standard right now for L visa" cost me $160 total with the agent fee.
I hit the 30 day problem a few years back, but was told that had more to do with the olympics.
Good luck.

[bailewen]

Yeah. I wouldn't just fly off to Hong Kong to get the visa these days without contacting somebody there first to make arrangements. Visa's are really iffy. I managed to get my L visa extended to a full year recently but that was just luck and connections. Now I'm on a proper Z but it took all sorts of shenanigans to get there. The policy on visas in China has gotten a lot more stringent than it was in the past but the rules are still pretty flexible. The Chinese embassy in Los Angeles only offers 30 days but I managed to get a full year at one point so . . .

Shop around and have a back up plan. If all else fails, take a few days in Thailand...heck, you could go to Vietnam and not even have to take a flight. In order to get my L changed to a Z I had to leave the country so I took a week in Thailand but if I ever have to do it again, I am seriously considering some other lesser traveled south east Asian country like Burma or whatever.

[josh]

When I went to China last summer, I was surprised to have been issued a 60-day F visa, when before I was usually only able to obtain 30-day L visa. I wasn't sure what happened differently, although I did get my visa through a Chinese travel company here in LA (http://www.timelyvisa.com/, if you are interested), and I went to China to attend a conference which may be why they issued me an F visa (I believe that I had actually applied for just a tourist visa).
I was in a similar situation pre-Olympics; I went to Beijing on a 30-day visa, then got in touch with one of the people who advertise visa extensions on That's Beijing. Admittedly, it was one of the sketchier moves that I have made in China - I spoke with this guy over the phone, just some random Chinese dude in his 20s, then met him at a subway station, had a coffee, handed him my passport and visa application, and we went our separate ways. Fortunately, 2 weeks later he gave me back my passport with a 90-day F visa that had been issued in Qingdao. Lots of opportunities for things to go wrong there but I was lucky and it worked out.