Setting up a company, but telecommuting

[emypie]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to figure out whether it would be possible to buy a shelf company in order to give myself a work visa, and then make money by working from home? I've tried to find out whether there are any restrictions on where exactly your income comes from.... hopefully I'd be doing freelance work locally, as well as some telecommuting jobs from overseas (such as transcription).

Anyone has any advice on this?

[PDLM]

In a word, no. But from your other posts you seem to be resident in HK already, and my guess is that is on a Dependant Visa. If you have such a visa (unless you are dependant on someone who has a Study Visa) then you may work freely without any further Immigration paperwork.

If the work you are considering just involves you doing it then there's no need to go to the trouble of a limited company - you could register as a sole proprietor business and then just declare your business income on your individual tax return. Business registration fees are waived at the moment so there is no major cost to doing this.

EDIT - looking further it seems that you are planning your wedding, so in fact you may not be legally resident here at all yet. In that case, if you want to start work urgently my advice would be to do the legal marriage straightaway to get the Dependant Visa. The celebrations later in the year are just the same except that the legal bit is redundant because you'd have already done it.

[JohanSWE]

No you can not start a company in HK and give yourself a working visa that way.
Unless you have an already running company elsewhere in the world, and decide to move its HQ to HK.
But you will need to supply documents, annual reports on turnover etc.
And it takes a while to do such a process, going through an agent would be the most efficient way.

[emypie]

Yes... doesn't seem quite as simple as I might have been fantasizing about...

To clarify, I am on a work visa here, so if I leave my current company, I was wondering if I could set up shop here.

PDLM -- thanks for the input on setting up a sole proprietorship. I'll do more research on going this route.

[PDLM]

Bear in mind that an Employment Visa allows you to work only for the company that sponsored it. You could only legally do what you propose on a Dependant Visa or as a Permanent Resident.

[emypie]

All right, thanks for the kind advice everyone!

[HollyM]

I have just been trying to do this. You CAN do it if you set up your own company and apply for an 'investment visa'. You have to show you have about HK$20k in the bank but it will get you a work visa. They also like you to have an office and employ a local memeber of staff but if you say you plan to build up to that in six months to a year, they will be ok.
Go down to Immigration Tower in Wanchai and pick up the forms and do it yourself. Really easy.
Good luck.

[PDLM]

Yeah right. Have you actually got your investment visa yet? Other people have reported that it is far, far harder than you suggest.

[JohanSWE]

Totally agree with PDLM here.

Investment visas require that you invest 6.5mil into a legitimate asset class in Hong Kong.

And HK$20K isn't even close to enough for them to give you a work visa, maybe if you state that as your monthly salary.

[PDLM]

Johan,

No - you are confusing Investment Visas and the Capital Investment Entrant Scheme. These are two completely different things.