Dutch companies who want to invite staff or business partners to the Netherlands face now new barriers to get visas, business people in China and Hong Kong complain.

Well actually the article is about Dutch businesses in Hong Kong and China applying for visas for their employees or business partners and finding more obstacles on their path.

The writer is asking for some feed-back.

Do you have seen a tightening of the visa rules also in other European countries? Do let me know.

Yes Sir, we have!
OK Mia is not applying for a business visa and not being sent/invited by a company, but we do know that since August 15 this year the criteria for a student visa application to Spain have doubled.

First 500 hours of Spanish was enough, now it has to be 1,000 hours. That is like asking people that want to visit China for their studies to first speak Chinese fluently!
Before 3 months of regular income on a bank account was enough, now it is 6 months. The last regulation that has been doubled is the money that has to be present on an account during the time of application. That amount is kept secretively vague, but it was around EUR 10-15K and now it has indeed been upped (is that a word?) to EUR 20-30K.

The writer of the article also says that the new “regulations” are not impossible to comply with.

True, but it does bring a lot of extra headaches and other “mafan” (trouble)!

Last week I heard that my residence visa cannot be extended.

During the last few days I have been drilling into my network for solutions, but during these Olympic times, with regulations tighter than ever before, there seems to be no solution.

OK, I could get a tourist visa and fly back and forth between Hong Kong and Beijing, but what is the point of that? Basically just a waste of money. And officially I cannot even work on a tourist visa.

Another implication of a tourist visa is that when the time comes to move my stuff out of China I cannot do that under “household goods” anymore and I will have to pay export and import tax (yup, over my own bloody stuff!!!). So I’d better choose “eggs for my money”, accept my situation, turn the page, look back at an incredible, amazing and fantastic 10 years of my life and….MOVE ON

Spain, here I come!!!