The ninth China International Import Expo closed in Shanghai on 10 November 2026. Around a fair of that size, the same three questions come up from HR teams and from the visitors themselves: which route gets them in, what the invitation letter has to say, and what happens if the trip turns into a posting. The fair is the hook, not the answer. The answer is a sequence.
Start with the purpose, not the paperwork
The first question a visa officer asks is not whether you want to come, but what you will do here. At one trade fair, an exhibitor, a buyer, a visitor and a technician accompanying a booth are four different purposes, and they do not all map to the same route.
| Purpose | Usual route | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Exhibiting or building a booth (invited) | M visa, or visa-free when eligible | Booth contract and invitation letter must agree |
| Visiting, negotiating, factory tours | M visa | Itinerary names the event and the dates |
| Short commercial visit, visa-free | Visa-free policy | No employment, no activity outside the stated purpose |
| Stopover on the way to the fair | Transit visa-free | Real onward ticket, port and region limits |
| Staying on to work after the fair | Work permit plus residence permit | A business visa is not a work authorisation |
The row that gets skipped is the last one. Many companies treat “come first, convert later” as the default. But a business visa and a work permit are reviewed against different files, and once the stated purpose and the actual activity diverge, the later application inherits the inconsistency.
The invitation letter is the spine of the file
The invitation letter comes from the Chinese host: a partner company, an exhibiting company, the organiser or the co-organiser. It should name the visitor and passport details, state the purpose, name the event and its dates, and say who covers costs. The event name in the letter has to match the itinerary and the dispatch letter from the employer.
A practical file usually contains a passport with enough validity, the visa application form and photo, the invitation letter, a dispatch letter or employment certificate, and proof of itinerary and accommodation. Requirements differ between embassies and visa centres, and the receiving office has the final word. When a company sends a group, build one checklist per person: a letter that lists five visitors next to an itinerary that names three is the kind of mismatch that delays a whole delegation.
M visa or visa-free entry
Visa-free and transit visa-free arrangements remove the visa step, but they solve entry convenience, not the right to work. A visa-free visitor can attend a fair, negotiate and visit a factory; the same visitor cannot take a job, draw a salary or stay on as staff. Transit visa-free adds its own conditions: a genuine onward booking and limits on the ports and regions that can be used.
The most common mistake is reading “visa-free entry” as “permission to stay and work”. If a visitor will be posted to China, run the work-permit route: the employer applies for the work permit, then the work-type residence permit. Using a business visa for a long posting may look fine for a few weeks, but it surfaces at the first change, extension or inspection.
The document checklist
| Document | What it has to show | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|
| Passport | Validity beyond the planned stay | Expiring inside the trip window |
| Invitation letter | Visitor, purpose, event, dates, cost bearer | Generic text with no event name |
| Dispatch letter | Employer, role, reason for the trip | Says “work” for a business visit |
| Itinerary | Entry and exit dates, cities, event days | Missing the fair dates |
| Accommodation | Address for the stay | Hotel booked under another name |
| Booth or registration proof | Exhibitor or visitor status | Contract dated after the application |
How OTGEO reads it
Our read: what a trade-fair season really tests is not the visa category but whether purpose, documents and itinerary tell one story. Consular officers and receiving offices look for consistency. An invitation letter that says “exhibiting”, an itinerary that says “negotiating” and a dispatch letter that mentions a posting are three different stories, and the file slows down. For HR, the highest-value move is not finding the fastest visa; it is fixing the purpose before anyone books a flight.
The common misreading comes in two shapes. One is treating visa-free entry as a universal pass and forgetting that it excludes employment. The other is treating a business visa as a bridge to a posting, only to discover after the fair that the file cannot be converted. The first is a compliance risk; the second is a timing risk, because a fresh work-permit file rarely fits the project calendar.
A document check runs in this order: confirm the purpose and the matching route; compare the invitation letter, dispatch letter and itinerary line by line; check passport validity, photo and form details; then write down what happens after the fair. Going home, continuing to travel and starting a posting are three different endings, and each needs different paper.
On timing, visa processing and appointments both take time, and trade-fair season compresses both. Start the file as soon as the exhibition or visit is confirmed, and schedule the invitation letter, internal approval and appointment as three separate steps. If a posting is possible, agree the work-permit start date with the employer before arrival rather than working backwards from the event.
What to do before the event
- Fix the purpose: what the visitor will do, for how long, and who pays.
- Align the file: invitation letter, dispatch letter and itinerary must match, person by person.
- Leave lead time: schedule the letter, the appointment and the submission separately; start the work permit early if a posting is possible.
If you need the current document list checked, OTGEO can confirm it.