Fifty nationalities may now enter China without a visa for thirty days, and a further fifty-seven can stay ten days in transit. Here is every route in, and what to have ready at the border.
China has spent three years steadily opening its border, and the rules moved again in 2026. In the first half of the year 22.9 million foreign nationals entered the country — 17.8 million of them without a visa at all.
For most travellers from the markets we serve, the practical answer is now simple: if you hold a Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, British or most European passports, you do not need a visa for a holiday of up to thirty days. United States passport holders still do — but can often travel visa-free for ten days in transit instead. The pages below set out each route, in the order you are likely to need them.
Reviewed 2 October 2026. Visa rules change often; we re-check the current position for your nationality when we quote, and again before you depart.
Nationality decides the answer, but it is not the only variable: an American passport can still enter China without a visa for ten days in transit, and a Canadian passport can use that same transit route as well as the full thirty-day waiver. This table is the short version.
| Passport | Best route | Maximum stay |
|---|---|---|
| Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and most of Europe — 50 nationalities in all | Visa-free entry | 30 days · scheme runs to 31 December 2026 |
| United States | 240-hour visa-free transit if you are travelling on to a third country or region; otherwise an L tourist visa | 10 days in transit · 30 days per entry on a visa |
| Russia | Visa-free entry | 30 days · scheme runs to 31 December 2027 |
| Brunei | Visa-free entry | 30 days · no expiry date |
| Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the UAE, Serbia and 22 others | Visa-free entry under a bilateral treaty | Set by each treaty — usually 30 days |
| Everyone else | L tourist visa, or 240-hour transit if you qualify | 30 days per entry, typically |
China grants visa-free entry to ordinary passport holders from fifty countries for business, tourism, family visits, exchange visits and transit, for stays of no more than thirty days. The scheme currently runs to 24:00 Beijing time on 31 December 2026, with two exceptions: Russia, whose arrangement was extended to 31 December 2027, and Brunei, which carries no expiry date. Sweden joined on 10 November 2025; the United Kingdom and Canada were confirmed in early 2026.
The fifty countries are:
Five practical points that are easy to miss:
Border officers are entitled to satisfy themselves that your purpose matches the scheme, so carry your onward ticket and hotel confirmations — on your phone is fine, but a printed copy costs nothing.
Separately from the scheme above, China has reciprocal visa-exemption treaties with twenty-nine countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dominica, Ecuador, Fiji, Georgia, Grenada, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mauritius, Qatar, Samoa, San Marino, Serbia, Seychelles, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Suriname, Thailand, Tonga, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan.
The permitted stay is fixed by each treaty rather than by Chinese domestic policy — most are thirty days, a few run to sixty or ninety, and a handful are calculated across a rolling 180-day window. If you hold one of these passports, tell us which one when you enquire and we will confirm the exact terms with the current published table.
This is the route that matters most to travellers who are not covered by a visa waiver. It allows a stay of up to 240 hours (ten days) without any visa, and it has grown quickly: 57 nationalities, 24 provincial-level regions and 65 ports of entry as of 20 August 2026.
The principle is straightforward. You must be passing through China on the way somewhere else — country A to country B, with China in between, where A and B are not the same.
What you need:
The 57 eligible nationalities:
Where you may travel: Anhui, Beijing, Chongqing, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanghai, Shanxi, Sichuan, Tianjin, Yunnan and Zhejiang. Anhui, Hainan and Guizhou are open province-wide; in Shanxi you may stay in Taiyuan and Datong only, and in Jiangxi in Nanchang and Jingdezhen only; the remainder are open in full. You may move between the eligible regions — by high-speed train, domestic flight or road — as long as you remain inside them.
Where you may enter: 65 ports across those 24 regions, including the major gateways of Beijing Capital and Daxing, Shanghai Pudong and Hongqiao, Guangzhou Baiyun, Shenzhen Bao’an, Chengdu Tianfu and Shuangliu, Xi’an Xianyang, Xiamen Gaoqi, Hangzhou Xiaoshan, Kunming Changshui, Wuhan Tianhe and Zhengzhou Xinzheng. The 2025 expansion brought in Guangzhou’s Pazhou cruise terminal, Hengqin and Zhongshan in Guangdong, the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge checkpoint, and West Kowloon station on the Guangzhou–Shenzhen–Hong Kong express rail link.
Your entry and exit ports do not need to match, and your flights do not need to be with the same airline. What matters is that you hold a confirmed onward ticket before you land, and that you leave within the 240 hours. The clock starts at 00:00 on the day after your arrival.
Tourism, business, visits and family matters are all permitted. Work, study and journalism are not. Arriving by cruise ship does not qualify under this route — cruises have their own policy, described below.
A common trap: Hong Kong, China; Macao, China and Taiwan, China are administered as separate customs areas from the mainland, so a side trip to Hong Kong or Macao can serve as your onward leg. Flying home to the country you arrived from, however, does not — the transit rule requires a genuine third destination.
At every port open to foreigners, and for every nationality, travellers holding a valid international travel document and a confirmed onward connection can pass through China for up to twenty-four hours without a visa, provided they remain inside the port’s restricted area. If you want to leave the airport to see the city, apply for a temporary entry permit at the border inspection counter on arrival. At 19 major airports — among them Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xi’an, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Tianjin, Nanjing, Qingdao, Wuhan, Chongqing and Kunming — passengers with an international connection inside twenty-four hours can transit without passing through border inspection at all.
