Sick leave and the medical period in Shenzhen for foreign employees

Start a Shenzhen absence file after clinical safety is secured

A medical emergency is not an HR workflow. Dial 120 or reach appropriate emergency treatment when the employee's condition may be dangerous, and let the treating team decide assessment, treatment, observation and discharge. Once the person is safe, retain the hospital registration, first-visit record, tests, prescriptions, diagnosis and discharge material. These documents show what happened clinically; none, by itself, settles whether Shenzhen payroll must code a day as sick leave, how much wage is due or how many statutory medical-period days have accumulated.

The rest of this guide is for a foreign national working through a Shenzhen employing unit under a PRC labor relationship. It is not designed to classify an offshore consultancy, unauthorised work, diplomatic status or a disputed secondment. It also does not give medical or legal advice. Medical institutions, the employing unit, Shenzhen HRSS bodies, labor-capacity assessors, arbitrators, courts and immigration authorities each make different decisions. A reliable case file states which body made which decision, on what date and from which evidence.

In Shenzhen, treatment, proof of illness, the company absence code and Article 23 payroll are four different records.

Identify the Shenzhen employer behind the English business name

Record the employer's full Chinese registered name, unified social-credit code, registered address and the Shenzhen location where the contract is actually performed. Compare those fields with the labor contract, payslip, bank payer, social-insurance record and work-permit sponsor. A foreign employee may work at a client office or for an overseas-branded group while the legal wage duty rests with a different Chinese entity. Do not repair a mismatch by rewriting the history; preserve the documents and ask the responsible authority or qualified adviser to analyse the relationship.

The national foreign-employment rules bring lawfully employed foreigners into Chinese rules on minimum wage, working time, rest, leave, safety and social insurance. They do not mean that a work permit conclusively proves every term of a labor relationship, nor do they make all foreign nationals employees. Before Shenzhen HR calculates sick pay, verify the permitted employer and role, contract dates, first work date and passport history. If a passport changed, maintain a linkage between old and new identifiers so that medical, payroll, permit and dispute records can be matched.

Ask the Shenzhen medical institution for usable employment evidence

At the consultation or before discharge, explain that evidence is needed for an employer illness absence and ask what document the institution can issue: a diagnosis certificate, medical certificate, 病假证明, recommendation for full rest or a discharge recommendation. Check that the record refers to the actual patient and encounter and contains clear dates, the issuing institution and clinician, the recommendation or functional limitation, issue date and the institution's signature, seal, number or verification feature. If the employer will need an English explanation, keep the Chinese original intact and prepare a separate translation.

The Physicians Law requires personal examination or investigation before a physician issues medical proof and prohibits false or out-of-scope certificates. The National Health Commission's 2024 management notice requires institutions to control formats, numbering, authorised issuers and seals, but allows an institution to establish its format where no unified national or local form exists. That is why a Shenzhen employee should not expect one standard nationwide sick note. It is also why a company cannot truthfully claim that national law always demands a tertiary public hospital, an exact diagnosis or a fixed maximum duration per note.

Turn a certificate into a traceable Shenzhen employer submission

Send the certificate through the route stated in the employer's current rule and keep the transmission record. A useful submission log records the date and time, recipient, attachment name, original-document location, requested absence dates and any later correction. Ask HR to reply with separate statuses for document received, authenticity checked, sick-leave request accepted, attendance updated and payroll instructed. A chat acknowledgement from a supervisor may prove notice but may not show that the payroll or medical-period register was changed.

Rules affecting leave, attendance, wages or discipline must satisfy the Labor Contract Law process for formulation, consultation and publication or notice. Shenzhen employers should therefore be able to point to the effective wage and leave system rather than inventing a requirement after illness begins. Reasonable verification is possible, but it should include a correction route and should not displace the statutory wage floor. If HR rejects a document, request the precise field or authenticity issue, the relied-on clause, the deadline to cure it and the temporary attendance treatment.

