The Going

One of the most important aspects of working abroad is making sure that your visa is always valid and up to date, it is also one of the biggest hassles that you will deal with will working in a foreign country. It is far more important to not have visa trouble than it is to be abroad without a job.

Problems arise as countries have many different visa levels. There are tourist visas, non-immigrant visas, long stay visas, work visa, business visas. The visa list is endless. Each visa costs a different amount and is valid for different lengths of stay inside the country you are traveling to. So the first hurdle is to know what your length of stay is. The second is paying attention to your entry stamp which also gives your exit date.

Most people looking for work abroad enter the country on a tourist visa. This is the best way to find out if you would like to live in the country. The visa that you were issued in your home country may indicate that it is valid for three months and many just assume that is the case. What they have missed is that the visa is valid for entry into the country for that three month period but this three months is not for the duration of your stay. That is shown with the entry stamp. Many have made the above assumption and found themselves in very hot water at the end of the three months.

And the hot water can be very hot. If you overstay your visa time you have to pay, cash money, and there is a fixed amount of cash that is to be paid for every day you have overstayed. A reader called himself lucky enough, with a small but seemingly mandatory cash incentive to the border guard, to make a phone call and have the money (a large amount) sent to him but if the time to get the money exceeded two hours he was off to jail. A hot room, now windows, a locked door, and no room to pace and nothing to do but pace.

And if this becomes you, you have to pay your cash money immediately. There is never the opportunity to go back to where you were staying and wait for money to be sent from where ever it is that money comes from. You will not leave the border station without paying or you will go to jail and have to try to work things out from the inside of a foreign prison. Not the easiest thing to do. And while you are worrying about the situation you are in the fine increases everyday by the daily rate.

The overstay rates vary and are changed without notice at the whim of the government so be aware of this if you are in the situation where you do owe money. For example in Thailand the present overstay is 500 baht per day, about $15, but in China it is 500 RMB per day, which is about a whopping $80. The fines must always be paid in local funds as well.

Overstay can be expensive, embarrassing in the first moments if you have no cash in your pocket, and devastating if you end up locked behind bars in an immigration jail. And be assured, immigration jail in any country is not a nice place. Always stay on track with your visa dates.