Shanghai Expats
General

Employed in Shanghai by Beijing Company?

135 views

B
BellaX Original post #1
Hi All. Been away for a number of years since I left China. Lived there previously for a good number of years and work took me back home again. Now I’m looking to come back (crazy I know…) ideally to Shanghai. However I’ve been away for about 4 years so I don’t remember some details and there are new questions I have. A) My company has offices in Beijing, HK and Shanghai. The vast bulk are in Beijing however and they employ only 6 people in their SH office (which is a serviced office). They have told me they have employed foreigners in their Beijing office before but that they “Shanghai legal entity is not setup to employ foreigners in Shanghai” is this remotely true/make any sense? I said well…….give me a BJ contract and based me in SH. They said they can’t do that either. B) The alternative is HK (where I’d rather not be). However I’m wondering if its still possible to be on a HK Employment Contract but living and working in SH. Under what conditions could I get away with that? I’m aware its a tricky area and I had heard the Gov has cracked down on that somewhat. If it helps I work in a “HR Regional” style position and my responsibilities are infact NOT in China. Just my company is happy to place me there because I wish to be there.

5 Replies

E
EdShanghai #2
If you’re working remotely and not doing any work at all on behalf of China entities, could your Company pay you off shore and you just live here? That way you could live here on an M visa and not need to do any paperwork in China.
P
PaulR #3
Yes companies have to have a permission to employ foreigners, if their Shanghai entity does not have that they can’t employ you. Being employed in BJ and working in Shanghai isn’t possible either, at least officially, recently also had a case. Huge crack down on that few years back, HK and Mainland China are now tightly exchanging information on tax, bank accounts, work permits… To exactly prohibit that. Of course there were a lot of high payed executives being employed in HK and working in China. There might always be still ways to do it but gets harder and harder… However while 5-6 years ago you could get away with a lot and there were fewer regulations it tighten up and companies are playing more and more by the rules. It all comes down to taxes, they want you to pay where you live and work like elsewhere on the world. And to make it harder for foreigners to work here to ultimately secure jobs for Chinese likewise like elsewhere on the world…
B
BellaX #4
Cheers. Do you have any idea what is required for a company to have permission to employ foreigners in a city/legal entity that might not currently have that permission? Is it simply a request or does the company often have to pay a fee or upgrade their business license in that city? In which case fat chance they will do that for me alone.
L
LaowaiTom #5
I agree that different types of foreign offices have to follow different rules on hiring foreigners (WFOE, Rep offices etc). I think there is a ratio of Chinese to foreign employees they need to follow. Working in Shanghai with BJ contract or HK permit is very risky. Both you and the company will be fined if caught. Not worth taking the risk!
E
EdShanghai #6
I am not an expert on this however involved in the company decisions, so I can tell you it’s not a simple pay-for-the-paper process. Just as we have now higher requirements for visa and alien employment permits than a few years back, it changed for the permission to employ. The ratio of Chinese to Foreigners is just one requirement… I guess you need to trust your HR department and VISA specialist on this and in my experience, especially in the past 2 years it got less and less flexible and everyone is finally starting to stick to the rules…

Sign in to join the discussion.