Use Shenzhen wage records as evidence, not just a net bank deposit

The current Shenzhen Employee Wage Payment Regulations require the employer to establish and publish its wage-payment system, keep the wage-payment table for at least three years and give a paper or electronic wage statement. For illness payroll, the table should make the normal working time wage visible and show the absence category, calculation period, percentage comparison, minimum-wage comparison and payment date. The employee should save the statement together with the bank entry and ask promptly about any unexplained difference.

A bank transfer alone cannot reveal whether the employer used ordinary wages, sick-leave wages, unpaid absence, annual leave or an advance. Equally, a medical certificate alone does not prove the wage result. Build a monthly reconciliation that places scheduled work, days actually worked, each accepted illness interval, other leave, the medical-period ledger and the wage statement side by side. If a mixed month is disputed, request the exact written computation rather than assuming a divisor from another city or converting the headline monthly formula without the employer's lawful method.

Select the national medical-period tier before counting Shenzhen days

Shenzhen does not replace the national service-based medical-period structure. First determine total actual working years and time served with the present employing unit. Where total actual work is below ten years, less than five years with the current unit gives a 3-month tier and at least five years with that unit gives a 6-month tier. The terms measure employment history; they are not the number of certificates, a clinician's expected recovery time or an annual sick-day allowance.

Where total actual work is ten years or more, the current-unit bands produce 6 months for service below five years, 9 months for five to below ten, 12 months for ten to below fifteen, 18 months for fifteen to below twenty and 24 months for twenty or more. Collect prior contracts, termination certificates, personnel or social-insurance material and the Shenzhen employer's onboarding record. If service evidence is incomplete, label the provisional assumption and seek confirmation instead of presenting an individual tier as certain.

Shenzhen uses the national 3 / 6 / 9 / 12 / 18 / 24 month structure; Article 23 governs pay, not the length of the protected period.

Build the prescribed accumulation-period ledger instead of resetting every January

Each tier is accumulated inside a longer prescribed period: 3 months within 6 months, 6 within 12, 9 within 15, 12 within 18, 18 within 24 and 24 within 30. Start from the first day of the relevant illness absence and enter every covered date. Rest days and statutory holidays that fall during the absence remain within the count. The national wording identifies a period beginning on that first absence day; it should not be rewritten as a continuously moving lookback. The ledger should identify the certificate supporting each span and the attendance code actually used by the employer.

A new disease, clinic, certificate or calendar year does not automatically open a fresh statutory entitlement. Conversely, an annual-leave day, a work-injury suspension period or a day worked should not be folded into medical-period accumulation merely because it appears near an illness absence. Reconcile HR, employee and payroll copies after every update. If the prescribed period ends before the tier is fully consumed and another absence begins, obtain current Shenzhen HRSS or qualified local guidance on the next calculation instead of assuming a reset. Where a listed special disease remains unresolved after twenty-four months, the national notice provides a conditional extension route involving enterprise and labor-authority approval; the diagnosis itself is not the approval.

Apply Article 23's two Shenzhen wage comparisons

The controlling local text is the 2026 consolidated Shenzhen Employee Wage Payment Regulations after the fourth amendment was promulgated and took effect on 5 December 2025. Article 23 protects an employee within the national medical period with two comparisons: no less than 60% of normal working time wage, and no less than 80% of the Shenzhen minimum wage. The result cannot fall below either threshold, so payroll applies the higher lawful amount rather than selecting whichever comparison costs less.

Shenzhen's monthly minimum wage has been CNY 2,520 since 1 March 2025; eighty percent is CNY 2,016. Let N represent normal working time wage. For a full month entirely within the relevant illness category, the minimum comparison is the higher of 0.60 × N and CNY 2,016. If N is CNY 10,000, the sixty-percent side is CNY 6,000. If N is CNY 3,000, that side is CNY 1,800 and the CNY 2,016 floor lifts the result. These are illustrations, not an individual payroll award.