China also operates several local arrangements that stand apart from the national rules.
Since 20 November 2025 the paper arrival card has been replaced by an online one, and it applies to visa-free travellers as well as those holding visas. It is free, it takes a few minutes, and it removes the scramble for a pen on the aircraft.
Seven categories are exempt: holders of China’s foreign permanent resident identity card; holders of the Mainland Travel Permit for Hong Kong and Macao Residents (non-Chinese citizens); travellers on a group visa or group visa-free entry; passengers transiting within twenty-four hours without leaving the restricted area; cruise passengers arriving and departing on the same ship; travellers using designated fast lanes; and foreign crew of international transport. Anyone else — including every ordinary visa-free tourist — needs one.
Immigration officers may ask about your purpose of travel, the length of your stay, your onward arrangements, where you are staying and, occasionally, your funds. Have your documents to hand rather than buried in a bag: passport, onward ticket, hotel confirmations, and any permit we have arranged for you.
Two rules deserve a paragraph each.
Register your address. Hotels and licensed guesthouses register foreign guests automatically. If you are staying in a private home, you are required to register in person at the local public security bureau within twenty-four hours of arrival in that city. We remind guests of this in their travel pack and can send a staff member with you if you would prefer.
Be accurate, always. A State Council regulation in force since 15 September 2026 tightened the consequences of false paperwork: providing false documents or making false statements to obtain a visa or to enter can result in a bar on entry of between one and five years. Those who issue false invitation letters face fines of 5,000 to 10,000 RMB as an individual, and 10,000 to 50,000 RMB as an organisation, and visa intermediaries in China are now subject to formal registration. Every document we issue reflects real, booked arrangements. If a route we suggest involves a stretch you cannot honestly document, we will tell you so and propose another.
Overstaying is treated as illegal residence and carries fines, possible detention and restrictions on future travel. Keep to your window; if a flight is delayed and you risk running out of time, contact your airline and the border authority immediately rather than simply staying on.
United States passport holders and anyone outside the schemes above need a tourist visa, known as the L visa. The process has become considerably easier to manage.
We do not sell visas and cannot obtain one on your behalf. What we do is make sure the paperwork the consulate asks for is accurate and consistent with your actual plans: a detailed day-by-day itinerary, confirmed hotel bookings and, where appropriate, a letter of invitation from our company. United States passport holders have historically been issued multiple-entry visas valid for up to ten years, and Canadian and European applicants similar long-validity visas; the final duration is always at the consulate’s discretion.
If you arrive visa-free and decide you want more time, an extension is possible only in limited circumstances, such as medical need or force majeure, and must be applied for at the exit–entry administration before your permitted stay ends. Visitors in Hainan have more room to manoeuvre. If you hold a visa, apply to extend at the local exit–entry administration at least seven days before it expires. In all cases, an overstay for any reason is recorded and can complicate the next application.
If you lose your passport in China, report it to the police, obtain a loss certificate, and apply to your embassy or consulate for an emergency travel document. Take the certificate and the new document to the exit–entry administration to have your visa or entry record transferred before you try to leave. In an emergency we assist guests through this process, in person where needed.
Do my entry and exit ports have to be the same? No. Both simply have to be among the eligible ports.
Do my flights have to be on the same airline? No, but you must hold a confirmed ticket out of China to a different country or region before you arrive.
Can I use the visa-free scheme and still fly home from China? Yes, if you are travelling under the thirty-day waiver — there is no third-country requirement. No, if you are relying on the 240-hour transit, which by definition requires you to travel on somewhere else.
When exactly does the 240-hour clock start? At 00:00 on the day after your arrival, so ten clear days. If your flight home is cancelled and you risk exceeding it, speak to the border authority before your permitted stay lapses.
What happens if I overstay? It is treated as illegal residence: fines, potentially detention, and a record that affects future entries. It is the one outcome worth planning hard to avoid.
Visa rules are our business only in so far as they affect the journey you are about to take. Our role is to remove everything around them: we confirm which route applies to each traveller in your party before you book; we build an itinerary that stays comfortably inside the permitted area and time; we hold confirmed hotel bookings and onward arrangements so that any document you present is genuine; and where an invitation letter is useful we issue one that reflects the trip exactly as sold.
Where a visa application is needed, we are glad to connect you with trusted partners and to make sure your itinerary documentation meets what the consulate asks for. If you are travelling with us to Tibet, the permit arrangements are separate and explained on our Tibet Travel Permit page.
Sources: China’s National Immigration Administration (nia.gov.cn); the Ministry of Foreign Affairs policy summary published by the China Visa Application Service Centres (visaforchina.cn); and State Council Decree No. 841 on exit and entry administration, in force 15 September 2026. Reviewed 2 October 2026. This page is practical guidance, not legal advice — for anything unusual, confirm with the National Immigration Administration, or with the Chinese embassy or consulate in your country.
A travel consultant replies within one working day, with first thoughts, route ideas and honest advice — including which entry route suits each passport in your party. No obligation.
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