Mapping China: Music - Visa

Performers officially need a Z-Visa, which you have to apply for in your country of origin. The Chinese Visa Application Service Center, which handles all visas for China in the Netherlands, advises to apply one month in advance but not earlier than three months. The visa allows stay in China for up to one month. A single entry visa costs 101.55 euro, with surcharges for speed and postal service (note that trips to Hong Kong and Taiwan count as exits). A Z-Visa requires the following four documents:

1. Passport.
2. Visa Application Form and Photo.
3. Invitation Letter of Duly Authorized Unit or Confirmation Letter of Invitation issued by Chinese relevant units. (This can be given by the promotor or venue.)
4. An approval document for commercial performance issued by Chinese government authority for Cultural Affairs. (This has to be arranged by the venue, which has to be an officially recognized cultural company. The document is part of the official permit, application for which costs 5.000 RMB).

If the venue does not have official permission to arrange events with foreign performers it can be difficult to obtain the ‘approval document for commercial performance’. These are potential solutions:

• The venue or promotor can outsource the permit application, or apply through a befriended venue. This usually has a cost, and theoretically it can cause problems if the artist does not actually perform at the venue to which the permit was given. In practice this rarely causes any problems.
• The artists acquires the approval document through an arrangement with its country’s embassy to China. Embassies can arrange official exchanges, and should be able to help if it wants to facilitate the artist’s visit to China. At the very least the embassy can give advice on the latest developments in visa law.
• Apply for an M-Visa (business) instead. This only requires the ‘confirmation letter of invitation’. Officially an M-Visa does not allow you to perform, but for smaller performances and music festivals this is unlikely to give any problems. Most clubs and small live houses have been working this way for years (think of exchange students playing in local bands, or English teachers DJ-ing on the weekends). Festivals apply for a permit for the whole event, and the type of visa of individual performers is not an issue. It is of course possible at any moment that enforcement suddenly becomes stricter.

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