Current Shenzhen full-month comparison: max(60% × normal working time wage, CNY 2,016).

Define normal working time wage before using the percentage

Under the Shenzhen regulation, normal working-time remuneration is the wage lawfully agreed for work performed within normal hours and it may not be below the minimum wage. The regulation excludes overtime wage, night or shift premiums, high- and low-temperature, underground and hazardous-work allowances, and items that are not wages. Ask HR to identify the contract clause and each included component. Do not replace this defined base with total gross compensation merely because a bonus or allowance appears regularly on a payslip.

The local regulation contains general hourly and daily conversion provisions, but Article 23 does not declare one universal partial-month sick-pay divisor. A Shenzhen arbitration award published as a case illustration used facts and calculations specific to that dispute; it is not binding precedent or a citywide formula. For a month combining work and illness, require payroll to disclose its lawful system, units, rounding and comparisons. If the calculation underpays either Article 23 threshold, preserve the statement and seek correction or the appropriate enforcement route.

Limit circulation of diagnosis details inside the Shenzhen company

Medical and health data is sensitive personal information under the Personal Information Protection Law. Shenzhen HR should define why information is needed, identify a lawful basis, provide the required notice, collect no more than sufficiently necessary and apply restricted access and security controls. Where consent is the relied-on basis, consider the separate-consent rule for sensitive information. A line manager usually needs absence duration and work restrictions, not an unrestricted copy of all consultations and test results.

Keep the source certificate and any supporting record in a controlled medical-evidence folder. The ordinary attendance record can show the approved classification and dates; the payroll extract can show the calculation inputs; a return-to-work manager can receive functional limits. This layered access reduces unnecessary disclosure. If authenticity or inconsistency genuinely requires more evidence, explain the issue and request the narrowest relevant record. A medical institution can provide marked copies of specified records, but that availability is not a standing licence for the employer to demand a complete chart.

Open a different route if the condition may be work-related

An accident at work, occupational exposure, listed occupational disease or potentially qualifying commuting event should not disappear into an ordinary-sickness spreadsheet. Preserve the incident, instructions, witnesses, first medical encounter and exposure history and obtain current work-injury guidance without waiting for a final payroll disagreement. Work-injury recognition and occupational-disease diagnosis have their own institutions, evidence and filing periods, while ordinary illness uses the medical-period and Article 23 framework described here.

A symptom appearing at work is not automatically a recognised work injury, and a doctor's note does not make the causation decision. Until the category is resolved, document interim attendance and payments without destroying either route. If recognition later applies, the Guangdong suspension-of-work-with-pay rules are different from Shenzhen ordinary sick-leave wages. Employees and employers should avoid characterising one payment as final settlement of all categories when recognition, treatment or responsibility remains open.

Design the return around the actual Shenzhen job

Several days before the expected return, compare the latest clinical recommendation with the real job: hours, standing, lifting, vehicle operation, night shifts, travel, hazardous exposure, concentration and scheduled follow-up. Ask for an updated recommendation when the earlier document has expired, states a restriction or the role presents a genuine safety question. The treating clinician explains medical limitations; the employer evaluates the post and workplace controls. Neither should be described as automatically making the other's decision.

Document a proposed start date, restrictions, temporary duties, hours, review point and the people allowed to see the information. Shenzhen has not established one universal certificate that every employee must obtain after ordinary sick leave. A proportionate employer requirement may apply under a valid rule, but it should be connected to the role and applied consistently. A request for functional ability is usually narrower than a demand for full diagnosis history or an assurance that the employee is permanently cured.

Use Shenzhen labor-capacity assessment only when its statutory role fits

Shenzhen's municipal labor-capacity assessment measures cover confirmation of a medical-period or medical-end issue and non-work illness or injury capacity assessment. An employee whose condition affects work capacity may apply with identity material, valid diagnosis and complete medical records. The measures provide a one-time material-correction process, a normal sixty-day decision period with a possible thirty-day extension for complexity, local review and a further Guangdong appraisal route.

