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Can a Chinese citizen travel to Hong Kong with the HK passport (issued in China to visit HK for up to 7 days) and, after arriving in Hong Kong, use a second passport from a country that allows dual citizenship and travel on to another country?

The initial part of traveling to Hong Kong is clear and straightforward, but the second part, when leaving Hong Kong with another passport, and when returning to China 3 weeks later, will there be issues with the Chinese Customs authorities?

Has anyone with kids born in China with one parent being a foreigner experienced this?

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  • Is there a reason why you're going through Hong Kong?
    – user102008
    Commented May 15, 2017 at 20:44
  • @user102008 Presumably they would require a visa to exit China with their Chinese passport, and can't show the foreign passport without risking their Chinese citizenship.
    – lambshaanxy
    Commented May 15, 2017 at 21:52
  • @jpatokal: Why would it risk their Chinese citizenship? If the child is legally a Chinese citizen, as well as a foreign one, then that's perfectly fine and accepted. They can use a Chinese Travel Document (or a Chinese Entry/Exit Permit) in combination with a foreign passport to exit China.
    – user102008
    Commented May 15, 2017 at 23:31
  • @user102008 The OP did not state that the dual national in question is a child.
    – lambshaanxy
    Commented May 16, 2017 at 8:12

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I presume that by "HK passport issued in China", you are referring to the Exit-Entry Permit (往来港澳通行证). If so, standard procedure would be that you exit China using the EEP, enter Hong Kong using your second passport, and then you can exit and re-enter Hong Kong freely (assuming your second passport has visa-free rights to HK).

The problem you will have is that the EEP limits visits to Hong Kong to 7 days. So the above works for trips <7 days in total, but if you are away for three weeks and then cross the border back from Hong Kong to China, China is highly likely to notice that you have overstayed and then you will have a hard time explaining why and how.

I would advise getting a full Chinese passport and using this to travel via a country that does not require advance visas, such as Thailand or Indonesia.

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  • A full Chinese passport means they cannot be dual citizens I believe as PRC does not allow that
    – Matt Douhan
    Commented May 15, 2017 at 10:45
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    @MattDouhan Just because they're not supposed to be dual citizens doesn't mean they aren't...!
    – lambshaanxy
    Commented May 15, 2017 at 11:33
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    @Huangism Technically these are all true, but all of them are very hard to discover. 1. If you never report your loss of nationality, passport authorities in China will likely never discover that you have naturalized, so they will continue to issue passports to you. 2. No one will force you to enter China on a foreign passport, so people who want to hold on to their Chinese passport just don't do it.
    – xuq01
    Commented May 15, 2017 at 15:58
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    @MattDouhan: "A full Chinese passport means they cannot be dual citizens I believe as PRC does not allow that " A country cannot "allow" or "not allow" dual nationality -- each country only determines who has its own nationality and when multiple countries' laws say a person has their respective nationalities, then the person has multiple nationality. For every country on Earth, there are situations when its laws will say a person has its nationality when another country's laws say the person has that nationality at the same time.
    – user102008
    Commented May 15, 2017 at 20:31
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    If you become a citizen of another country it is illegal for you to keep your Chinese passport, confirmed by shanghai entry and exit department this morning, so unless you want some serious issues do not keep it, you can end up barred for life from PRC, HK and Macau, my wife is Chinese and I am Swedish and we just had a baby and are going through this process right now so this is first hand information directly from the shanghai government
    – Matt Douhan
    Commented May 15, 2017 at 23:36

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