China visa for Indians

What are the different types of China visa available for Indians?

There are many different types of visas, which Indians can apply for their visit to China. Major categories which Indian people apply are Tourist & Business visa.

As mentioned earlier be very specific while choosing the category of applying for Chinese Visa.  I’ll give you one example, if your main purpose is to visit a vendor or a supplier who is based in China and along with that you plan for a short trip to nearest places, then, in this case, you will have to apply for China Business Visa, as your major concern is visiting vendor rather than taking a trip.

         Did you know?

The People’s Republic of China has categorized Chinese visa alphabetically e.g. C-Crew Member Visa, D-Residence Visa, F- Non- Commercial Visit, J1- Journalist Visit-For 1 year Visit, J2 –Journalist Visit for Temporary –G-Transit Visa, L- Tourism Visit, M- Business Visit, R- Issued to highly qualified people whose skills are required in China, Q-Issued to Family Member Who intends to stay for a longer period, Z- Work Visa

China Business Visa: This type of visas is issued to an applicant whose intentions are visiting China for doing some kind of business activity in China. This type of visa is not only applied the most in India but throughout the World. It is one of the most popular visa categories amongst all.

China Tourist Visa: China is off late also recognized as a  tourist destination for thousands of visitors. It can be applied only when your intentions are purely for tourism purposes. I will list some important facts about the China Tourist visa later in this article.

According to the Government sites & few sources, Discovery china.com has prepared an interesting Tourism statistics of 2019 which could help us to understand the fastest growing inbound tourism of China has made tremendous growth in tourism income for the Chinese Government.

Depending on the number of visits and urgency the Chinese Government has further categorized this visa category into subcategories; this subcategory is not only applicable for Business but also a Tourist visa.

China Single Entry Visa: This type of visa is applied by the traveler who is visiting China for tourism purpose, their travel is just once and does not wish to enter China in near future, also Businessmen who do not have intentions to visit China again within 6 months.

China Double Entry Visa: It is a double-entry visa issued to an applicant who has intentions to visit China twice in the same travel or shortly soon. China has good land connectivity to Hong Kong & Macau, people going on tourism or Business tend to cover neighboring country and come back to China to take their return flight to India. In this scenario, you will require to apply for a Double-entry China visa, as you will be entering twice while or you need to have a visit soon shortly.

China Multiple Entry Visa:  This visa allows to enter China multiple times within the validity of the visa. Businessmen who frequently visit China for official purpose tend to apply for multiple-entry visas.

What is the validity of Chinese tourist or Business visa?

Validity is embassy discretion, however, in general, their normal single-entry visa has a validity of 90 days from the issuance. This means with the single entry you can visit China once in 90 days, however, validity for Double entry could be 90 or of 180 days. 

Multiple entries have a validity of a minimum of 180 days however it can be a maximum of 365 days. Last few years the Chinese Government has stopped issuing long term multiple entries due to unknown reasons, however, you can always request the Government for a longer duration visa.

What is the stay period of Chinese Tourist or Business Visa?

For any visa category that is issued for short term (below 1 year)has a maximum stay of 30 days, irrespective of the validity your stay could not be more than 30 days in each entry. It means if you have a single entry, you can stay a maximum of 30 days in China, else you can visit multiple times and stay a maximum of 30 days in each visit.

7 Important Facts about China Tourist & Business Visa

• Out of 10 Visa applications, we process 8 visa applications are for the Business visit.
• China visa is not restricted to visit any particular city in China, you can visit any part of the Country.
• If found, applying inappropriate visa category lead to visa rejection in a future application.
• Overstaying in China is not permitted, if caught it can lead to heavy fines or blacklisted forever from visiting China.
• China visas are processed in only 3 cities of India e.g. Delhi, Mumbai & Kolkata. The Government has bifurcated application jurisdiction wise.
• Compared to a Tourist visa, Business visa rejection chances are more.
• Major countries Government does not refund visa fees if your visa is rejected, but the Consulate of Chinese does not charge, in case they refuse your visa.

Above mentioned are few basic points that you have to keep in mind before initiating the visa process, now let’s get into more details about the documentation, procedure of applying and chances of rejection for the Chinese visa.

For your better understanding, I have listed documentation for a Chinese visa in the below-mentioned table.

DOCUMENTATION FOR CHINA VISA

Below I will cover how you have to prepare each document.

China tourist visa documentation

Passport: Applicant has to make sure that his passport is valid at least a minimum of 6 months from the date when he plans to exit from China. Yes, you read it correctly 6 months from the planned exit date of China. It should be in good condition and should have a minimum of two blank pages for stamping purposes.

Photo: Their photo specification is basic; it should be recently clicked with 80% coverage of face taken against a white background on matt finished paper.

Application Form: The Applicant does not need to worry about the application form, as the same will be filled by our visa experts.

Personal Covering Letter:  An personal covering letter will be prepared on your behalf which we will be addressing to the Consulate. It will cover few personal details about your name, passport number, travel dates, intended date of arrival and departure, and people traveling along with you.

Bank statement: Updated bank statement with the sign and bank seal is mandatory, an applicant has to make sure that current closing balance of the savings bank account should be minimum INR 1,60,000 per application e.g. if you are traveling along with your spouse then you will have to show at least INR 3,20,000/- in your bank account.

It does not matter that only the main applicant can show bank balance in his account, even his spouse can submit her bank statement with the required balance or they can submit two separate savings accounts or a joint account is fine but each statement must have a minimum balance of INR 1,60,000.

Note: Only saving bank account will be acceptable, for tourist visa application current account bank statement are not acceptable, also for each child their parents can show INR 1,60,000/- in their bank account.

Blocked Flight ticket Itinerary: It is not necessary to book a confirmed flight reservation; we can always block an itinerary as per your travel plan.

