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Many foreign nationals holding Hong Kong employment visas labour under the misapprehension that their employer somehow controls their immigration destiny by virtue of the fact that they sponsor their residence in Hong Kong.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

This is a common misconception amongst foreign workers, especially if they find themselves in some kind of pay dispute or other point of conflict with their current employer, the sponsor of their existing employment visa for Hong Kong.

An employer sponsoring your employment visas cannot use the fact of their sponsorship to hold a gun to your head. The visa belongs to you, not them. They are just responsible for the sponsorship.

The employer’s obligation throughout the entire employment visa process is as follows:

(a) They must show they are justified, as a business, in engaging your services rather than those of a ‘local’ person.

(b) They must pay you at least market rate for the work you are doing for them and at a level commensurate with the minimum required for employment visa approvability.

(c) They must agree to sponsor your application by executing the official employment visa sponsorship form in your favour.

If the relationship sours for any reason and your employment terminates this is what happens to your visa:

• Your privilege to work ceases. You can no longer engage in any employment without making a new application to the HKID first.

• Your privilege to reside continues. The HKID will ordinarily allow you to remain in Hong Kong until your current limit of stay expires, whereupon you are required to leave Hong Kong. In the meantime, this usually affords you the time you need to take stock of your affairs and get yourself back in the driving seat en route to a new employment in Hong Kong.

Your continuing privilege to reside in the HKSAR includes the ability to look and interview for new a job and, if you are so minded, to begin the preparations for possibly starting your own business instead. Either way, so long as you do not actively start working for a new employer or join in a new business before the Director of Immigration has granted his permission for you to do so, the fact that your ex-employer is no longer sponsoring you is neither here nor there in regards to your continuing residence in Hong Kong.

The HKID do not engage in any blame games as to why a sponsored employment has come to an end and only look forward not backwards – so don’t be intimidated by an errant employer who believes they have some kind of leverage over you as the sponsor of your employment visa. The reality is, they have no such leverage whatsoever.

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