It's really no problem to have your visa transferred - question of half an hour at the PSB!

I wouldn't take the risk of asking the officer at the airport to either put his stamp on a visa in an invalid passport, or into a passport with no visa. Technically, you'd be without a valid visa and they might charge you for this.

You mean this one: New passport visa swap question ? I was trying to convince the guy to have his visa transferred, and other posters were telling him to fly with two passports. I'd say it might be possible but I wouldn't rely on it in these troubled times.

I guess you really don't want to believe me but I'll try one last time:

I am also here on a Z visa / residence permit.
I got a new passport in April this year.
I took the old passport with my visa and the new passport to the PSB and had it transferred. I did not need any other documents. You can do it by yourself.

If you want to fly with two passports, you can - just be aware that in the very worst case they might charge you for overstaying / not having had a valid visa for one day.

There is no problem traveling with a visa in an expired passport while carrying the new one. I've done it here (last year) and you just hand both over when you go through the customs line. Pretty common.

I just renew my passport also and its due to be finish this monday, and the guy from the embassy told me that i should go to psb to have my visa transfered. He also told me for other countries its ok if u have ur old one with ur visa and ur new passport its like a usuak practice,but he said china is different u really need to have it transfered. atleast thats what he told me.

Now i have a question can somebody from the company do this for u or do u really need to do it personally cause they are gonna renew my visa, so is it possible that when they apply for it ask them first to transfer my old about to expire visa to the new one then renew it. Do u think thats possible?

No need to transfer the visa. You can use 2 passports. Show them the visa in the old invalid passport, and let them chop the new passport. That works for exit and entry.

That is very common. I did that very often over a number of years (usually because of the old passport was full). That the old passport is marked "invalid" is no problem at all.

Giving someone the option of renewing (or transferring) your visa is STUPID. You do not need to do this, so DON'T.

It is that easy.

I am just going through this same process.... I am due to get my new passport (because of less than 6 months validity for traveling purposes) during the course of next week but the "old" passport has a visa until March 2009. As October holiday is shortly after that I am hoping to travel with 2 passports and upon my return then go through transferring the visa over. From what I can guage from the above, no one has experienced any major problems with 2 passports provided the visa's not defaced. My 2nd question though is that my visa was done in Shanghai and my alien permit book is still registered with a Shanghai address but I'm now in Beijing... Is it easier to go through this transfer process in Shanghai or can I do it all in Beijing? I have a Beijing hukou form so that's not a issue, just that it's a Shanghai visa but I'm based in Beijing now. Any help appreciated! Cheers

Mmmmm - just looking on some other forums which are noting that you now have to transfer your visa and need all the paperwork you needed to get the visa to do so - even if it's within 10 days of getting the new passport (due to the new visa rules since Olympics etc). So has anyone tried the 2 passport theory as recently as September 08 out of China? This is all in the too hard basket

Any updated information on this? All these posts are 2 years old.

I will renew the passport while I am in the USA next month as it expires this Nov. My current Chinese Residence Permit is valid until July.

Will I have transfer the visa over to the new passport before returning to China? Can I do that once I'm back in China?

Thanks! D.

The answer to this questions is YES!!!! I want to give you all a similar situation since this happened to me and I don't want you guys to get scammed.

I have a residence permit valid for one year and it was set to expire on February 2012. I went back home November of 2011 to get my new passport renewed because in order to get a new residence permit in China you need to have at least 1 year valid on your passport to receive a worker or residence permit visa, which was my case.

So, back home I got the new passport with no issues and KEPT the old passport. I contacted a visa agency in the USA JUST to make sure. I spoke to David the owner of VISARITE. I asked him if I needed to get a new visa, his answer was YES!!!! I was scared because my flight was going to leave in like 5 days and to get all of the documents I needed to get a new visa would have taken a a week at best and OF COURSE everything would have been rushed to the VISARITE office and I would have had to pay all of those rush fees, close to $500 USD. Did I forget to mention that I sent the e-mail mid December and got a reply only a few days before my flight???? All done on purpose of course.

Nevertheless, I contacted my airline (Continental) to make sure. I asked them. Do I need a new visa if I have a valid visa on my old passport but have a new passport? Their answer was YES!!!!! So, here I am ...worried as hell....one guy says I need a new visa (my type is also not easy to get as residence visas are a whole process) and a multi billion dollar company who has the power to get me on the plane tell me you have no problem as long as you have both passports and the valid un expired visa on the old passport with you on the day of your flight.

Needless to say I did board that flight with NO problems. VISARITE and a lot of agencies out there really try to make money from people sacred of visas but in this case I did my homework. In fact our company has banned the use of Visarite (even after the more than 100 customers we sent them over the years) because of this bad advice.

So, PLEASE DO YOUR HOMEWORK.