Shanghai . Work permit and family
Work permit and Z visa sponsorship for a Shanghai WFOE
Relocating a senior hire or a founder to your Shanghai WFOE, the subsidiary your parent owns outright, usually means a work permit and, for anyone bringing a family, dependant visas timed to a school calendar you do not control. Shanghai is comparatively generous at the top of the work permit system and comparatively demanding on timing, and both facts shape how you plan a move. This page is for a company relocating people, not a trader ending visa runs. It assumes the entity in company registration in Shanghai, which is the sponsor.
Work permit in Shanghai: what this is, briefly
A foreigner working in Shanghai needs a work permit and a work-type residence permit, sponsored by the WFOE that employs them, and their family needs dependant visas that follow. The permit system sorts applicants into classes, and Shanghai administers it through a points-influenced process and its local Public Security Bureau. For a company the practical questions are which class a given hire will reach, how the points work in practice, and how to time the family's move around the one thing that cannot be rushed, which is a school place.
How it works in Shanghai: Class A, points, and Lin-gang talent policy
Shanghai is one of the more accessible places in China to reach Class A, the high-end talent category, because for a suitably paid senior role the salary threshold alone can qualify the applicant, without needing to assemble points from other criteria. Below that, the system is points-influenced, drawing on salary, qualifications, age and role, and in practice a well-paid professional hire clears comfortably while a marginal case needs the points managed deliberately. Zones add another layer: Lin-gang and other areas operate talent policies that can smooth or accelerate permits for qualifying roles, which is worth knowing if your hire and your zone align. We tell you which class a given hire will reach before you file, because designing the package and the evidence around the target class is what makes a first application clean.
The sequence is the work permit notification letter, then the Z visa for someone applying from abroad, then the work-type residence permit once they are in Shanghai, administered through the Shanghai Public Security Bureau. Each step depends on the one before, and the documents, degree certificates, criminal record checks and the employment package, take longer to legalise than people expect, so the slow items should start first. For a company relocating several people, this is a programme rather than a single application, and running it as one avoids the staggered delays that come from treating each hire in isolation.
Family, dependant visas, and one hard rule
Once your relocated hire holds a work-type residence permit, their family can join on S1 or S2 dependant visas, the S1 for stays over 180 days requiring a residence permit within 30 days of entry, covering a spouse, children under 18 and parents. For most senior relocations the family is the real constraint, and specifically the school: international school admission cycles set the whole move date, because a place has to be secured in the right term and everything else has to fit around it. A family move planned around the visa timeline rather than the school calendar tends to arrive at the wrong point in the school year, which is the mistake companies most regret.
The one rule we will not bend
We advise on M, F, S1 and S2 applications. We do not issue, procure or arrange invitation letters, under any circumstance. For a dependant visa the invitation comes from the family member already in China on a work permit, which is your employee, not from an agent. Anyone offering to sell an invitation letter is offering to manufacture a document, and that is a risk your company should refuse, because it is exactly the kind of thing that turns a routine transfer into a compliance problem for the group.
We say the invitation-letter rule plainly because the offer to supply one circulates in this market and it is a trap, not a shortcut. A relocation should be built on genuine documents and a genuine employment relationship, which is slower to promise and far safer for the group to hold.
Work permit in Shanghai: what it costs, and what slips
Work permits and dependant visas carry government fees plus our advisory and document fee, and the total scales with how many people you move and how many bring families. We do not print a figure because a single senior hire and a family of four are very different matters, and a made-up number would mislead a relocation budget. What slips is almost always documents, degree and police certificates that need authentication and, since November 2023, apostille for member countries, and the school timing, which cannot be compressed once the admission window has passed. We give you the document list and the school-calendar reality at the start, so the slow and the immovable are both moving from day one.
Work permit in Shanghai: what goes wrong here, and how we avoid it
The characteristic Shanghai relocation failure is planning the family move around the visa timeline instead of the school calendar, so the family arrives mid-term with no place secured. The second is leaving document authentication too late, so a permit waits on a certificate being legalised abroad. The third is trusting an agent who offers a supplied invitation letter or a promised fast-track, which is the offer that most often turns a routine transfer into a compliance problem for the group.
We avoid all three by working back from the school calendar, starting the slow document legalisation first, targeting the right permit class deliberately, and refusing every shortcut that depends on a manufactured document. A relocation done this way is slower to promise and reliably lands the family in the right place at the right time.
Registration sequence
Name reservation
Reserve the company name.
Business scope
Draft the scope you will actually invoice for.
Business licence
File with the local market regulator.
Company chops
Carve the official company seals.
Bank account
The step that sets your real start date.
Tax and forex
Complete tax and foreign-exchange registration.
Work permit in Shanghai vs. Yiwu: how this differs
If you are comparing cities, the work-permit picture is different in Yiwu, where the audience and the driver differ. There the typical case is a trader on Class B ending years of visa runs, and the real prize is family residence rather than a senior relocation package, with the Zhejiang authorities rather than the Shanghai points system. So work permits in Yiwu are about a trader stabilising a life already lived in China, where Shanghai is about relocating corporate talent and timing a family around a school. The invitation-letter rule, though, is identical in both cities and does not bend in either.
Questions corporate founders ask
Work permit in Shanghai: sourced answers you can forward internally
Can our senior hire get Class A in Shanghai?
Often yes. Shanghai is comparatively accessible for Class A, and for a suitably paid senior role the salary threshold alone can qualify the applicant without assembling points from other criteria. Below that, the points system draws on salary, qualifications, age and role. We tell you which class a given hire will reach before filing, because designing the package and evidence around the target class is what makes a first application clean.
Do you provide invitation letters for the family visas?
No. We do not issue, procure or arrange invitation letters, under any circumstance. For a dependant visa the invitation comes from the family member already in China on a work permit, which is your employee, not from an agent. Anyone offering to sell one is offering to manufacture a document, and that is a risk your company should refuse, because it can turn a routine transfer into a compliance problem for the group.
Why does the school calendar matter so much?
Because for most senior relocations the family is the real constraint, and international school admission cycles set the whole move date. A place has to be secured in the right term, and everything else fits around it. A family move planned around the visa timeline rather than the school calendar tends to arrive at the wrong point in the school year, which is the mistake companies most regret, so we work back from the school date.
What are the Lin-gang talent policies?
Certain Shanghai zones, including Lin-gang, operate talent policies that can smooth or accelerate work permits for qualifying roles, on top of the standard system. Whether they help depends on your hire and your zone aligning. We check whether your relocation qualifies for any zone talent policy before filing, because where it applies it can make a difference, and where it does not we do not rely on it.
Work permit in Shanghai: tell us your structure, and we will map the next step
Tell us the role, the salary band and the candidate's qualifications, and we will tell you the likely permit class and what the file has to prove. Book a time that works across your time zone.
Last reviewed: 18 July 2026General information, not legal or tax advice for a specific case. Incentive eligibility, banking and approvals are decided by the authorities and banks, and no outcome is guaranteed.