How To Go From Shenzhen To Hong Kong To Get A China Visa - China Visa Instructions and Prices
How to go from Shenzhen to Hong Kong and get a new China Visa in one day.
If you’re living in - ahem, I mean, staying in, I mean, visiting China - there will come a dreaded time when you have to leave China to get a new visa. Forget trying to renew your visa from within China, unless of course you are one of the 0.01% of foreigners living and working in China who actually have a Z working visa, which is applied for, granted, and re-granted from within the country. If you are living in the south of China, by far the easiest choice for getting a new visa is to travel to Shenzhen and cross the border to Hong Kong, where you can quickly and painlessly pay for a travel agent to obtain a new visa for you. Since you don’t want to do this too often, the visa you want is: A Six-Month Multi-Entry F (i.e. "Business") visa
As you will see from the above example, the visa is pretty unimposing, without a photo, official chop, hologram, smart chip, or even portrait of Chairman Mao on it.
The F visa used to be available in a super-convenient and only slightly more expensive 12-month flavour during 2005, but at the time of writing (July 06) these aren’t obtainable any longer, to our knowledge. If you don’t believe it, here is an example:
Perhaps the idea of a 12-month non-employed "visit" to China was just too blatantly implausible for the system. You may have noticed in the above two examples that the place of issue is different. The example 6-month visa above was issued in "Guangdong" whereas the phatt 12-month one was issued in Zhuhai. The place of issue may also say Hong Kong, Luohu, or Your Mum - depending on the various cunning connections of the travel agent you are using. That there are so many different places issuing these visas is attributable to the nice source of revenue they bring in to the local immigration offices, notwithstanding the fact that the free no-questions-asked availability of 6-month multi-entry F visas is officially denied if discussing the matter publicly with Chinese visa offices.
If you have never entered China before, you have to come in on a vanilla L (i.e. "Tourist") visa the first time. This will last 30 days, but if your new assignment is a long way from Hong Kong, as far as I am aware you can just linger in Shenzhen a couple of days and then cross back to get your proper 6-month multi-entry F visa.
The following steps are just one way to play the China F visa game, but hopefully a reasonably painless one…
Step One - Leave China. You need to cross the border out of Shenzhen. This can currently be done at Luohu railway station, Huanggang bus station, or Shekou ferry port. Shekou and Huanggang require you to speak Chinese in order to buy tickets for the bus or ferry that will get you across to the HK side. At Luohu it is much easier because you actually walk across the border inside the border crossing building built over the Shenzhen River. This is where most foreigners come and go into Shenzhen. At Luohu you can’t catch a train or bus across to Hong Kong - the only way is the walking way. It can get crowded, especially when you are queuing with Chinese day-trippers, so you should start early. In fact, you should start early anyway because to obtain a visa in one day you generally need to get your application in to the travel agency before 11am or in some shops 10am. I was going to mention that earlier. So, counting backwards, it will take you about one and a half hours to get from Lowu station (that’s the Cantonese spelling on the HK side) to Kowloon and find your travel agent. It will take you at least half an hour to get through the border crossing at Luohu - let’s allow one hour to be safe. So putting that together you need to arrive at Luohu station by 7.30am to get to your travel agent by 10am. In case you don’t know Luohu, it takes about an hour to get there from one of the city’s outer limits checkpoints such as Buji or Meilin. If you are already in Shenzhen, take the Shenzhen Metro, because the Luohu metro station exit A has a nice clearly signposted (wow) "To Hong Kong" escalator that leads you towards the customs building and border crossing.
Look above the crowds and head for this building at Luohu Station. (Once inside, you will get lost again, guaranteed.) Once inside the Exit China area of the border crossing building, make sure you queue with the "Waiguoren" and have ready your… Departure Card.
You need to present this along with your passport as you exit China. Make sure you bring your own pen because there are no working pens in Luohu, and if there are fresh forms on the desks, grab a whole load in case next time you’re back they’ve run out.
