Spouse visa?

I saw RD mentioning such a commodity somewhere on here.If I get a job teaching at a Uni and get all my visa stuff done etc etc and my hubby doesn't get a job, what visa does he need in order to saccompany me? Should he get a study visa and just study Chinese? Is there some other kind of arrangement? And if so , should he then find work in a private mill or whatever what would he do visa-wise?
If he goes on a tourist /student visa can he then change it in China in order to work or would we have to do the HK visa run?

My dad is getting a spouse visa (and eventually residence permit) to accompany my mom, who will be here working starting in August. Ask the school you're going to be working for, they should be able to help arrange something I think.

My husband has a spouse visa (and resident permit) attached to my work visa.  Every year they've wanted more info. The latest was the original marriage certificate, translated and notarized by our embassy.  We got married in Canada and are here on US passports. The gal at the embassy (for the low, low fee of US $50) imprinted our documents with the US seal. She said, "May I ask why you are having this done?" (Evidently not a request she gets every day.)  Just doing whatever necessary to keep the local officials happy. Seemed to work this go-round as there were no last-minute requests for something else.

Your uni should apply for his spouse visa at the same time they process your Z-visa. Bring your official marriage certificate. I don't know what to tell you about the translation/notarization. Last year they accepted a notarization from a Canadian lawyer, but told us we needed to go the embassy route this year. Of course, the embassy doesn't do translation work. We got that done by an agency and then swore (officially) to the embassy gal that it was true. THAT's what she notarized. Got the seal for the Chinese to look at, so it's all good, even if a bit bizarre.

thanks Ruth well ours will be even more bizarre since my wedding certificate is in HEBREW. I have a Chinese friend here who says she can translate for us and then I will get that notorized.
(or will English be okay?) As there is no civil marriage here the translation will be incredibly weird....

A Spouse visa is a glorified L (Tourist) visa. The biggest difference is that it's easier to get a Spouse visa for longer periods than it is for Tourist visas.

Note that a Spouse visa, like any other L visa, DOES NOT CONVEY THE RIGHT TO WORK. If your husband gets a Spouse visa and wants to work, he'll still need to get a Work Permit...which hopefully his school can help him get...but don't know for sure if this can be done for L visas, even a Spouse, or not.

If the visa does have to be changed, that could be bad. He may have to go back home to get a Z visa for re-entry. Check with any potential employers on this and see what kind of magic, if any, can be invoked to make this easier.

Unless the husband is really keen on learning Chinese or taking classes, you probably want to give the Student visa approach a miss. To get one of these visas, you have to actually enroll in (ie pay for) classes, which can be expensive and might lead to their own hassles. Check with your local Chinese programs...your hubby may have to be something approaching a full-time student before a school will issue him a visa...taking one basic Chinese class may not be enough to do the trick. Student visa dates are also heavily tied to class schedules...so when the classes end, so does the visa. Best advice? Ignore the personal accounts on this you're probably about to get, and check with the local schools for right-here, right-now information.
The Spouse/L visa approach may be a lot less problematic.

Dear, I hate to keep raining on your parade, but it's probably going to be the case that you can't just have a friend translate things into Chinese, then notarize the translation. Such official transactions generally require the use of an "Official Translator"...ie someone with a red stamp that marks his documents with a stamp saying it was translated by an "Official Translator". These guys charge a small fortune for doing their translations...it's expensive in English; hate to even think what it'll cost for something like Hebrew...but make up for the high price by generally having very little fluency in the language they Officially Translate.
TIFC.

I don't know... it's possible this requirement has changed, but you need to find out in hopes of not wasting a lot of effort and enduring more delays.

RL you are a gem of purest ray serene. Thanks for all your time and effort in answering.Regarding the tranlation hassles. I hope you are wrong but usually you aren't  Anyway being as how it be the Holy Passover gig right now we can't do anything for the next week.

You, (er I and I assume anyone else) don't get L visa's for being a spouse anymore. Starting at least the end of last year the visa issued to me no longer is labeled "L" tourist visa, and says (in English and Chinese) "Residence Permit".

so does that mean,Brandex that hubby will be able to WORK??

Hang on, Piglet...this is apparently something really new.

