I am posting with information on how to get short tourist or business visas to China. There is an old thread, 5 years old, that is completely out of date.

China has become the world's manufacturer. Buying goods made in China and selling them in Europe or Africa can be good business. At some point you will need to meet with the suppliers in China for the best deals, to inspect things or solve problems together. That is where you need a visa.

Forget about economic migration to China: it is just not possible - you WILL get arrested if you overstay a visa in China, sooner or later. A Nigerian cannot hide in China: does not have the language, stands out like a beacon in any crowd because there are hardly any Africans living legally in China, and the police know to ask Africans for documents. In any case, the wages for unskilled or semi-skilled Chinese are so low that you would be richer staying at home. In going to China and overstaying a visa, all you will do is make it hard for businessmen and women from Nigeria to go to China to buy things for trade: trade that then employs other Nigerians in their business and the businesses they trade with.

Getting a visa to go to China is a lot harder this year because it is reported in China that ½ million Nigerians overstayed their visas or applied with false documents last year. That number seems extraordinarily high: it is hard to believe the embassy could issue that many visas in one year, so what this seems to be is a round up - people who have gone to China and overstayed 5 years ago, were caught last year. They probably lump in any African as a Nigerian as well, because the majority are Nigerians. China has a very hard legal system - definitely a place where you want to obey the laws - if you doubt that Google "China executing Nigerians" and read about how things work.

As a result of all of this, there is a new process for getting visas to China. It is highly discriminatory against Nigerians, especially the Nigerian diaspora (Nigerians living outside Nigeria). It is also one-sided: until the Nigerian Foreign Ministry reciprocates, it is VERY MUCH harder for Nigerians to get visas to China than it is for Chinese to get visas to Nigeria. Trading with China now will take you a lot more patience, a lot more money, and more of the stubborn determination to do things right, than it did in the past. That money for visas comes out of the money you would have collected in your business to buy things in China. It comes out of your profit and makes Chinese goods a lot less attractive. Chinese companies get big construction contracts in Nigeria but you will not get contracts in China because, among other reasons, it is now very hard to go there to negotiate anything.

The process this year (2015) is:

1. Companies in China cannot invite Nigerians any more themselves. They can invite Americans, Russians, Australians, Europeans, but not Nigerians.

The inviting company needs to get an invitation from a "Government Authorised Unit". This is the Foreign Ministry in China. It takes about a month, and involves complex forms in Chinese, and many visits by a Chinese national inviting you. They asked for a Police Report from Nigeria, even though we did not live in Nigeria, along with copies of our passports, evidence of the scale of trade we are doing etc.

2. When you have the original government invitation, sent to you by FedEx from China, along with the Chinese company's invitation stamped by the Chinese Foreign office, and the list of other documents on the Chinese Embassy web site, you go to the Chinese Consulate in Lagos and make the application using the paper form downloaded from the Chinese Embassy web site: you can apply only on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Good part is that no appointment necessary for this step, and you deal with the Consulate not a dreadful visa processing outsourcing centre.

Regardless of where you live in the world, you have to apply in Nigeria. On their web site it says you can have anyone submit the documents, but that is not our experience: we had to go in person (twice).

3. The Chinese consulate then wait 3 weeks. They say it is to verify with China that the government invitation is real, but why don't they have a database, or ask the Chinese Foreign Ministry to telex the invitation direct to them like well run embassies do (e.g. Russia used to do this for years)? The real reason seems to be to put in extra obstacles for Nigerians - at least that is how it looks. So, you have to come back in 3 weeks time. Comfort yourself that at least the staff in the Chinese Consulate in Lagos are nice and polite, both African and Chinese.

4. There is then an interview, and 3 days later the visa is issued. Regardless of which country you legally live in, and are officially registered in, you have to go back to Lagos for this: that is our experience and we tried really hard to get that sorted out to do it at an embassy in Europe. It seems to be government policy in China, to create these obstacles for Nigerians, almost as a collective punishment for things in the past.

Where are the costs?