That process is available for a genuine statutory capacity dispute; it is not the default approval step for every sick note, every short absence or every return. The assessment committee does not choose clinical treatment, approve the company's leave record, calculate Article 23 wages or select a job for the employer. Before applying, identify the exact decision needed, the competent body, fee responsibility, materials and review deadline. A treating opinion remains medical evidence but is not automatically the committee's conclusion.

Do not treat medical-period expiry as a Shenzhen dismissal trigger

Article 42 of the Labor Contract Law prevents ordinary termination under Articles 40 and 41 while the employee is within the statutory medical period. Article 45 may also postpone a fixed-term contract end until the protected circumstance concludes. This is strong but not unlimited protection from every possible statutory ground. Any employer considering action should first audit the service tier, accumulation count inside the prescribed period, certificate trail, attendance decisions, wage payments and validity of the relied-on company rule.

Once the period has truly ended, Article 40(1) still requires a staged inquiry: can the employee perform the original work; if not, can the employee perform other work arranged by the employing unit? Put the job requirements, current functional material, discussion and concrete alternative offer in writing. Only after the statutory conditions are satisfied does the thirty-day written notice or one-additional-month wage route arise. Economic compensation, union procedure where relevant, a termination certificate and record transfer remain separate obligations.

Calendar Shenzhen work-permit and residence steps independently

The labor file and the immigration file have different authorities and clocks. Shenzhen's work-permit guidance says the employer should apply for cancellation within ten working days after the employment contract actually ends early or expires. An approved illness absence, a diagnosis certificate, reduced wage, capacity assessment or medical-period entry is not itself that event. It also does not automatically extend or renew the work permit or residence permit.

Keep the employment decision, final wage and compensation, separation certificate, permit cancellation receipt and public-security residence follow-up as separate documents. If the labor contract is extended by Article 45 but an immigration document is approaching expiry, contact the competent work-permit and residence authorities rather than assuming that labor protection changes the immigration date. Conversely, an immigration difficulty does not erase a Shenzhen wage claim or make an earlier dismissal lawful.

Escalate a Shenzhen wage or employment dispute through the right channel

For wage-protection consultation or a clear payment complaint, Shenzhen publishes 0755-12333, 0755-12345, Anxin in Shenzhen and digital public-request channels. Inspection can address matters within enforcement responsibility; it does not replace arbitration where the parties dispute an individual right such as medical-period length, leave classification, alternative work or termination. Save the complaint number, response and documents, but do not assume that an informal inquiry stops the arbitration limitation period.

Arbitration jurisdiction starts with the labor-contract performance place or employer location and then the city's current municipal-versus-district allocation. Shenzhen's published notice assigns specified central and larger-entity cases to the municipal committee and other cases to the relevant district committee. Compile the employer identity, contract, permit linkage, company rule, medical submissions, attendance, medical-period spreadsheet, wage statements, bank entries, return record and termination material. Obtain a formal filing receipt from the competent committee and confirm translation requirements for foreign-language evidence.

Check the live Shenzhen text and reject historical formulas

Use the 2026 municipal gazette's consolidated Employee Wage Payment Regulations as the primary Shenzhen pay authority. The earlier local schedule paying different percentages by service length is marked repealed, and the former Special Economic Zone laborer ordinance with an old fifteen-to-ninety-day structure was repealed in 2009 and in any event excluded foreign citizens. Neither should appear as current foreign-employee advice. The national 3-to-24-month matrix and current Article 23 rule are the relevant starting points.

Before a major payroll, return or termination decision, recheck the Shenzhen minimum-wage notice, the consolidated wage regulation, HRSS complaint and arbitration jurisdiction pages, assessment route and work-permit instructions. Save the version and access date used. Shenzhen's 60% normal working time wage comparison plus the CNY 2,016 floor is a municipal rule and must not be generalised to Guangzhou or another Guangdong city. A later amendment, new minimum wage or changed service allocation should trigger an update.