For one thing, this may be something that's only happening in a few areas...this local-variation factor is part of why visa questions are so infuriatingly difficult to answer definitively in the overall sense.

Where this IS the case, none of us can really tell you if the Permit will come with a Work Permit or not. If you do need to acquire a separate Work Permit, this should be MUCH easier to accomplish than it would be with an L visa...as in no trips abroad for a visa upgrade and so forth.

Obviously, this is something we need to look into further. In the meantime, you could get definitive and reliable information simply by dropping by your local PSB Foreign Affairs office. You will probably get help in something resembling English, and they're just fine folks in there...and they can tell you what the rules are in YOUR locale, right now.

Brandex is talking about a spouse visa for being married to a Chinese person. I also have a residence permit now, not an L visa, for being married to a Chinese person. But that's beside the point of this thread.

piglet (and Ruth) are talking about their foreign husbands being sponsored by their school as "dependents." She's not in China yet and her husband is not Chinese. Foreign dependents were always on residence permits, not L visas, as far as I know. My father will be getting a residence permit to accompany my mom. As far as I know, it won't allow him to work.

These are two entirely different issues though. It would be good not to confuse them.

If you can't get a definitive answer from your local PSB regarding whether or not a dependent Res Permit (as opposed to a dependent L visa) allows you to work, another good source for information would be your local labor bureau.  Bring a reliable translator along (who you've clearly explained the situation to in advance), since the English skill levels of the clerks could result in miscommunication in one or both directions.

My best guess is that the answer will probably be no - whether the "extra" person is married to a local or came in as a spouse/dependent of someone who entered via Z/Res Permit, but it certainly never hurts to make a few polite inquiries.

Actually folks, this is one of the FEW areas of Chinese Visa law that is crystal clear:

A Dependant resident permit is NOT for work legally. It allows the recipient to reside in the country with their spouse and that's it. There is no ifs or buts here!

The recipient of a Dependant resident permit SHOULD seek a proper work permit if they are looking to be employed in the PRC.

The law is crystal clear on that. 

The real world practice though....

So weird... the research I've done so far indicates a long-standing and pretty clear Residence Permit mechanism...for foreign spouses of EXPATS.

Apparently, at least in some locations, if an incoming spouse is married to an expat who already has a Residence Permit, the spouse can get a Residence Permit that's dependent on the established expat's Permit. Both Permits will bear the same dates and expire on the same day.

In this case, the spouse CAN get a Work Permit along with that RP...IF  they can produce a set of work invitation documents from a local employer.

Anyway, Piglet, I hope you're getting an idea of how tough and unreliable it is to try and answer questions like this from a distance. Put on some pants, smoke a big ol' spliff or two, and go spend a few minutes with Mr. Local Big Impotrence PSB Police Mans.   It's pretty much your best chance to really get the info you need.

Ooops - Raoul was posting while I was posting.

If you've got your spousal/dependent Res Permit put into your passport by the local PSB, will the happy, friendly folks at the labor bureau consider the option of letting you get an Alien Employment Permit or not - I'm not 100% sure if a work invite letter would be enough - perhaps there are different categories of res permits???

This may not end up being a PSB question.  It could be a Labor Bureau question.  The pretty girls at my local labor bureau have never tied me up and spanked me for going in and asking silly questions so far (and my work permit situation isn't quite normal, so I usually have an extra-large supply of silly questions when I visit them).  Kinda makes me feel disappointed.

Ask around the PSB and Labor Bureau.  You may get lucky and find a way to pull it off.

thanks all of you for thoroughly confusing me.
First what is a PSB (sorry for my ignorance)?
As previously pointed out I am not in China yet so this is all very hard going in remote control mode (especially as it is a Jews' Holiday here and no bureaucrats are doing anything except stuffing their faces with Kosher lePessach cake)
Secondly,no spliffs availabel RD, more's the pity.
Thirdly do I understand rightly that having a RP doesn't automatically mean that hubby can work unless he is invited so to do by someone over there (not necessarily a teaching job)?
And fourthly, what if he does private lessons and gets caught? Do we get 20 years in Siberia, a stiff fine,chucked into jail forever or something in between?