Permanent Resident/Five Star Card
 

I just received my permanent residence card and am wondering if anyone else here has experience using it?

-Can I use the Chinese name that's printed on the front everywhere? Is it actually stored in the card, or just printed on the front? I had a bank scan it, and it only showed the English name, but I've also read that this is just a system limitation of the scanner only reading the first name field, and not the second. So far I've had one bank tell me that the account would have both English and Chinese (Merchant's Bank), another tell me that I can only have English with a comma (Communication Bank) and I've read that Bank of China will use just the Chinese name. I was looking forward to having an official Chinese name, but so far this seems worse than it was with a passport.

-Can I use the Chinese name when buying domestic air/rail tickets? If I have to use English, is there a comma or not? The bank scan showed a comma and the bank employee told me this would make it complicated beacuse there's more than one way to type a comma. But if I lookup my card through the government immigration query tool, there is no comma. Ctrip seems to not include a comma, or do I need to include it as the last character of my surname?

-Are there any WeChat groups I could join for people that have the card? Any recommended steps I should follow now that I have receved the card? I was hoping to just change everything in China to using a Chinese name, but it has so far seemed much more complicated to do that (maybe impossible) than I expected.

Edit: and Construction Bank says it would be English name without comma. Four banks, four different name formats!

Thanks for any help!

Have you been on RPs for a while? PR isn't especially different in practical terms.

Legally attaching a Chinese name to your government records is difficult.

And, if your Chinese name isn't present on your verification document (e.g. passport), you'll probably have trouble opening a bank account using your Chinese name.

My "verification document" should now just be the PR card. I shouldn't have to use my passport at all to open an account (and no bank has requested it).

I have never heard of a bank opening accounts for foreigners based solely on PR cards, but YMMV.

/shrug

That's supposed to be one of the benefits of the card, that it becomes your ID in China instead of passport. In any case, that's not something I've had any issues with.

Xiaohongshu has reports of ICBC, Construction, and BoC being able to use the Chinese name. I was just hoping someone here might have first hand experience, and also maybe some guidance on the order in which to do things. For example it seems Alipay allows a passport and a PR card simultaneously. Does that mean I could bind bank accounts with either ID info? Wechat on the other hand I think only allows one ID, so if I switched wechat verification to PR card using Chinese name I assume I wouldn't be able to bind bank amounts that used my passport and English name?

And also how to deal with this comma in case of having to use English, hah.

Also I've seen reports of most government accounts being okay with Chinese name. All except tax bureau, which it sounds like is impossible if you previously used an English name.

For US persons, KYC requirements at those banks have been on the thurough side since FATCA compliance was ratcheted up, and the same standards are often applied to other nationalities.

I have this card as well. It's much better than a residence permit and yes it allows you to do many things under your Chinese name on the card including opening a bank account but it's always more of a hassle than using your actual name so it is not really worth it to use the Chinese name unless you really have a strong desire to do so. Booking air tickets under your Chinese name is no issue but you may have a problem getting points from your preferred frequent flyer program as the names won't match. You won't have a problem getting through airport security and the automatic domestic departure security check in certain airports like Hongqiao and Shenzhen will work for you. You'll now be able to take the train using your card as the ID, makes it a bit easier than scanning your passport but you need to make sure you're registered under the train app using your card not your passport.

I used BOC when opening up my account with the card, they knew what they were doing (at least at the branch I went to) and now I can transfer 50K USD a year into and out of China no questions asked just by doing it on the BOC app, no bank visit needed. Go re-register yourself with the police in your community using the card as your document, then change phone, bank, etc to the card if you wish.

The main benefits of the card remain unlimited stay in China without a visa and no need for a work permit for a job you want to do. All the other stuff is kind of neat, but not much different than using a passport.

For people who don't pay taxes in China, this is a real benefit. Even if you do pay taxes, this way is much easier (don't have to show tax receipts, work contract, etc).

Yes Bank of China seems to be the one that's mentioned the most as the easiest to use Chinese name. Unfortunately it's also my only bank account that links correctly with my tax account, and apparently that can't be changed to Chinese, so I want to leave it as is for now.

Thanks for the info about being able to use Chinese name for plane and train tickets, I was beginning to assume I couldn't do this since it seems the Chinese name is read as a secondary name.

Have you gotten taobao switched to it so you can import stuff? I tried, but even though I put it in my Alipay as a secondary ID, it still says it doesn't match my Alipay. And I can't figure out how to change Alipay (only update passport info). Do I need to cancel the account and make a new one?

Have you gotten any of the rental ebikes to work?

Once I update my driver's license I want to try to open a didi driver account, but I assume it won't be easy.

Just to clarify, you can't use your Chinese name on the train app, it defaults to your actual name. Plane tickets are fine. Is there a reason you want to change everything to the Chinese name? It's more hassle than it's worth IMHO.

Because English names always seem like such a hassle (what order? Capital? Punctuation? Spaces? Too long). It already seems like this is going to be worse with this card using English, since two banks have given me two different English names based on scanning the card. And I just noticed my updated police registration actually has a third slightly different version of my English name.

Also I thought it would be better to have everything in one name, and some things can only be Chinese (house, car). Like I would expect trouble if I want to use housing funds, but house is in Chinese, bank is in English, and housing fund is in ???. Or signing up for didi as a driver seems to at least first use driver's license, so Chinese name. It wouldn't surprise me if then it couldn't link to a bank account with an English name.I also just went through a whole six months long ordeal trying to get a car purchase subsidy all due to some documents having English and some having Chinese, with no way to prove we are the same person.

Separate from Chinese vs English name, I asked Alipay support about switching my ID to the PR card so that taobao could also use the card, but apparently that would cause my Alipay transport card to stop working 😭. It seems like switching the number to 18 digits didn't really help since it still has to be specifically supported.

Is the Wikipedia about this card accurate? Specifically, is this qualification automatic or is it at someone's digression?
So, you need 3 months a year, but only 12 total months out of 60?

You have to apply for it and it's then at their discretion I guess to approve, though I think for marriage route as long as you check all the boxes it gets approved.

I believe to maintain it's three months per year as standard. But you can apply to do the one year in five if you have some reason you'll have to be outside of the country and can't satisfy three months per year. Like how US green card holders can apply for a re-entry permit if they need to be outside the US for more than six months. No idea how difficult this is to get approved.