The official will stamp your passport with your date of exit, usually on the same page (if he can find it) as your entry stamp. Congratulations, you are now out of China and allowed to talk about sensitive political issues in a loud voice.
Looking back at Luohu from the Lowu side.
Step Two - Get into Hong Kong Once you have queued to get out of China, you will wander through a no-man’s-land (indoors) until you get to the Hong Kong entry queues. Here you will feel good about being in Hong Kong because:
To get through the passport check you need to fill in another irritating little form: the Hong Kong Immigration Entry Form:
Pick up lots of these when you go through as well, so you can pre-fill them next time.
You will receive a HK entry stamp in your passport from the official. The carbon-copy of the HK immigration card that is left by the official inside your passport should be kept there so you can use it as an exit document when you come back to China later. (Naturally the Chinese side use two totally different forms.) After going through the passport check, you will go up an escalator and straight into the KCR East Rail Lowu Station. The GOOD thing about this station is that you can’t go wrong with the trains. It is the terminus of the line, and any train you get on will be the correct one. Also GOOD is that the trains leave every 5-10 minutes. The FUNNY thing to see is that there are now two platforms operating at peak times, and when the train is about to leave, they close the entrance to the platform with an Indiana Jones-esque double-shutter door which closes mercilessly, with people from all directions diving through it at the last minute, at risk of leaving an arm behind. The ANNOYING thing about the train from Lowu is that it is usually completely full and unless you are more pushy than the hundreds of regular cross-border Hong Kong commuters, you WILL have to stand all the way. The MOST ANNOYING thing about Lowu station is that you can only buy KCR train tickets in Hong Kong Dollars. It is not really their fault - after all, you’re not in China any more. But this means that if you arrive from China with only RMB in your pocket, you are going to have to find somewhere to change that money in order to buy the train ticket (which costs about 45 HKD for an adult single). To your rescue comes… the Lowu station foreign currency exchange shop. There is only one bureau de change here, and they know you’re screwed because you need a ticket, and so, yes, their exchange rate is criminally shite. So, where do you get a ticket to? In these instructions I am recommending going to the bottom of Nathan Road area in Kowloon to get your visa, so you need to get your ticket for Kowloon Tong, where you will be able to change onto the Metro (MTR) and find your way to Tsim Sha Tsui. Unless you only have 100 HKD notes or larger, the quickest way to buy tickets at Lowu is in the automatic ticket machines near the turnstiles.
Even though you are heading for Tsim Sha Tsui, don’t be tempted to stay on the KCR all the way to "East Tsim Sha Tsui" as the station is a long walk from Nathan Road and where you want to be.
Take the KCR down to Kowloon Tong. Change onto the green MTR line heading towards Yau Ma Tei. Change to the red line at Mong Kok. (You can also change for the red line at Yau Ma Tei) Get off at Tsim Sha Tsui. The single-journey MTR ticket will cost you something like 12 HKD.
Step Three - Find a travel agency. Once you pop out of TST metro station onto Nathan Road, and forcibly extricate yourself from the small crowd of Indian tailors selling "Real Custom Tailored Shirts" and "Fake Watches", you need to turn off down Peking Road or Middle Road to get into the area of several visa-providing travel agencies.
If you wander these streets, you will see several large signs advertising "China Visa Service". Most travel agents can do the six-month multi-entry F visa that you want without the need for you to do any form-filling. There is some variation of prices between the travel agencies, meaning if you have the time, you should shop around a little. You have to pay the full amount for the visa in advance. You get a receipt for your passport, which you should guard with your life. In most travel agencies you can pay in cash or by credit card. You can usually pay in RMB cash at a reasonable conversion rate. At the risk of seeming impartial, here is my favourite visa-providing travel agency in Kowloon (I have tried two others myself and know of another two other agencies used by friends): Asian Pacific Travel Service Hong Kong:
Here are APT’s full contact details:
Click the map below to go to Asian Pacific Travel’s frankly horrible website:
Just to prove I am not recommending just one travel agent, here is the most popular company for China Visas (possibly for the sole reason that they have the biggest sign in Tsim Sha Tsui):
CTS tends to be a bit more expensive than the smaller travel agents, and you have to fill out the application form by yourself, and supply a photo. AND their office closes around 6pm, which can be quite alarming if your visa pickup time is 6.30pm (you just have to hammer on the shutters and hope there is someone in there.) Click here for China Visa Prices from CTS Hong Kong
An example of an RMB to HKD currency conversion rate in July 2006.
