Hi @Marco i know you mentioned you updated your NHI card to the new number at their office. Which office did you go to? What documents did you need? Did you get the new card right there?
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Just my APRC. Brought photos so I could be at my sexiest. Filled out application.
Came in mail after a week.
I still have my old one.
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That have all the photos on a government database, I went to change household registration last year, when they was issuing my wifeâs new ID, there was something wrong with the photo. They just opened up the database of all her old photos and took the last one. Also all the other family members who had been registered at that property where there too, including my ugly mug.
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They wouldnât let me keep my ARC photo for my APRC.
Was sad. I liked that one.
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I think they need to be within a certain time frame, and also maybe depends on the person behind the counter.
To answer my own question, in case anyone else ever runs into this situation, the answer is, no of course they arenât simply going to start billing under the new number automatically. Instead, theyâre going to tell you that theyâll do it and not to worry your pretty little head about it, then theyâll send you bills in the mail, thus forcing you to go in, get the form to set up autopay, and take the form to your bank again yourself. Oh, and also pay those bills manually for two billing periods because they canât get the autopay started for two full months apparently.
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Bumping a few years later: upthread itâs talked about how the process with the NHI card should start with your employer. Is that still the case, or should I just go to the NHI office in town?
For what itâs worth, and if it matters, I did the paperwork for the new APRC / ID# with my employer (and the bank they use) a few months ago.
My impression from the massive thread âMOI changed the ID Number formatâ (e.g. here) is that people are just going to an NHI office in town and doing it on their own. Is that standard now?
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I did that recently because I changed job. I realised that the new employer was now paying my nhi to the new number, so I went in and asked if that meant I would need to finally get a new card after having had to change aprc number years ago due to a change of address. I got sent to the wrong desk, where they confirmed that I did need to change my card, but they seemed more interested in the fact that I owed them money for previous periods when I was between jobs. Tbh the lady didnât seem to care very much about the fact that I hadnât changed my card yet, but then she was the payments desk, so maybe that explained her seeming lack of urgency about it and more interest in getting me to decide whether I would be able to pay up if they sent the bill in the post.
I knew from research on here that I could have done the whole thing at the post office, but I went to the main office near 228 Park because I wanted
a) to make sure that it had to be done
b) to have the best chance of getting a new card ASAP
a) wasnât really satisfied because no one had any urgency about it (much the same as when I paid my income tax 2 or 3 years late, it made me feel like âWhy the hell did I bother coming back to this tax office in this district where I donât even live anymore to hand over thousands of dollars that no one has asked me for for years? No one seems to care!?!â)
b) I still had to wait for a new card in the post, because the guy at the right desk said people needing a new card because of a change of details have to wait. (This seemed to imply that other people could maybe have a new card immediately, but again, it wasnât clear. I felt like saying that the changed ID number was not my choice and while supposedly it had been asked for by the immigrant community, the problems it was âsupposedâ to fix had not (and perhaps deliberately not) been fixed by it, and instead it was causing us lots of hassle for zero benefit, but I kept my cool.)
As others have mentioned, when he asked if I had brought any photos with me and I said no, he said he could simply use my ID photo (which is from 8 years ago!) because it is stored on the computer system.
The guy gave me a receipt which he said could be used in lieu of my new jianbao card until it arrived. I asked if I could take a photo of my old card (because I rather like the photo of a happy go lucky FOB me from almost 20 years ago), and then he said I could keep it if I wanted, but it would no longer work.
I have no idea if the post office would issue a similar receipt as a temporary jianbao card replacement. The main benefit of me going to the head office seems to be that after giving the payments desk my current address, I got a bill for a few thousand dollars in the post. But I guess that would have happened anyway, because I would have had to give my new address at the post office too.
TL;DR I am unable to answer any of your questions. I waited until my new my new job had set up NHI payments to my new APRC number, because from past experience going into the office whilst not under contract to anybody seems to make people, perhaps understandably, rather keen for one to settle all previous back payments owed ASAP.
I had been using my old NHI card fine, even though my previous employer knew I had changed ID number.
(Maybe the reason the NHI never got word to me asking me to change my card was that I had forgetten to update my address for both of my previous changes of apartment? Interesting that my address had not been updated despite the fact they could pull my photo from the NIA system. I guess they can ask that system for information but it wonât inform them when the information changes?)
All I can really say that may help you is that the guy at the change of card desk was helpful and very clear about the procedure. He even humoured me by conducting the conversation in Chinese, until he gave up near the end when I asked another question and I needed clarification on one point when I failed to parse his answer first time and he decided to just carry on in English.
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Yes. The NHI card change should be free of charge. They donât send a new NHI card automatically anymore.
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I also just changed to the new APRC number recently and went to the NHI office myself, mainly because I didnât trust that it would be done automatically. The NHI worker didnât tell me that going to the office wasnât necessary, so I guess I did the right thing. Got the new card in the mail within a week.
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Great, thanks to you and everyone whoâs replied!
Looks like the afternoon today should be dry (albeit cold), so may try to get this done today.
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I never updated mine. Iâve been able to use it without any issues. 
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God, as has been said many times before, the STUPIDITY of this ID number change!
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On reflection, Iâm actually impressed with the way the ministry of health has responded with such patience and flexibilty to this farce. Their attitude, and rightly so, seems to be: keep everything working no matter what. Were this the UK, the attitude might perhaps be the opposite: make things as difficult for the immigrant as possible?
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I note the old number is printed on the back of the new card, my hunch is that for most things govt it is all connected on the back end. I think I may have updated it at the bank, but I donât have a clear memory of doing so. Might be imagining it.
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The NHS wouldnât be making it difficult for immigrants on purpose, half the NHS staff are immigrants, itâs the middle heavy management and compartmentalised budgets that would fuck it up.
Saying that immigrants in the uk have always got the same format NI number as the riffraff regardless of residence type.
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