China's visa-free landscape changed fast and keeps changing. This page gives you the map — your passport decides which door is open, so treat every rule below as "check for your nationality before booking."
The three doors
| Route | Who it fits | Mechanism |
|---|---|---|
| Visa-free entry (unilateral) | Passports of ~30+ European and Asian countries | Enter visa-free for up to 30 days for tourism/business |
| 240-hour transit visa-free | Almost everyone, when transiting | Enter via allowed ports en route to a third country, stay up to 10 days |
| Regional policies | Cruise, Hainan, Guangdong tour groups, etc. | Special schemes — niche but real |
The checks that actually matter
- Is your country on the unilateral list? This is binary and changes with diplomacy — verify on your foreign ministry or China embassy site before anything else.
- 240-hour transit: your itinerary must enter from country A and depart to a different country C (not back to A). Booking a round trip Beijing→Beijing breaks this.
- Registration: every foreigner must register their stay — hotels do it automatically, but private apartments require a police station visit within 24h. Book hotels, not Airbnbs, on visa-free trips.
- Print the on-arrival essentials: onward ticket confirmation and hotel booking — border officers ask.
What we won't promise here
Eligibility details per nationality, current port lists, and edge cases (recent visits to certain countries, dual passports) change too often to generalize. This page is the general map; the specific check for your passport and itinerary is a 15-minute question, not a blog post.
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