Step Four - Have lunch. Now you have to burn time in Hong Kong. If you want lunch in Kowloon, and you have no particular dietary requirements apart from putting tasty food inside you for not too much money: Recommendation no.1: Hard Rock Cafe Hong Kong.
Click to go to the Hard Rock Cafe Hong Kong website (warning: unnecessary flash web content) It’s not what you think. At lunch time it’s quiet and frequented by locals rather than tourists. The main point is the cheap set menu for around 70 HKD, which is excellent value considering the quality of the food.
Recommendation no.2: Ebeneezer’s Kebabs Top quality chicken or lamb kebabs, plus Greek salad, that you can take out or eat in. Not expensive, and at lunchtime there is a set menu enabling you to overeat for about 50 HKD.
Ebeneezer’s is located at the northern end of Ashley Road in Kowloon, on the right hand side of the road. There are also other branches:
Click to see the full Ebeneezer’s Kebabs menu and even order online!
Step Five - Burn more time. If you are visiting Hong Kong for one day, and you need to get back to Kowloon for 6pm to collect your visa, here are some suggested things you could do in that time (you can’t do all of them):
You should avoid going into the shopping malls because you will end up spending all your money. Hong Kong is to shopping as Las Vegas is to gambling.
Step Six - Collect your visa and Come back to China. After picking up your visa (check it is the correct multi entry F visa valid for 6 months!) you can retrace your steps and get back to Luohu. When leaving Hong Kong at the passport control, you will simply have to hand over your passport and they will remove the entry card you filled in earlier. When you get to the Chinese passport control, you will have to fill out… the China Entry Card:
Once through the passport control, congratulations, you are back in China. Avoid all the aggressive taxi drivers near the exit onto the Luoho station plaza, and head down into the Metro for an easy escape from the dodgy station area.
Doing it the official way. If you are unlucky enough not to know the insider visa info as dispensed in this mini guide, or unlucky enough to be denied a Chinese visa through the easy travel agent route, you can also apply for visas directly from the Chinese Foreign Affairs Office in Hong Kong.
China Visa Application Form:
When you arrive in the waiting area, you have to pick up a ticket. The machine tells you to fill out the form first and then take a ticket. Silly idea. Take the ticket, find a seat, and start filling out the form. This office can only issue the crappy single entry 30-day "L" tourist visas, for the mean price of 450 HKD, plus 250 if you want it before next week.
As you can see, for this price you get a slightly more pretty visa:
Long name… Long queues.
Here is a map to help you find their office:
The entrance is at the bottom left of the China Resources Building as you look at it in this map. It is a ten-minute walk from the Wan Chai metro station (bottom left of the map), mainly on walkways above the roads.
Getting stuck in Hong Kong. If you are really unlucky and your visa application gets refused or delayed, or else you just don’t pick up your visa from the travel agent in time, you will have to spend the night in Hong Kong. Fortunately it doesn’t have to be expensive as long as you are not too picky about where you doss down for the night. Recommended: The dodgy guesthouses of Chungking Mansions on Nathan Road.
Room rates a single room in the Luen On Guest House and Wing Lee Guest House are between 150 and 250 HKD depending on your appearance, bargaining skills, and the landlady’s assessment of how likely it is that you will hire some massage girls for the evening.
Click for general information about Chungking Mansions Click for more information about cheap rooms in Hong Kong.
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