A basic question that although I've spent a lot of time looking today I'm still not clear on. Does anybody know what type of visa I would need if I opened a JV company with the wife? Already have residency visa for two years but wasn't sure what to do visa wise when starting a company.

Or another option I was thinking if maybe simpler, is just my wife's company hire me, is it easy enough for the spouse to sponsor work visa this way?

From what I gathered at the recent Gok business conference, it may be no more expensive to register a WFOE. It would be worth investigating this option too.

If you want to be registered officially as one of the owners, you will need a business visa to do it.

@tigertiger I did think about the WFOE way but from what I've seen it can be a more longer/complicated process in getting setup.

@neddy will be registered officially so will get the business visa but will this mean I still need to get the work visa as well as the business visa? I know I probably sound stupid saying but thought maybe they still want work visa :)

Thanks for the replies guys :)

If you have a residence permit through your wife then you only need to apply for a work permit to work.

Just the application for work visa to me seems to me that I'll need 2 years work experience and a degree in the field of work. We've just purchased a store and obviously an online presence but this won't be in any field I've studied/worked in to a level of that kind, any qualifications/experience I have are in computing.

You should also think about taxes.

Regular WFOE or JV requires the company to pay corporate taxes in addition to IIT that the shareholders pay for their income.

You could look into FIPE (Foreign Invested Partnership Enterprise).

For that you do not need any registered capital, and you can make pretty informal agreement with the partner(s) about how you will share possible profits, and you only need to pay IIT for those profits (no corporate taxes at all).

Married visa is more than enough.Just don't ask to many questions.

if u apply for biz visa, I guess u r loosing your Married visa. U cant be here on 2 types of visas I guess. Biz visa requires leave mainland every 2 months so. If u r in GZ or SZ,its ok to go to HK make Uturn on 2 stops in train, but since u r in KM I guess its bit hassle. As Johanes says: Married visa is good enough. U have to put down biz on your wifes name. Work visa is only trought the certain employer, which means again your whife would have to set up the company and employ U, which means pay some extra tax for employing the foreigner ( 20-30k RMB per year Ive heard ). JV program I have no idea, but as far as I know, its about bigger companies etc.