How to have a home office in Beijing, is a post on bizCult today. As one of our counterparts in China mentions, “with all its traffic congestion, Beijing should be the perfect place for a home office.” It isn’t, unless you can figure out a way to get around the rules there.

In Beijing, your office must be officially registered with the government. But some property management companies can provide paperwork showing your office to be registered properly at one location, while in actuality, your real working office is somewhere else – like at home, or in any other locale of your choosing.

However, such a “workaround” is not legal. If you are caught, the penalty can be stiff. Ranging from $1,400 to $7,000 in U.S. dollars. The amount of the fine depends on how much time you spend at the “fake office.”

For my own office, I do not have to pay an license fees in my community. Nor do I have to worry about any zoning restrictions, since I don’t meet clients there. However, I am sure some of you have some restrictions and possible fines if you violate zoning restrictions.

If any of you have such restrictions, please leave a comment to this post. I would love to know what some of you face. And by the way, my fellow home office blogging friend over at Shedworking also had a post on this called, where shedworking is illegal…