Does your passport need a visa for China?

It depends which of two schemes your passport is on, and they are not the same list. 50 countries get 30-day visa-free entry for tourism or business, going anywhere in China with no onward ticket required. A different set of 55 countries gets 240-hour visa-free transit, only while passing through to a third country. 13 countries — including the United States — are on the transit list only, so they still need a visa for a holiday.

63 countries · verified 2026-08-07 against the NIA and MFA lists

Two schemes, two different lists

Most confusion about Chinese visas comes from treating these as one policy. They are not. The 30-day waiver is a unilateral trial with an end date, covering 50 countries, and it lets you go anywhere in China for tourism, business, family visits, exchanges or transit. The 240-hour scheme covers 55 countries, applies only if you are en route to a third country, and confines you to designated ports and permitted areas. The lists overlap heavily but not completely, and the gaps are where people get their trip wrong.

If the transit scheme is the one that applies to you, where you land decides where you may go: all 65 designated ports and their stay areas.

Transit only — no visa-free holiday 13

These passports are on the 240-hour transit list but NOT on the 30-day one. For an ordinary holiday they need a visa. The only visa-free route is transit, and only when genuinely travelling onward to a third country. This is the group that gets caught out by "China is visa-free now" headlines.

On both lists — use the 30-day one 42

These passports can enter for up to 30 days with no onward-ticket condition and no restricted areas. The transit scheme also lists them, but it is strictly worse and only worth reaching for if the 30-day waiver does not fit the trip.

30-day entry, but no transit fallback 8

These passports get the 30-day waiver but are not on the transit list. It rarely matters — until you need more than 30 days, at which point there is no second visa-free route and the answer is a visa.

If your country is not listed at all

Then neither scheme covers you and you need a visa — with one narrow exception that applies to everyone regardless of nationality: 24-hour transit without leaving the port’s restricted area. There are also separate regional schemes this page deliberately does not model, because their conditions are different: Hainan’s 30-day policy, cruise groups, and ASEAN tour groups entering specific prefectures. Conflating them is how wrong advice spreads.

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