First Month Working in China: the Checklist and the Clocks

Quick answer: the first-month checklist on one timeline

The core of your first month working in China is completing the work-legality chain that your Z visa started. The official process runs: employer gets the Work Permit Notification abroad → you enter on the Z visa → within 15 days of entry the employer files for the Work Permit card → within 30 days of entry you apply for the work-type residence permit at the PSB exit-entry department. Miss neither window: the residence permit — not the visa — is your long-term legal basis to live and work here.

While those clocks run, the survival lane from your first week checklist hands over to the payroll lane: the registration receipt you collected in week one becomes a required document for the residence permit and the bank account; the bank account becomes your salary card; and once the work permit exists, social insurance enrollment becomes mandatory with a social security card to show for it.

The two arrival clocks: 15 days for the permit card, 30 days for the residence permit

Both windows are counted from your entry date with a valid visa, per the official work permit FAQ:

First month working in China: the checklist, item by item

Six boxes, in the order they unlock each other. The first two are the legal chain; the rest are payroll and daily-life infrastructure.

Police registration: the receipt that unlocks everything else

Every foreigner staying overnight in China registers their address with the local police — hotels do it automatically at check-in; in a private apartment you or your landlord do it at the neighborhood police station, and since 2026 seven pilot provinces also accept an online filing with the same legal effect. The deadline is 24 hours after arrival at each new address.

For your first month at work, the receipt (临时住宿登记表) is not bureaucracy for its own sake: the residence permit application and most bank account openings require it. If you move apartments during month one, re-register at the new address. The full procedure — documents, the online-filing pilots, and what to do when you change address — is in our China accommodation registration guide.

The salary bank account: from week-one account to 工资卡

Your week-one bank account (passport, Chinese phone number, police registration receipt — the process in the first week checklist) now changes jobs: it becomes your salary card. Give the account details to your employer's HR and the same card will carry:

• your monthly RMB salary transfer;
• the automatic social insurance contributions (your employee share, withheld by the employer);
• the withholding for individual income tax on your employment income.

Practical ordering: open the account after you have the police registration receipt and ideally your work permit, because some banks ask for work or study documents when the visa is a work visa — a tourist-period account opened in week one may need a tier upgrade once your documents mature. How the payroll deductions and the tax residence rules interact is walked through in our work, contract and tax guide.

Social insurance and the social security card in month one

The moment you hold the employment documents — the Foreigner's Work Permit plus the residence permit — China's social insurance rules for employed foreigners apply in full: your employer must enroll you in all five insurances (basic pension, basic medical, work injury, unemployment, maternity), with both the employer and you paying contributions, and register you for social insurance within 30 days of the employment document. Enrollment is not a benefit your employer can opt out of, and it is not tied to nationality: it attaches to legal employment.

Two card-level details worth knowing in month one. First, the social insurance agency establishes your social security number and issues the People's Republic of China social security card (中华人民共和国社会保障卡) — the rules require the card to be issued, but the physical collection procedure is organized city by city, so the honest answer to "when do I get the card" is: ask your employer's HR for the local process. Second, if your home country has a bilateral social security agreement with China, that agreement decides which contributions are waived during posted or covered periods — twelve countries' agreements are currently in force. The contribution mechanics and the tax interaction are detailed in the work, contract and tax guide.

Phone number real-name registration

This box was actually ticked on day one: every Chinese SIM card is real-name registered to an ID document, and for foreigners that means your passport. Nothing new happens in month one beyond keeping the number alive — but do keep it, because your bank's SMS verification, your social insurance app logins, your residence permit appointment and virtually every government service booking verify against that passport-registered number. The carrier and setup details live in the first week checklist; this page just flags the dependency so you don't swap numbers mid-clock.

First month timeline: every clock in one table

Reading note: the 15-day and 30-day post-entry clocks run in calendar days from entry — a Friday landing spends the weekend inside your window. The 30-day social insurance registration clock runs from the employment document, which in the standard chain is the work permit — so it typically completes after, not before, the residence permit arrives.

Keep planning