4 visa-free ways to travel to China for 72 hours to 30 days

Passport holders from 54 nations, including Australia, Japan, the United States and countries throughout Europe, can reach much of China mailand via international airports. China added Norway to the list on Friday.

Airports in the likes of Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guilin, Kunming, Qingdao, Shenyang, Wuhan, Xiamen, Guangdong province and the Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang cluster can process visa-free arrivals for transit passengers for 72 to 144 hours.

Travellers must stay within the designated city or surrounding provinces for the entire transit period.

There is no charge and no application to fill out before travel, or on arrival.

Passengers must, however, prove to the airline before boarding and again to immigration authorities after arriving that they have a ticket to leave the city or province – usually by air -to a place outside China mainland where they did not start their journey.

The travel time of the outbound ticket must fall within the 72 or 144-hour window.

Under the regulations, the 72 or 144 hours technically starts from the first full calendar day after an arrival.

A passenger may reach Shanghai visa free from Singapore, for example, and then proceed to Tokyo – or fly from the special administrative region of Macau to Xiamen and onwards to Taipei.

This tropical island province of Hanian allows nationals from 59 countries to enter visa free and free of charge.

Visitors only need to purchase a round-trip flight to the province’s two main gateways of Sanya or Haikou and fill out an arrival form on the plane.

The province once required visa-free visitors to set up their trips through Hainan-based travel agencies, but it has formally scrapped the requirement, according to an immigration agent in the provincial capital of Haikou.

Hainan kicked off visa-free travel in 2018 to stimulate tourism.

Travellers under this scheme, though, are not allowed to visit other parts of China during the 30 days unless they have a visa.

Citizens of any country that has diplomatic ties with China can join tour groups arranged by agencies based in Hong Kong or Macau to enter specific cities in the neighbouring Guangdong province.

Groups may enter Guangdong by land, sea or air, for 144 hours, with dozens of bus, rail and ferry routes connecting the province with Hong Kong.

To qualify, a tour group must have at least two people who enter and exit at the same time as arranged by the agency.

Nine Pearl River Delta cities of Dongguan, Foshan, Guangzhou, Huizhou, Jiangmen, Shenzhen, Zhaoqing, Zhongshan and Zhuhai are included, while the same visa-free scheme applies to Shantou, a coastal city located east of the delta.

Separately, citizens of the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries may join tour groups of at least two people to visit the city of Guilin in China’s southern Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region visa free for 144 hours.

Tour groups of at least two people who reach China via the Shanghai Wusongkou International Cruise Terminal may stay onshore for up to 15 days without visas.

Under the regulations, the travel agency must be registered in China mainland and the whole tour group must enter and exit China at the same time.

During the 15 days, visitors may go to Beijing and any part of China’s coastline with seaports, from Liaoning province in the north through to the southern island province of Hainan, as well as the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region that borders Vietnam in the south.

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