The new process was, for us, seriously expensive: one Chinese visa for a 3 week visit for one Nigerian living in Europe (legally) cost 14,000 Euro without using agents, and took 3 months. Yes, that is 3,200,000 Naira for each visa!
One Chinese visa for a European, who applied at the same time, visiting the same companies, cost just 83 Euro and took 3 days start to finish and he did not have to travel back to the country that issued his passport, nor did he need to get government invitations.
Agents will not help you: they may falsify documents without your knowledge, which will get you banned for life.

How was the 14,000? For us, 4 return flights from Europe (where we live) to Lagos, staying in Lagos which if you are not from Lagos means a hotel - Victoria Island ,where the embassies are, is not cheap, taxis hired for days at a time while we waited at embassies then back to the hotel, substantial costs for the company in China which had a person go to the Foreign Ministry (a long way from their factory) many many times - they spent $300 on transport alone within China. It took literally a month of time for a senior exec due to the need to fly all around the place to attend Lagos in person, attend the police station in person for the police report even when we do not live in Nigeria, and so on - I do not include any cost of time in the 14,000 Euro: European companies charge 20,000 or 30,000 Euro for a month of their senior exec's time, which is on top of the 14,000 actually paid out - my employer would be so unhappy with that waste so we used our annual holiday allowance for the time and there was not a day left when we had finished.

The world is full of opportunity, but with this new visa process, the Chinese are building a wall cutting off opportunities to Nigerians.

You may want to look at buying things from places other than China now: that is where the new opportunities are, with these visa obstacles biasing Chinese trade towards non-Nigerians. When the Nigerian visa delays meant we could not get to China in time to check new tooling for a project, my employers moved a massive contract from China to Hungary (I work as an exec in an international company based in Europe): the result is 400 new jobs in Hungary instead of China. Some of the alternatives, like Vietnam, have cheaper labour than China, and far easier visa processes. It is even worth looking seriously at making the items in Nigeria, copying, buying raw material rather than processed material etc, depending on what you want to buy.

Happy trading, and may God bless your hard work.

[quote author=tdayof post=35121876][/quote]
Thanks for raising the issue about the payment: yes, it has to be to the Stanbic Ibtc bank near to the Lagos consulate, and no other. I forgot that bit.

Our experience for the time to interview is 20 days, even pleading and explaining the high cost of flying back from Europe for it, and staying in Lagos. Their staff at the Consulate are very polite, but said that 20 days is the best they can do.

The 3 days after the interview that I quoted is for express service. You are correct, normally it is 4 to 5, and weekends can make it even more than 5.

The real time waster is the 2 months to get the government stamped invitation: it can be done in a month + FedEx time, but took us two months because there was no real information available to anyone about how the new process worked, or what a Government Authorised Unit was, or where it was, and the request for extra documents when the secretary when to collect the invitation, they did not ask for at the beginning such as the police report - hence my posting to help others avoid our dumb mistakes.

When the whole process got to 2½ months, my employer cancelled the larger of the two contracts they were doing in China because there was no end in sight to the visa process at that juncture and the visit was really urgent to inspect things. They could not send someone else to do the same job, and my employer had to deliver on definite dates, so they moved the bigger contract to Hungary where there was no problem at all with visas. In fact it took only another 3 weeks after that before the Chinese process completed but by then the contract was moved. My employer was mostly worried that if it proceeded in China then any production problems that come up would take another few months to get another visa, 10,000 - 14,000 more Euro and more weeks of senior staff time wasted. The Chinese issued only a single entry visa when we applied for a dual entry - we could not even go over the border to Hong Kong and back.

For study visas, some universities can do the Government Authorised Unit bit, but I don't have experience of that, only of the route for business and tourists.

Thanks man for your post. I got a job in China but my employer is been scared of starting the processing cos he said there are some countries that are blacklisted is it true that Nigerians are black listed If he sends the working permit would they still reject me of visa since they say Nigeria is black listed

How do I get a tourist visa to China and what are the visa documents needed to be submitted.

@AlexMcPress Didn't you have a citizenship of where you legally reside or at least a permanent residence status? Just wondering why you would have to travel all the way back to Lagos to get that done. If you had a permanent residence, the process might be overwhelming than regular citizens of whichever country you reside at. Am I right?