Hotel Reservation: Again we can block a confirmed hotel reservation for your entire stay; you do not need to pre-book the hotel reservation by paying it to the hotel.

Day wise itinerary:  You don’t have to worry either for the day-wise itinerary, you have to inform your travel plan to our visa expert and he will prepare a day-wise itinerary for you.

Business visa documentation

I will not repeat the passport, photo & the application form, we will directly start with the Covering letter.

Personal Covering Letter: An personal covering letter has to prepared covering the same point as of tourist, the only difference is you will have to cover few points about your Company nature of business and few details about the Chinese Company whom you will be visiting and who will be bearing the cost of the visit. Covering letter has to printed on the company’s letterhead and it has to be signed by an authorized person.

Invitation Letter: Invitation letter is the backbone of your business visa application, as your visa approval is completely based on the format of how the letter is prepared. The Chinese Government is precise about the format for an invitation letter. Improperly prepared invitation letter leads to visit rejection.

You have to make sure that your inviter who is based in China is can understand the letter format properly.

What are the points remembered while preparing covering & invitation letters for China Business visa application?

Original Covering Letter from Indian Based Company

• Starting from the top, you have to make sure that the date mention in the letter is recent; it means Consulate will not accept if the date mention in the letter is older than 10 to 15 days.
• Addressing to the consulate is proper e.g. for Mumbai Jurisdiction addressing should be

          To,

           The Consulate General of the People’s  Republic of China,

            Mumbai

• Body of the letter should cover the following points
• Name & Designation of the traveler, if an organization is sending their employee to China than he/she will be mentioning the designation, traveler details which include traveler full name as per passport, his designation, the purpose of visit, passport number and issue date and expiry date.

Who will bear the travel expenses of an applicant, traveling date, and visiting the Organization name of China?

• An authorized person has to mention their name, designation & mobile number at the bottom of the letter. In the case of organization admin or HR department can sign the letter. Make sure to attest it with the company seal.

Soft Copy of Invitation Letter from Chinese Company.

Points mentioned in covering letter is similar for invitation letter, the only difference is in this letter invitee company will be mentioning that I the Undersigned “Li Lang” Director of the XYZ company would like to invite our Business associate from India to visit us in December for 10 days.

Rest all matter will remain the same; additionally, they have to make sure that the traveler’s passport details are mentioned correctly in the letter.

Traveler name as per passport, passport no, passport issue date, expiry date, and place of the issue are mentioned correctly.

Once this is done, you can ask them to send a PDF copy of the email to you and later you may forward it to us on our mail ID.

Trade license of Chinese Company

Indian Company has a GST certificate issued by the Government to the Company and the same is considered as proof of registration. Likewise, the Chinese company has a trade license issued by their Government as Trade functioning proof.

An applicant has to ask the Chinese company to send a trade license copy of the company over the email.

Identity Card of the Authorized Person:

Chinese Consulate has recently made this document as a mandatory document. A person who has signed on the invitation letter has to send his Government-issued Identity card copy; they will verify that the person who has signed an invitation letter is the same as on Identity card.

Rejection of Chinese tourist & business visa application

It is very important to follow the above mention guidelines strictly, as the Consulate is strict when it comes to the documentation and its format.

There are several reasons why your application is rejected. We have notified our clients about the Consulate strictness for the documentation, but still, they insist we apply with a format given by their company or the invitation letter received by Chinese Company.

Majorly, we have noticed invitation letter formats are inappropriate, on notifying also applicant does not ask Chinese Company to resend with correction, this leads to rejection. We take an undertaking from the customer that we had informed about the consequences.

The top reason which I have personally noticed is addressing the Consulate is incorrect. The Consulate will not compromise if it is not addressed correctly to the Government, you can recheck it by clicking here.

Dates mentioned in the letter are past dated, I’ve noticed people sending us an invitation letter which was used last year for their visit to China, as mentioned date mentioned should be recent.

Another main reason is passport details are not properly updated on invitation letter and the designation of inviter is not mentioned in the body of the letter, also the same mistake is made in covering letter.

The designation has to be mentioned clearly in the body and at the bottom of the invitation & Covering letter. It is also mandatory to make sure both letters are sealed and signed by the respective company authorized person.

As compared to Business visa, Tourism visas are not rejected so much.

The only point that the tourist traveler has to make sure is, their travel plan should not be very long. Exceeding more than 10 to 12 days in China will surely create some suspicion in Government minds; this will eventually lead to rejection.

On consultation, our visa expert will guide personally how you can tackle this.

Can I reapply immediately if my visa is rejected?

Yes, you can reapply immediately, if your visa is rejected due to any reason. We will be sharing the rejection letter with you and appropriate changes have to be made while filing a new application.

Conclusion

Processing Chinese Tourist or Business visa application is simple when you have the best visa agent in India who has proper information and awareness about the legality of the Consulate.

We at Fly For Holidays believe that it is very important to keep ourselves updated about the recent changes and updates made by the Chinese Government for Indians. We assure you 100% of visa approval for China if you follow our visa expert guidelines and procedure mentioned above.

How to process the Chinese visa application with Fly For Holidays?

Let me inform you Fly For Holidays is a travel agent, our primary responsibility is to make sure that your documentation is as per the checklist and format as per the Consulate. Our service includes sharing the same checklist and format which has given to us by the Consulate, home pick and dropping service of the documentation, filing up the form, if required we will block Air itinerary, hotel reservation and prepare a day-wise itinerary and later submitting your application to the Chinese Consulate personally.

Once the decision is made we will collect your passport and delivered it back to your home or office at your convenience.

We will not make any changes in your invitation or cover letter, as this will be an applicant’s responsibility to get it corrected from the respective Company.