The 1996 Employment Rules Are Still the Law: Reading Them After the Paperless Permit

Delta Law Expat Services Desk　｜　Rules on the Administration of Employment of Foreign Nationals in China（《外国人在中国就业管理规定》）, promulgated 1996-01-22 as 劳部发〔1996〕29号, first revised 2010-11-12, second revised 2017-03-13 by Order No. 32 of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security; 36 articles in the consolidated text.

1. The document at a glance

2. Why a 1996 ministerial rule still matters

Article 41, paragraph 1 of the Exit and Entry Administration Law requires a foreign national working in China to obtain a work permit and a work-type residence permit as prescribed, and forbids any entity or individual from employing one who has not; paragraph 2 provides that the measures for administering foreign nationals working in China are to be prescribed by the State Council. The Law states the duty and points elsewhere for the detail — and these Rules have been doing that detailed work since 1996.

A recent instrument confirms that they still are. Order No. 54 of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, promulgated 2024-12-23, amended the social insurance measures for foreign employees; its amended article 11, paragraph 2 provides that where an employer engages a foreign national who has not, in accordance with law, obtained employment documents or come to hold a foreign permanent residence document, the matter is dealt with in accordance with the Rules on the Administration of Employment of Foreign Nationals in China. A 2024 ministerial rule routing enforcement back to these Rules is the clearest evidence that they remain operative.

Article 2 is where a great many assessments should begin and rarely do. The test is factual — social labour performed in China for remuneration — and is not answered by whether there is a Chinese employment contract, where the person is paid, or what a business card says. It carves out only those who have acquired settlement status. Article 3 then draws the institutional boundary: the Rules apply to foreign nationals employed in China and to the employers engaging them, and do not apply to persons enjoying diplomatic privileges and immunities in foreign embassies and consulates in China, in the representative offices of the United Nations in China, or in other international organisations — a boundary drawn by immunity, not by the employer's nationality.

3. The licensing architecture

The structure is two-stage and the order is fixed by the text: the employer obtains the licence first and only then may engage; the individual obtains the certificate and residence permit after entry and only then may be employed. Article 7 sets five personal conditions — 18 or over and in good health, the professional skills and work experience required, no criminal record, a definite engaging employer, and a valid passport or substitute travel document. Article 6 adds the post-side test, a substantive labour-market condition and not a formality.

Two sets of exemptions follow. Article 9 exempts three categories from both the licence and the certificate: foreign professional and managerial personnel engaged directly at government expense, or at the expense of state organs and public institutions where they hold recognised senior technical titles or special skill qualifications and a Foreign Expert Certificate（《外国专家证》）; offshore petroleum personnel holding the relevant work permit; and performers approved by the culture authority. Article 10 exempts two further categories from the licence only — persons engaged under intergovernmental or international-organisation cooperation projects, and the chief representative and representatives of a foreign enterprise's resident representative office — who obtain the certificate directly on a Z visa.

4. Approval, and the article-numbering trap

Articles 11 to 13 set the approval route. The employer applies to the competent industry authority at the same level as the labour administration authority with the six categories of document listed in article 11, and that authority examines the application against articles 6 and 7. Article 12 then sends the employer to the provincial labour administration authority or an authorised city-level authority, which designates an issuing authority to examine the application against the industry authority's view and labour market demand and to issue the licence. Article 13 lets central-level employers and those with no competent industry authority apply directly, and its second paragraph exempts foreign-invested enterprises from industry authority approval altogether.

5. The two certificates, and the clocks attached to them

The consolidated text runs the timetable as follows. Article 14 handles the Z visa application on the strength of the licence. Article 15 requires the employer to obtain the employment certificate at the original issuing authority within 15 days of entry, and provides that the certificate is valid only within the area prescribed by that authority. Article 16 then requires the person to apply for a residence permit within 30 days of entry on the strength of the certificate, and provides that the residence permit's validity may be determined by reference to the certificate's. Article 18 closes the loop: the certificate lapses when the employment contract expires, and renewal requires an application to extend the engagement within 30 days before the original contract expires, followed by extension formalities for the certificate.

Article 23 is the provision that most often catches a group in the middle of an internal transfer. Its three paragraphs are graded: same area and same occupation is an amendment; leaving the area, or changing occupation within it, is a fresh licence application. A transfer that looks administrative from a group's perspective — same person, new legal entity or new city — is not necessarily administrative under this article, and should be assessed before the transfer date. Article 19 adds a step: after an approved extension or change, the person must complete the residence permit formalities with the local public security organ within 10 days.

Two further duties sit at the end of the relationship. Article 20 requires the employer, once the contract has been terminated, to report promptly to the labour and public security authorities, return the employment certificate and the residence permit, and complete exit formalities. Article 24 provides that where residence status is revoked for breach of Chinese law, the employer shall terminate the contract and the labour authority shall revoke the certificate. Article 26, paragraph 1 imposes an annual inspection of the certificate, to be completed within 30 days before each year of employment expires, failing which it lapses automatically.

6. Penalties, the dangling reference, and what the paperless permit changed

Two more provisions complete the penalty chapter. Article 29 requires confiscation of a forged, altered, fraudulently used, transferred or traded certificate or licence and of any unlawful gains, with a fine of RMB 10,000 to RMB 100,000, both figures inclusive, and serious cases amounting to a crime transferred for criminal liability. Article 33 prohibits individual economic organisations and individual citizens from engaging foreign nationals at all.

Article 27 is a dangling reference and should be treated as such. The implementing rules it names were repealed by article 39 of the Regulations on the Administration of the Entry and Exit of Foreign Nationals（State Council Order No. 637）, so the provision it points to no longer exists. This page records that and expresses no view on the present effect of article 27. Where the consequences of unlawful employment now come from can be stated: article 43 of the Exit and Entry Administration Law defines unlawful employment and article 80 sets the penalties, and that analysis is on the page listed below. Articles 31 and 32 put residents of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, and employment by foreign nationals in those regions, outside these Rules.

Finally, the certificate names. The Rules speak of the Employment Licence for Foreigners in the People's Republic of China and the Foreigner's Employment Certificate. Order No. 54, in its amended article 2, instead describes a foreign national employed in China as a person of non-Chinese nationality who has lawfully obtained the Work Permit for Foreigners in the People's Republic of China（《中华人民共和国外国人工作许可证》）, the Foreign Resident Correspondent Certificate（《外国常驻记者证》）or other employment documents together with a residence permit, or who holds a foreign permanent residence document, and is lawfully employed in China. And 人社部发〔2024〕75号, dated 2024-10-27, provides that from 2024-12-01 the work permit is integrated with the social security card, that applications, extensions, changes and cancellations are handled entirely online, that a foreign national no longer needs to obtain a physical work permit card after entry, and that existing physical cards run on a "no change, no replacement" basis until the next extension or change. The names across the three instruments are functionally overlapping rather than identical; this page does not treat them as merged, because no official text before it says so.

7. Who runs into this, and how it is used